Denmark

Popping over to Sweden for dinner – Copenhagen to Malmö

September 27, 2019 by Penny Leave a Comment

I love the way my husband doesn’t bat an eyelid when I say something along the lines of “shall we go to Sweden for dinner?”

For context I should add that we were in Copenhagen when I asked this particular question. So, the concept of popping over to Sweden, or more accurately Malmö wasn’t actually that crazy.

The Bridge

Since the year 2000, the Øresund Bridge (often just known as The Bridge – yes the one in the TV series!) has linked Denmark and Sweden and travelling between the two is a doddle.

Oresund Bridge between Denmark and Sweden

The bridge actually has two levels – one which takes cars and motor vehicles, and the lower one which carries trains. As you fly into Copenhagen you can often see the bridge from the plane window and it is a sight so worth seeing.

Drogden Tunnel

The main span of the bridge is 8km (5 miles) long and whilst that in itself is spectacular, what makes the whole thing look slightly more amazing is that the journey across the Øresund strait is actually competed by a 4km (2.5 mile) tunnel. When they built the bridge they created an artificial island, Peberholm, which is where the Drogden Tunnel disappears into the ground.

When you see it from the air it really is one of the strangest sights. The majesty of the beautiful elegant bridge and then suddenly everything seems to disappear into the sea. When we first saw it from the plane on the approach to Copenhagen I could see why anyone who knows of the bridge, but not the tunnel part of the journey could be left a bit confused.

Practicalities of the Øresund Bridge

The practicalities are getting from Denmark to Sweden are relatively straightforward. Car drivers are required to pay a toll to cross the bridge via the E20. To take the train it really is as simple as going to Copenhagen Central station and buying a ticket. The journey takes about 40 minutes. When I travelled (September 2019) it cost just over £20 for a return train ticket.

In Malmö the central station is just a short walk from the centre of the city and at most ten minutes from the Lilla Torg (little square) which is packed full of restaurants and is the perfect place to sit and watch the world go by with a drink. It’s also where we found dinner that evening. There’s just something about the smell of dill that always makes me think of Sweden so Gravadlax was the obvious thing to have!

Passports

Despite the Schengen Agreement and the Nordic Passport Union passengers are required to carry a passport when they make the journey between the two countries. Since January 2016, identity and visa checks have been imposed by Sweden on travellers from Denmark due to the European migrant crisis. Both times I have made the journey officials have boarded the train at the first station in Sweden, but then only a small selection of passengers have been asked to produce them.

Effect on travel between Denmark and Sweden

The linking off Denmark and Sweden has done so much more than jut opening up Malmo to tourists visiting Copenhagen. One of the motivations for the link (which was amazingly originally proposed in the 1930s!) was to improve the transport links I’m Northern Europe from Hamburg to Oslo. It wasn’t until I sat down and talked to some friends we met up with in Copenhagen on our last trip and I heard about their holiday plans to go from Copenhagen to Oslo that I really sat down with a map and understood how the geography of the area fits together.

Picture of a boat and lighthouse framed by a square statue with a round hole in it I'm Malmo Sweden

The bridge has also increased the number of people who live in one country and work in the other. Many Danes have apparently taken advantage of lower house prices in Sweden and make the daily commute over the Øresund bridge. I can certainly think of worse commutes to have to make!

The Little Mermaid, Copenhagen

July 3, 2019 by Penny Leave a Comment

When you think of the city of Copenhagen there’s one sight that all tourists make sure is on their holiday itinerary – The Little Mermaid.

Based on the Hans Christian Anderson fairy tale of the same name, The Little Mermaid sits on a rock by the waterside at the Langelinie promenade in Copenhagen and has been there since it was unveiled in 1913. Many visitors are surprised by just how small the statue is. It measures only 1.25m tall and as you can’t actually get right up to the statue, viewing it from a distance really makes you aware of how small it is.

