Day #: 139 – 142

Date(s): 12SEP – 15SEP2025

Location(s) Visited: Copenhagen and Korsør, Denmark

Overall Impression of Location(s): Copenhagen = 4 and Korsør = 3

4 -added to our favorite list and we would return again
3 – a great place to visit
2 – OK for one visit, but we would not return again
1 – we wish we hadn’t wasted our time here  

Distance Driven on Leg/Trip (km): 112

Weather/Temperature (°F): The last few days there has been a distinct change in the weather and it is indeed now autumn in Denmark. Colder temperatures with much rain and wind seems to now be the norm. Our recent day in Korsør was the most rain we have ever experienced in a single day inside this van. Thankfully are skylight leak repair we had completed in Ireland is holding beautifully. The weather is constantly shifting from sun to black clouds to rainstorms and back to sun in a single ½ hour period of time. We were parked up at the Korsør marina and the waves were large, too. We ended up staying 2 nights in Korsør as we didn’t want to cross the 18 km suspension bridge in rain and high winds. The only upside of this type of weather is that we saw many rainbows, and even a double rainbow 🌈.

Road Conditions: Much more of the same lovely Danish roads and we took mainly back roads from Copenhagen into Korsør. It seems as the Danish may drive over the speed limit and not right at the speed limit as we are noticing a line of cars behind us on single lane roads.

Chickpea Mechanical Status: Our Denmark Hymer appointment for our kitchen faucet replacement (that we are paying out of pocket for) is on 18SEP2025 and our German Hymer appointment for our several minor warranty repairs is on 26SEP2025. All the current issues are minor and overall does not affect our use or enjoyment of this vehicle. We still really love this van overall.

Health Update: Tony continues to rehab his shoulder but is looking forward to being able to do some real strength training when we get home in a few short weeks. He is doing the best he can in the van, but it is less than ideal for this type of rehab. Tracey continues to battle her wasp/hornet stingers of which an 8^th stinger was removed on 15SEP2025, over a month since the original stinging incident. We are still dumbfounded how she could have gotten stung this many times in such a short amount of time.

Highlights:

