We finally arrived in Copenhagen early Monday evening, a little wet and worn but still excitedly, optimistic for our capsule hotel, CityHub.  What’s a capsule hotel, you ask?  Developed in Japan where space is limited but people are numerous, this style of hotel is a combination hostel, hotel and B&B where guests share a common bathroom with multiple toilets, showers, and sinks, and a lovely common area called “The Hang Out” complete with a full kitchen with plenty of cookware, disposable dishes and utensils and a neat system for storing perishables in the community refrigerator, a cocktail and juice bar, a mini market with prepared meals and vending machines as well as beer and soda on tap, fresh coffee, tea and water, and plenty of cozy little sitting areas that create a welcoming and relaxing environment.  CityHub Copenhagen also rents guests bicycles, offers a lovely sauna (albeit a shared experience allowing co-mingling of men and women), sells bathrobes and house slippers, and provides a 24/7 concierge service.  The entire experience is 100% automated so that check-in and check-out is completely flexible and your key is actually a reprogrammable chip sewn into an elastic wristband that you can wear anywhere and everywhere and use to automatically charge purchases on your bill or access your personal pod.  Oh yeah, your pod is basically a sleeping chamber that is roughly the size of the bed you reserve with only enough room for two people to stand in one spot, then climb into and sit on the bed. The pod we reserved was a double bed “upstairs” so required the use of three small wooden platform steps (like a bunk bed) to enter the bed, and included a small luggage storage/closet/shelf area where items could be placed or stored.  There was another pod below ours (our door on left and their door on right in photos below) so we basically slept on top of them.  Again – imagine a bunk bed scenario.  Our pod also came with a kimono-style robe we could use for the shower or sauna which was just down the hall and around the bend (so to speak).  Another interesting feature was the environmental system which includes surround sound music and programmable “mood” lighting that could be adjusted using an app or the lobby computers. We found the ambient temperature of our pod suitable for us and quite pleasant, so we never made any changes, but you can modify it, if needed, with help from your CityHost.  They were also kind enough to provide us with two separate blankets as someone is a bit of a blanket hog and I have no desire to engage in war in the middle of the night. 

Copenhagen is both Denmark’s biggest city and capital, with 600,000 or so inside the city limits and a little over a million people in the entire metropolitan area.  The name of the city is derived from the Old Norse, Kaupmannahǫfn, which means “merchant harbor” (Remember the Vikings sank ships in Roskilde to protect the royal city by preventing large ships from entering the harbor so merchant vessels came to Copenhagen instead) and over time has evolved into the current Danish version “København”.  Copenhagen is a city rich in Danish history, home to more Danish royals and rich merchants than any other, and therefore is also a place where incredible architecture and museums abound.  There are SIX castles in Copenhagen: Christiansborg Palace, Amalienborg Palace (the royal palace and home to the King and Queen in the city center), Rosenborg (built as a “pleasure palace”), Frederiksborg (now home to the Danish National Museum – previously mentioned in Jelling post), Kronborg (also known as Hamlet’s Castle as it is the setting for the play), and Hermitage Palace. Copenhagen is also home to the world famous, Tivoli Gardens, the third oldest operating amusement park – and still one of the most visited – in the world (long before Disney was even Disney). Also, interestingly, Copenhagen is literally part land and part water – with 8 rivers flowing through the city itself as well as various streams and canals, and bordered on two sides by the Baltic Sea through the Øresund Strait. 

Did you know, during WWII, Denmark was occupied by the Nazis but the Danish resistance was MASSIVE.  In fact, thanks to action taken by the governments of Denmark and Sweden, over 7,200 of Denmark’s 7,800 Jews and nearly 1,000 non-Jewish spouses were smuggled out of the country by boat to Sweden – many leaving from tiny coastal villages in Denmark and traveling across the Øresund Strait in fishing boats to Sweden. This organized rescue mission is one of the largest actions of collective resistance in any occupied country during the Second World War and is the reason why 99% of Denmark’s Jewish citizen survived the Holocaust.  It is such an important part of war history that the U.S. Holocaust museum in Washington, D.C. even has an authentic Danish rescue boat on permanent exhibit.  

After the second world war, Israel formally recognized Denmark’s resistance as “Righteous Among Nations” and gifted them a massive rock (among many other things) which is today located in a large, centralized, public square the Danish have named “Israels Plads”. The northern half of the square is home to a massive covered market hall that spans two buildings and is called Torvehallerne and the southern half was converted into a modern, outdoor, public park designed by a Copenhagen-based architectural firm in 2014. Following our bike tour of the city of Copenhagen on Tuesday, we wandered through both of the 13,000+ square foot market halls mainly in pursuit of lunch but with the added benefit of avoiding the rain.

While in Copenhagen for three full days, we took a 3-hour (who even knows how many miles?!?) bike tour of the entire city, went shopping at the mercado, Torvehallerne, where we found plenty of lovely gluten-free options, explored both the Tube (an active visual experience in the Central Train Station) and the Museum of Illusions (fascinating and absolutely worth a visit), visited the Round Tower and nearby Frederik’s church (The Marble Church), watched the changing of the Danish royal guard in front of Amalienborg place (guard entered through the columns), spent hours strolling through Strøget, one of Europe’s longest pedestrian streets in a massive shopping area filled with stores ranging from budget bazaar’s to designer brand names, and finally, spent nearly half a day at Tivoli Gardens.  It rained on us every single day, but our last day at Tivoli was eventually quite sunny in the afternoon, which was such a surprise and treasure that we giggled in glee as we rode all the rides we could find – many twice!  

Friday morning obscenely early, we travel by rail across the Øresund Bridge, the second longest bridge in Europe that spans the strait between Denmark and Sweden, to Malmø, Sweden and then, on to Stockholm!