The bronze statue was the work of sculptor Edvard Eriksen but was commissioned in 1909 by Carl Jacobsen, son of the founder of Carlsberg. Jacobsen was fascinated by a ballet version of The Little Mermaid at Copenhagen’s Royal Theatre, and he asked the ballerina Ellen Price to model for the statue. Whilst she agreed (and the head of the statue is based on her) she refused to model in the nude, so the body of the mermaid is actually based on Eriksen’s wife Eline Eriksen.

Over the years the statue’s worldwide fame means it has become a target for both vandals and political activists. When you realise just how photographed it is you can understand why.

Whether tourists know of The Little Mermaid from the original fairy story, or whether they are younger and coming at it from the Disney angle, there is normally a throng of them on the waterfront trying to get a photograph of the statue. Just the number of tourists there means it can actually be quite hard to do so, especially if you’re trying to get a selfie with it, or trying to take a photograph of a family group with it. Cruise ships visiting Copenhagen dock not far away meaning that when a ship is in it can be particularly busy.

With The Little Mermaid located north of the centre of Copenhagen it is about a twenty minute walk from the busy Nyhavn area. It’s well worth the walk, not only to see the statue itself, but also the nearby fortress of Kastellet. Should you not want to walk that far some buses stop nearby, and Østerport Station is only a 15 minute walk away around the moats of Kastellet. Another option is to view the statue from the water. It might mean you don’t get the same angle for the photographs, but you do get a good view. Most of the canal tours take in The Little Mermaid, or you also have the option of renting your own electric boat or kayak.

Copenhagen – a tale of pushchairs and plastic

June 29, 2019 by Penny Leave a Comment

As you’ll have worked out from my last post, Tube Stop Baby and I have been over in Copenhagen for a week. Bonn had a work thing over there so we decided to tag along and take in some of the Danish capital. There are plenty of blog posts coming up about specific things that we did and places that we visited, but I wouldn’t be a proper travel blogger if I didn’t talk a bit about some of the things that we noticed in Copenhagen. The things that made us stop and talk about what we’d experienced.

There were two surprising things that really stood out for me in Copenhagen. Their attitudes to pushchairs and plastic.

When you think of Copenhagen, and Scandinavia more generally (and yes, I know that not everyone considers Denmark to be part of Scandinavia, but it is right next door!) you think of countries that are very eco minded and also family friendly. There were plenty of signs of both of these being the case in Copenhagen, but also a few things that totally went against it.

Let’s start with the eco side of things. One thing that we really noticed in Copenhagen was how many electric scooters were literally abandoned all over the city. They have various schemes there like we do “Boris bikes” in London where people can pick up an electric scooter and hire it by the hour, or for a set distance. Once they’ve finished they simply seem to be abandoned for someone else to pick up. The whole city is full of people on scooters or cycling. It’s obvious how that must cut down on motor vehicles.

Here in the UK we’ve had a bit of a plastic revolution in the last couple of years. Everyone is very conscious about the effects of single use plastics and their use has been reduced dramatically. Plastic straws are hardly seen now and if you ask for a straw you’re normally given a paper one. It therefore came as a bit of a shock when we went to a restaurant, ordered a soft drink each and they both came with a plastic straw in them. McDonalds over there is also still using plastic straws. A visit to the local coffee chain for an iced tea also resulted in it coming in a plastic cup, with an unnecessary domed lid and plastic straw. Did Denmark not get the memo about unnecessary plastic use?

Plastic wasn’t the only thing that shocked me though. Everywhere we went TSB and I were made to feel very welcome, but getting placed with a pushchair wasn’t all that easy. I’ll forgive them for the cobbled street, but the number of places that simply had no ramp access got rather frustrating. Yet at the same time, it was a luxury to have a whole Metro network that was accessible.