• Our Copenhagen canal tour from the Netto tour company ended up being surprisingly enjoyable and informative. Our guide spoke all the information in 3 languages, Danish, German and then English without missing a beat. Tracey said she was going to lose it if she broke into Mandarin Chinese 😂, too. The tour took us through various canals and under bridges that were so low they almost shaved our hair off. We even motored to the famous (infamous?) teeny tiny Little Mermaid statue that was mobbed with land tourists. It was quite interesting to see Copenhagen from the water and this was one of our only cheap activities costing only $12/person.
• One of our favorite activities was a tour with a local from the alternative living community called Freehold Christiania. Nina, a resident since 1976, was our guide and she took us all over the neighborhoods which spanned much further than we expected it to. Christiania  began in 1971 when people began squatting on an abandoned military base. Over the years, the residents have attempted to clean up the land, although some up the land remains polluted with mercury and other toxins from its days as a military base. Houses, gardens, streets and businesses have all been built and much of the military buildings have been repurposed as housing. There are now over 900 residents and they have worked to develop community infrastructure projects. Christiania does have a darker past with gang violence, an open-air drug market and open drug use. In April 2025, the residents finally had enough and worked with the Danish police to push out the illegal drug trade from the main selling street, Pusher Street. Many of the individuals involved with this trade were gang members and did not reside in Christiania. We felt perfectly safe touring this neighborhood with Nina, but there is still a vibe of lawlessness and this is not a place we would want to be alone after dark. We really enjoyed Christiania especially the strong social interconnectivity between the residents who all know each other, help each other and support each other. It really is a lovely place and an interesting social experiment.
• The transportation system in Copenhagen is top notch and was a smaller version of the London Tube, in our opinion. Having lived previously for years in downtown Chicago and using the “El” extensively, we were well versed in how to read a transit map and decipher connections which helps us in other cities including Copenhagen. The Copenhagen system is a combination of buses, trams, high speed trains and a subway system and was quite easy to navigate. We took all these transportation forms numerous times and used their very user-friendly app called DOT to purchase all our tickets. One day, we purchased the “Large City” ticket ($64 USD for both of us) which allowed us to use all forms of transportation for 24 hours in Zone 1 – 99, which basically is within a 30-mile radius of Copenhagen. It proved to be a great option and a cost saver, too, as it allowed us to go to numerous cities all on the same day (i.e. Rick Steve’s 2 Castles + Art Museum tour) which involved us taking 4 trains, 3 busses and 2 subways to 3 different Rick Steve’ “Must See” attractions. The Danish transit system was clean and quite efficient and on-time. It was not as punctual as the Swiss system, but a vast improvement over our recent experiences in Germany.
• We took one long day trip and visited two castles and an art museum which were all in different cities. Our first stop was Frederiksborg Castle which was one of the most impressive baroque palaces in Europe. The architecture is grand with richly decorated rooms full of history, royal portraits, and fascinating artifacts. We toured many of the ostentatious rooms via an audio guide and luckily the palace was so large we did not have to be with any of the large tour groups visiting the castle. It was a lot to take in but we are glad we visited since we did not know much about the Danish monarchy and history. Our second stop involved another train ride to Kronborg Castle. It was a pleasant walk around the castle grounds and we enjoyed being able to see Sweden 2 km across the strait. Rainstorms dominated this day but somehow we managed to be inside touring a museum, riding on a train or eating our lunch when the downpours occurred and we had ample sunny and dry weather in between the storms to walk and explore the outside areas. Our third and last stop was to the Louisiana Museum. To gain some strength to tour this modern art museum after a long day of walking, we had tea and vegan chocolate cake in the lovely art museum café overlooking the ocean. The museum building itself was as impressive as the art. Tracey especially loved the sculpture garden. Tony liked all the varied interesting works of art and the way they were curated. We had a long day and walked almost 9 miles but still found the energy to stop at Joe & the Juice before returning to the van by 6:30 PM. It was a very long day but worth all the steps, storm dodging and sheer number of trains and buses needed to move ourselves to all these different places in one day.
• Tony has been very happy that there does not appear to be many smokers in Denmark. We have seen a few, but very few. We haven’t even seen many people vaping here. This is a marked change from our experience in France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Ireland, and the UK this past year. We wonder why this is? Cost? Health-conscientious? Cultural?
• We have discovered Smørrebrød and our life will never be the same. Smørrebrød are Danish loaded open-faced sandwiches served on rye bread with a variety of meats, cheeses, spreads, and garnishes. We have adapted the Smørrebrød  to be vegan (and gluten-free for Tracey) by using shaved and marinated tofu, hummus, and various herb garnishes. They are delicious and we can’t stop eating them. They are a perfect lunch or snack and have been added to our regular eating repertoire.
• As we travel, we continue to notice that some cities (and country names, too) have American names which differ from the name used by the people of that country. For example, Cologne instead of Köln, Prague instead of Praha and in Denmark Copenhagen instead of København. We certainly knew about the others but had no idea the actual city name for Copenhagen was København. Why do we do this to some cities and not others? Why do this at all? This always puzzles us.
• We reluctantly left Copenhagen after a full week, stopping in Roskilde to visit the Viking Ship Museum situated on a beautiful fjord. The museum houses five original Viking ships (also known as the Skuldelev ships) which were sunk in this fjord as a blockade to ward off invading Norwegians in AD 1070. The ships were painstakingly pieced back together over 25 years starting in the 1960s. One of the warship longboats could hold over 85 warriors and was quite impressively sized. We also learned that not all Vikings were warriors and that many were farmers, traders, and average people of this area. We watched an informative short film about the history and restoration process of these vessels and then toured the museum listening to a provided audio guide. In addition to the original ships which were displayed inside, there were full scale reproductions which have been made using only original Viking tools and techniques floating outside in the fjord. All these vessels have been tested and even done open water sea trials. We enjoyed learning about these vessels but more importantly how with time and new technology the hypotheses have changed about how they were built and used. This is science at its best! 
• Our time in Korsør, Denmark lasted longer than planned due to the weather. Due to the high winds and torrential downpours, over the last several days and nights, we hunkered down at the delightful marina Aire/Stellplatz. With electricity, dishwashing station, water, laundry, bathrooms, and showers, we are quite content. Tracey enjoys watching the comings and going of the motorhomes. She says it is an experiment in psychology to watch people decide where to park and how close together they park. On the first night there were only 6 vehicles, but on the 2^nd night 20+ vehicles were all trying to find the best space with the least impact of the frequent wind gusts. In between storms, we were able to ride the Bromptons for exercise and also to do some errands. We also watched several groups of completely naked people walking down the dock in front of us to jump into the frigid cold water for a swim. As prude Americans, we just couldn’t make ourselves join them no matter how much we really wanted to experience this Danish way of  life.

Lowlights:

• Although the Copenhagen transit system was amazing, it was very crowded. No matter what time of day, weekend vs weekday, where we were going or the type of transportation used, it was almost always packed so much that we often had to stand. This is great from a utilization perspective, but we were a bit surprised by it.
• Using the transportation system is easy because we did not need to scan any tickets before using the system. We purchased tickets on the app which allowed us to use the entire network within certain zones for a certain amount of time. Easy peasy. We read that there are transit inspectors that may ask to see your ticket (which is just a QR code in the app) but that is quite uncommon. For us, it was not uncommon as we were asked 2 separate times by the inspectors to see our tickets (which we had and were valid). We watched the inspectors and they only targeted the tourists who either looked like tourists or were speaking languages other than Danish. We just didn’t like being profiled like this and feel they should check everyone on a specific train or route or nobody at all, as profiling people feels targeted and uncomfortable to us. Our inspector looked disappointed one time when we presented 2 valid QR codes. The fines for invalid tickets can be hefty costing  DKK 750 (~$120 USD) for the metro and S-train, and DKK 1000 (~$160 USD) for buses.

Up Next: Ærø Island in the South Funen Archipelago of Denmark

Onwards! Vorwärts immer, rückwärts nimmer! Allez on y va!