I don't know about you, but I do personally miss travelling so freaking much!
I had so many trips planned for 2020 and it is quite sad not knowing when we will be able to safely travelling again.
So, while I am lying here in my hotel bed - no, I wish I was travelling for fun, I am here on a business trip! - I thought why not collecting in a post the two lovely weekend trips I did with Antonella (hey, she wrote a romance!) back in January 2018 and January 2019.
A little background history first. Me and Anto, we met on our first day at work and since then we started hanging out and travelling along together. During 2018 she was travelling weekly to Stockholm for work and we thought why not meeting there for a weekend in January. And so we did. I took a flight on a Friday night; I went from the office straight to the airport and got to Stockholm at around 1am.
Stockholm
WHERE WE STAYED
We stayed at a lovely hotel Antonella and her team were staying at, right in the city center, Hotel Kungsträdgården. From there we could easily move around either on foot (brave ones!) or by taking the bus to reach the further places.
Three years have now passed since that wonderful trip, but there are a few places I still remember very well and I would really like to recommend them to you.
LUNCH / DINNER
Stockholms Gästabud in the Old Town has been absolutely AMAZING for food. The restaurant is located in the centre of Gamla Stan and is super nice and characteristic, clean, small but very cosy. I tried the typical Swedish meatballs (which you can see in the photos above) and I was not disappointed at all. The prices, for being a city such as Stockholm, are pretty average. If I remember correctly we spent around 30-35€ per person for shared starters, main course and drinks.
BREAKFAST / COFFEE
If you happen to be around the Vasastan area (a little north of Gamla Stan), I highly recommend a visit to Broderna Svedmans Frukt & Gronsaksbod. It's a small place, not very visible from the outside, but super characteristic. The guys were very kind to offer us a typical Swedish coffee and we really enjoyed having a snack there. They say it's also great for a quick lunch.
During my 6-months experience in Australia I had the beautiful opportunity to get to know two lovely Swedish girls - Moa and Marina. During this trip I took the chance to meet up with them and say hello. Moa and I went to Uppsala - the university town where Marina lived - and were invited by her for dinner.
We had the loveliest typical Swedish dinner, surrounded by friends and lots of food and drinks. Outside it was freezing and snowing and I still remember how delightful the atmosphere was.
Moa and Marina, if you are reading this HI! and we should meet again sometime. I miss the good old times :)
Coming back to my adventure with Anto, we had such a good time on this mini trip that we decided to repeat it the following year. Same month, same sub-zero temperature. Different city. This time we ventured towards Denmark. In the meantime, Antonella had moved to London, so we met up directly in Copenhagen. I'll leave you to the photos I took and then I'll tell you what we did around the city.
Copenhagen
If you know me a little bit, you know that I much prefer lots of - more or less - inexpensive trips, rather than a super fancy one. So in this case, too, the spirit was the same.
WHERE WE STAYED
To try to save as much money as possible - at least on accommodation - Anto and I decided to stay in a room found on Airbnb, in a shared house.
Neither of us knew the city well, so we did a little research on the internet and chose to stay in Nørrebro (if you click on the link, you can see the first picture on the left - that's pretty much where we stayed, in the house at the back of the photo!), the old Danish working-class district, which has now become a multicultural area, full of stores, bars, clubs of all kinds and is frequented practically all the time, from early dawn to late at night. From here we were able to move around the city quite easily and had everything we needed around us.
Again, almost two years have passed from this trip, so I will try my best to write down and list all the places we loved and I would like to recommend in case you'll have the chance to visit Copenhagen.
FOOD
First things first: food.
Close to our Airbnb stay, we found a super nice place for having breakfast - is the Møller Coffee and Kitchen, which we easily able to reach by foot - by also taking a walk through the through the cemetery where you can visit Andersen's grave (don't ask me why, but visiting cemeteries is something that has always fascinated me and something I like to do when I travel).
By the way, we had a lovely brunch there. The place is quite big and it has a super nice interior design. You order through a paper menu, where every customers write their own order, and then you hand it over to the waiter. Everything was very tasty! Price I would say rather similar to a brunch in Milan (around 15/20€).
On the very first day we took a walk around the city centre and we came across this cute restaurant - if I'm not mistaken, recommended by my Lonely Planet pocket guide - called Restaurant Amalie. I guess we must be always quite lucky with food, since this place too was divine! By the way, the name of the restaurant is not accidental, because it is located near Amalienborg Palace, residence of the Danish Royal Family, where you can admire the very famous Changing of the Guard. At 12:00 every day, the Royal Guards leave Rosemborg Castle to go to Amaliemborg Palace to change their guard, very nice to see.
PLACES TO VISIT
Being able to visit the city only during the weekend, we had to carefully select some of all the places we wanted to see.
Christiansborg Palace was definitely one of them. Once home of the Royal Family and now housing the Danish Parliament, it is such a beautiful place to see. The rooms are absolutely amazing and the view from the top of the building is totally worth the visit.
Another super worthy place to go to is The Black Diamond - Royal Danish Library, a modern tetragonal and elegant black and glass building (which can be visited free of charge). Both to visit inside (from the windows you can enjoy a magnificent viewpoint over the canal), and to appreciate from the outside, at a proper distance, to grasp the relationship of size, reflections and geometries that make it look like a black diamond. Also, every day at 1pm there is a composition is broadcasted in the atrium via a permanent installation, super evocative. Do not miss the opportunities to visit it!
We also chose to visit the Designmuseum Denmark | Danish Museum of Art & Design, which we did really appreciate. However, it is now closed for a comprehensive renovation of the interior of the historic buildings, sandstone decorations plus all exhibition and guest areas. It will re-open early 2022, so if you are planning to go to Copenhagen after this date, I do recommend you to check it out if you are into art and design.
HANGING OUT
Last, but not least, partying!
On the second night we were kindly invited by our Airbnb hosts to a s-u-p-e-r cool party in a place called Operaen, inside the Free Town of Christiania. I remember we queued for quite a long time before getting in but at the end of the day it was such a nice place for meeting people and dancing to some very good music.
Xx,
Giulia