Copenhagen at Christmas

COPENHAGEN AT CHRISTMAS

I love visiting Scandinavia and have been there many times. If there is one word that sums up Copenhagen at Christmas time it has to be “hygge”. It doesn’t really have a direct translation in English, it means a feeling of cosiness and well being, the kind you get from relaxing over a meal with friends, or from being snugly indoors when it’s raining outside.

My husband, Roy, teases me that I will go anywhere in the
winter where I can wear my fur coat.
You see lots of people in furs.

Danes strive to get hygge into their lives all year round
but their genius for creating this feeling works overtime in the weeks leading
up to Christmas when they fight back again the long dark days with roaring fires,
flickering candles and hefty doses of husmanskost, hearty home style cooking
that keeps out the winter chill. Which,
along with great shopping and just the right amount of culture makes Copenhagen ideal for a pre
Christmas break.

Arriving in darkness with light snow flakes, a spot of hygge
is just what we needed and we found it at Biblioteket at Toldbodgade 5, a tiny
upstairs restaurant in an l8th century building with book lined walls and
candles glowing in the windows. So cosy,
it felt like sitting in someone’s living room and perfect for relaxing over
typically Danish cooking, fresh salmon marinated with herbs, tender pork in
brandy and mushroom sauce, and a tower of pancakes with apple sorbet that we
didn’t have room for but couldn’t resist.

Relaxed, well fed and happy, we barely noticed the snow
again. While hygge is an unknown concept
outside Denmark, Danish
design is famous the world over making Copenhagen
great for Christmas shopping. Whether
its quirky toys, trendy jewelry or beautifully designed homewares, the shops are
bursting with unusual presents that are just that little bit different from
what you would find at home. Then there
are the edible treats, so elegantly packaged it almost seems a crime to eat
them.

So, fortified with a hearty breakfast, we set out to tackle
Stroget, said to be the longest pedestrian shopping street in Europe
with smart shops interspersed with churches and pretty squares. Shopping highlights include the glossy
department stores, Magasin du Nord and Det
Ny Illum with wonderful gourmet food halls, and Illums Bolighus for superbly designed home
and kitchenware. Georg Jensen for
jewellery, Holmegaard for classic Scandinavian glass and Royal Copenhagen for
very special porcelain and china. Its
exhibition of Christmas table settings has become a Copenhagen tradition and each year the
company launches new Christmas decorative plates for collectors. It’s museum of china through the ages is well worth going to.

Bargain hunters shouldn’t miss Sostrene Grene, an Aladdins’ cave of presents and
homewares. We snapped up six trendy
coffee mugs, smart Perspex salt and pepper mills and a set of garden lanterns
and still got change from $12. As
well as the big stores along Stroget itself, the streets radiating out from it
are dotted with enticing little individual shops and if you enjoy shopping, you
will have no trouble spending a day
wandering the length of Stroget and exploring the side streets as you go. Luckily for shopper’s feet, every block or so
seems to have an invitingly candlelit café where you

Can stop for coffee and cake, or a fortifying mug of glogg, the Scandinavian equivalent of mulled wine, served with a handful of almonds and raisins to scoop out and eat.

At lunch time, sample Denmark’s best known dish, smorrebrod,
a generously topped open sandwich that might be piled with tiny shrimps, or
silky slices of smoked salmon, spread with rich pate and cucumber, or simply
topped with a punchy Danish cheese and crisp onion rings. You will find them on the menu of most
traditional cafes, like Huset Med Det Gronne Trae ,at Gammeltory 20, handily
places on a square that is almost at the mid point of Stroget. To wash down your smorrebrod, try one of the
specially brewed Christmas beers, dark and warming, they will keep out the cold
until the next coffee or glogg break.

If you’ve come to Copenhagen
for your Christmas shopping, you will only have time to see some of the sights
so its worth choosing carefully. The
Little Mermaid statue is on most visitor’s list, but it’s a little way from the
centre and quite honestly, not worth the detour. Most people come away muttering
disappointedly about how small it is.
Much more rewarding is the Amalienborg
Palace, the Danish Royal
Family’s winter home, a fabulously grand series of four buildings around a
lovely square. Try to get there for 12
noon, when the straight out of the Toytown soldiers change the guard. Though sadly, you can’t poke about in the
family’s actual rooms, one wing of the palace has been turned into a museum
which recreates the rooms where previous generations of Danish royalty lived.

With their flair for presentation and design, the
Scandinavians do museums especially well and Copenhagen’s Nationalmuseet is no exception
with imaginative displays tracing Danish history from the reindeer hunters of
the Ice Age through to the Vikings and the great Danish kings of the
Renaissance period. The toy section has
an extensive collection of one of Denmark’s most modern discoveries,
Lego

Finally, try to squeeze in at least one of Copenhagen’s two
world class museums, Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek has a sculpture collection
imaginatively displayed in wonderful settings including a steamy plant filled
glasshouse, while Statens Museum For Kunst, the Danish national gallery has a
vast collection of Danish art, as well as works by Matisse, Munch, Picasso,
Titian, Rembrandt and Rubens.

Don’t miss the beautiful collection of Skagen paintings, stunning views of the Danish coast, that are
famous for the way they capture the long light days of a Scandinavian
summer. That is a very good reason to go
back in June when you get 24 hours of daylight.

From mid November the Tivoli
gardens become home to Copenhagen’s
Christmas market with more than 70 stall selling traditional foods, Christmas
decorations, toys and gifts. Open until
10.p.m. and 11.p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays.
It’s best visited from late afternoon onwards when miles of twinkling
lights shine out into the dark, winter night, and the scent of hot glogg and
spicy sausages fill the air.

There is a second much smaller Christmas market at Nyhaven,
the historic canal area in the centre of the city. The central square has a skating rink filled
with rosy cheeked blond families who look as though they have just stepped out
of an advert. There are skates for
hire if you fancy trying out to be an
ice skating champion. We chickened out
and settled for soaking up the atmosphere in a nearby bar with a view of the
magical Christmas lights around the square.
Alvin, my fur coat was happy
also.

Maureen Jones

All Horizons Travel/Frosch

825 Santa Cruz Avenue

Menlo Park,CA 94025

650-961-2340 Direct