There’s a bit of a thing in Denmark (and the rest of Scandinavia) where people are happy to leave a sleeping baby in a pram outside a shop. It’s not something that we do here in the UK anymore and to be honest I didn’t feel comfortable doing so more than to quickly run into an ice cream shop to get something to try to cool me down.

Despite this local way of doing things it left me feeling incredibly frustrated when we visited Tivoli Gardens one evening. Tivoli has to be Copenhagen’s biggest attraction, but don’t try and visit any of their restaurants with a pram or pushchair. You’ll be told you can’t take them in. Even to the outside areas. Even if you have a baby that is not big enough for one of their highchairs. Even if there is plenty of space and it’s not yet busy for the evening.

Apparently this is all down to Health and Safety. Yet this is Tivoli where the H&S rules do allow you to walk right under a rollercoaster that is looping the loop.

I understand that not every restaurant can accommodate pushchairs, but the fact that not a single one could, left us feeling frustrated, and very unwelcome. A strange feeling in a family attraction. We ended up going outside Tivoli to eat (to a restaurant that would happily accept us and our pushchair) and then going back in.

That wasn’t the only place where having a pushchair left me feeling incredibly unwelcome. I walked to the National Aquarium from the nearest Metro station and followed the signs for the entrance only to be met with a large flight of stairs and no sign of where to go for ramp access. It turns out that there was a ramp, but you had to walk into the disabled car park and go from there. I only discovered that by wandering around until I found it. Not once did I see a sign. I’m pretty sure that quite a few people with pushchairs must get their by public transport and want a ramp to get in.

Inside the aquarium I again got caught out when I tried to go to the outside section. The main signposted door was open took you outside, but then I was faced with a set of steps to get any further. It took me a while to find a second door to outside. This one though was heavy and required me to push it open. Whilst pushing a pushchair. Errr. Why?

A similar thing happened at Copenhagen Zoo. There were baby changing facilities, but you had to go through a heavy door to get to them. Also behind that heavy door was a disabled toilet. The disabled toilet however had a button you cold press to open the door automatically for you. However, you had to get through the heavy manual door first to get to this button!

The final (plastic) straw had to be when I tried to return home via Copenhagen airport. At check in I was informed that my travel pushchair (which is incredibly light) wasn’t allowed to be taken to the gate (as it had been at Gatwick with the same airline!) as Health and Safety wouldn’t allow it. Instead I had to check it in at oversized baggage and carry TSB through security in a sling. It meant I left Copenhagen with a bit of a bad taste in my mouth (along with a pain in my back and shoulders!). I felt somewhat alienated for trying to get around alone with a baby. Not by the people I encountered, who were in the main lovely and helpful, but by the infrastructure and rules. This wasn’t at all what I had expected from Denmark at all.

It’s likely that we will return to Copenhagen as Bonn’s work may require us to do so, so I really hope this was just a blip by this family friendly eco conscious country.

Flying with a baby – taking a seven month old to Copenhagen

June 24, 2019 by Penny Leave a Comment

Flying with a baby. It seems to be one of the subjects that attracts the most questions on parenting forums across the internet. What are you able to take with you? How do you carry your baby? How do you stop them screaming for the whole flight? I can’t promise to have all the answers, but what I can do is share our experiences with you.

When she was just seven months old we took Tube Stop Baby with us on a work trip to Copenhagen. This was the first time she had flown and we were intrigued to see what she would make of the whole experience. The flight time was about an hour and a half and we flew with Norwegian from London Gatwick Airport to Copenhagen, and back again five days later.

How much baggage can a baby carry?

The first thing I would advise is planning. Travel as light as you possibly can, but at the same time make sure you have everything you need. Each airline varies in terms of baggage allowance for an infant who is travelling on a parents lap. In our case she got no carry on allowance, but was allowed 5kg in the hold which could either be a separate bag, or added on to the weight allowed for our bag. We were also allowed to have an extra stroller and car seat in the hold. More on those in a minute though. Airlines are normally very clear about what you can take for a baby. Just ask them if you’re unclear.

