Europe Travel Diary: Our 3 Days in Copenhagen!

Our Europe Travel Diary is an informal rundown of our day-to-day activities while backpacking Europe, starting with Madrid. This travel diary entry is based on our three days in Copenhagen.

Do check out our Top Tips for Travelling Europe and our 2 Months in Europe Itinerary to see our route!

Day 1: Travelling from Hamburg to Copenhagen 

After a long day of travelling, we finally arrived in Copenhagen! Flixbus did their classic service of pretty much dumping us on the side of the road before we started our 20-minute walk to our hotel with our backpacks. 

As it was Alex’s birthday weekend, I decided to treat us to something a little cooler than a classic hostel and booked us into Cityhub which is a pod-style capsule hotel! 

The whole hotel is run by technology with barely any staff so we checked in on the screen and it gave us a wristband which gave us access to our pod and other areas in the hotel – very cool! 

We picked a top bunk pod which we were pretty happy about as the bottom ones although cool, looked a little more claustrophobic! The pod was so fun, it had a remote control that allowed us to play our own music and change the lights in the pod, so we had a good time playing around with that for a while. 

After freshening up, we took a short stroll to the nearest metro station and hopped on the very efficient and AI-controlled tube to the city centre where we nosed around. 

As it was pretty dark and rainy, we crossed the rod to the Proud Mary pub which was very highly rated. Turns out this was the pub of all pubs and was amazing, great vibes, love music, the works. The only problem was the price (like the whole of Copenhagen) where two pints were £15 and two burgers (the cheapest thing on the menu) came to £30. Looking back, that it pretty much just London prices but for a pair of backpackers, we were in shock! 

So we could save some money for the rest of our trip, we quickly decided to head back to the hostel (via the tube) to our cosy bed. 

Day 2: Copenhagen 

For some reason, we accidentally slept in a bit but today was Alex’s BIRTHDAAAAAYYYYY!! WOOOP WOOP!! so we were both hella excited for the day. 

We hopped onto the tube to the main square and sauntered around the very busy Christmas market before realising it was gone 12pm and we hadn’t even eaten yet. As I (Leah) couldn’t really eat any of the Christmas market food (and we wanted something more nutritional than just burgers) we found a Noodle Bar for some fresh nooooodles which we both enjoyed. 

We then wandered down (apparently) Europe’s biggest shopping street which was a pedestrian-only zone and had a nose around. 

We soon made our way along Nyhaven where we saw colourful houses overlooking some cute market stalls. It was very pretty here. Alex also got his patch so he was very happy about this. We also got some very overpriced coffee – £15 for 2 coffees!

Copenhagen also houses a borough called Freetown Christiania where roughly 900 live in a community that has no rules. Obviously, we went here to check it out and it was certainly different – people every 3 metres were selling weed on makeshift stalls, happily highlighting how much produce they had. We decided not to get involved but it was a really cool place with lots of things to nose around! 

As we had been walking around for most of the day already, we decided we needed a sit-down and a pint so found a student hangout place (that was still quite expensive) to plonk ourselves. 

we then trekked across the southern part of the city to Tivoli Park which had a huuuuuge Christmas market with pods of rides and different food stalls – it was amazing. The show of lights was amazing and the pictures really didn’t do it justice. We sat on the small lake’s edge and I had a mulled wine (with raisins) whilst Alex had a hot chocolate. We spent a good amount of time here taking in the sights and having a chinwag. 

This was only stopped when Alex’s belly started to rumble so we went to the food court adjacent to the park which turned out to be a great deal of stress. This was because there were so many people in such a small place, there was hardly anywhere to sit and people were queuing for random food courts just everywhere. We both got burgers, which were amazing, and I even had mine with a gluten-free bun!! 

Once we had finished, we got out of there pretty sharpish as it was quite stressful but we made our way to our favourite pub for more expensive pints and a boogie. We did try to get in initially but there wasn’t any space so we went next door to “Ye Old English Pub” for a pint before coming back. I did also end up losing my bobble hat in this pub which was of great disappointment. We only realised after getting home where we could’ve left it but it was now gone forever!!! 

Apart from that, Alex had a great birthday so it was all a big success!! 

Day 3: Copenhagen

Alex ended up having ANOTHER lie in so

I had to wait for aaaaages for him to wake up – so annoying – but we eventually got out and found brunch at a nearby cafe. 

Today was really exciting as we were going to the zoo – and Copenhagen Zoo is one of the best zoos in Europe (in terms of animal welfare) so we were both excited to go. We got another tube and then a bus before arriving at the gates. 

The day definitely lived up to expectations as we saw two real-life Panda (they were very funny, sat there eating bamboo), as well as three real Polar Bears (two were “younglings”) , Elephants, Camels, Penguins, and Llamas. Leah also got scared by Hippos and how big/ugly they were and also had a giggle at the sunbathing sloth! All great fun. 

We then decided to go back to the hostel on the bus as it was now dark and none of the animals were out, apart from the rabbits. We did have a bit of a faff getting back on the bus as there was no ticket machine, the app didn’t work and one bus driver required cash for a ticket when we asked (we didn’t have any Danish Krone unfortunately). The bus came every 7 minutes so we just decided to walk on the next one and act like we had a ticket – thankfully the bus driver was distracted by some other tourists asking to buy a ticket but they didn’t have any cash. We thankfully got home safe and sound and without an earful or a fine. (please don’t report us!)

We got back to the hostel and whilst we weren’t hungry, we did find an Indian restaurant a few doors down which did a buffet – sounded like our type of place. We chilled a bit and then stuffed our faces – Alex basically ate 3 whole Naan breads in total whilst I LOVED the mango dip. We had to literally roll ourselves out of there (which is the only way you should do a buffet) back to the hostel so we could warm up. 

We also ended up having an early night after a big but great day out. 

Also of note, the showers and facilities were also really really good here and they provided you with towels (much to Alex’s satisfaction) and a bathrobe – love it. 

Going from Copenhagen to Malmö

Check-out was 1 so we woke up in good time to check out and put our bags in the free lockers (also a sign of a good hostel) before going back to the breakfast place we went to yesterday for some more grub. 

Whilst chilling, we also had a bit of a fret/stress/panic as Amsterdam (Netherlands) was going into a lockdown and this was the next stop after Malmö so we eventually decided to skip it as it was easy to come back to at any point and we didn’t want to get hampered by the new Omicron variant 🙄. 

After getting over this, we then grabbed our stuff from the hostel and walked 20 minutes to the train station before jumping on our train to Malmö! 

Copenhagen Summary: 

We both absolutely loved Copenhagen! It is definitely not one for a backpacker’s budget as everything is really expensive, but we had an amazing time for a few days trip! We were a bit unlucky with the weather but it didn’t hinder our experience and Alex still had a great birthday. Highlights definitely included Tivoli Park, Copenhagen Zoo and of course, The Proud Mary!