Carrying milk and baby food on a flight

In our carry on luggage we made sure we had a few toys to keep her entertained, what we needed for nappy changes, a couple of muslins and the milk and food that we would need for the journey. Despite all the rules about liquids being carried on flights you are allowed to take milk and pureed food for babies. The wording suggests that it is as much as is required for the journey. We formula feed so I took water in three bottles and a powder dispenser to be able to make up three bottles worth. I also carried about four pouches of pureed food for her too.

When you go through security you will need to separate out all liquids before your bags are scanned, and the same is the case for baby milk and pureed food. I put all the pouches in a clear plastic bag so I could pull them out quickly, and also took out the three bottles. As expected when the tray went through the scanner it was diverted to be inspected. The official simply saw I was travelling with a baby and he took the three bottles and a couple of randomly chosen pouches of food away to be tested. This only took a couple of minutes and involved them putting the bottles and pouches in some fancy machine which was obviously testing to make sure they were what I’d said they were. The whole process only took about ten minutes longer than usual.

As we went through her pushchair was also checked over by an official and as her and her dad beeped when they went though the metal detector an official just checked her over whilst her dad went through the next stage of scanner. The whole process was quick and relatively simple and painless.

Pushchairs, strollers and baby carriers

For the outbound flight we were able to keep her pushchair with us until the gate. At that stage we had to collapse it and leave it with staff before we went down to board the plane. I took with us an Ergobaby carrier and simply put her in that once I got her out of the pushchair. This gave me my hands free for bags etc whilst getting on the plane.

I would very highly recommend taking a baby carrier of some type with you. When you land you normally don’t get your pushchair back until baggage reclaim, so if you have a sling or carrier then you can keep the baby in that as you go through passport control and get to baggage reclaim. Trying to hold a baby in your arms whilst getting off a plane and hanging on to your passport isn’t easy!

When we flew back from Copenhagen it was just me and the baby and unfortunately, despite flying with the same airline, the rules were suddenly different and we were told that our buggy had to immediately go to excess baggage and be checked in that way. Thank goodness I had the sling and a newly purchased comfortable rucksack on my bag with everything in as otherwise I would have really struggled going through the airport.

After security we were able to pick up a free mini-luggage trolly that had a child seat in it. Luckily TSB is 7 months old and could sit up in it. Otherwise I’d have had to carry her the whole time.

The other advantage of having the sling was that when she needed to take a quick power nap as we waited at the gate she could.

Infant belt

When travelling on your knee you get an extra infant belt for your baby. You feed your seat belt through this, and then close their belt with the usual aeroplane mechanism. If you’re in any doubt as to how it works ask a member of staff on the plane. It is also likely that they will provide you with an infant life-raft and instructions as to how and when it should be used.

Keeping baby comfortable during the flight

For most babies the white noise on the plane helps them sleep. The only time that TSB got upset (apart from when she tried to steal the Kit Kat from the lady in the next seat) was when the pressure made her ears hurt on take off and landing. The simple solution to this is to get your baby to take milk at those points in the flight. This could either be through breast feeding or from a bottle. Whichever it is the act of sucking and swallowing will help them balance the pressure as the plane gains or loses altitude.

Our experiences

The only part of our actual journey that was hard work was when I unexpectedly didn’t have the pushchair up to the game in Copenhagen on our return journey. Had there been two adults it wouldn’t have been as difficult, but on my own it was tough. Luckily lots of other passengers offered to help at various points, but it did really show me the value of a good sling and packing light and in an organised fashion.

I certainly don’t feel as daunted by the whole process anymore, but at the same time, if I can make sure I’m not travelling alone with her next time it will be far easier!

Disclaimer: All mine and TSB’s flights were paid for by us. All choices regarding airline was down to recommendations and flight times. All products mentioned were paid for by us. We received nothing for writing this post. This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase through them I will receive something but it will cost you nothing more.