My Experience with Black Holes and Bright Memories in the Heart of Copenhagen
Part 2: My Preparation for Arrival to Denmark and First Impressions
This is Part 2 of my multi-part article series on Copenhagen when I visited there in August 2024. Click here to check out Part 1.
In Preparation for My Future Visit to Copenhagen
Although I had my past experience travelling to Stockholm several years prior to my visiting Copenhagen, it’s necessary to recognize that I’m still a first-time traveller to Denmark with the potential to possibly encounter significant differences between how these two Scandinavian cities function at ground-level, even if Sweden and Denmark share major cultural similarities overall. This means that it’s important to do as much advance preparation as I can to anticipate what I should likely expect to experience upon my arrival for the first time.
As someone who advocates for “stress-free travel” as a goal to achieve whenever I visit a place far away from home, I want to anticipate as much as possible where unexpected problems may potentially occur in reaching Copenhagen. This means that I always strive to do as much advance research on-line as I can on how to best orient myself once I’m finally there. That also includes investigating in advance the interesting places that I would like to see, a particularly important task given that much of my time during the week would be dedicated to the physics conference that motivated me to travel there in the first place, and that I wouldn’t have much time left over to do a lot of anything else.
First Impressions from My Arrival at Copenhagen Airport
The capital city of Copenhagen has 1.3 million people and comprises the largest concentration of Danes in the country. As well, Copenhagen Airport is the largest one in all of the Nordic countries and serves as a hub for most major airlines to reach Scandinavia, most notably the Scandinavian Airlines System (SAS) that serves as the national airline for Denmark, Sweden, and Norway.
While I could have reached Copenhagen directly from Canada at the time via SAS, for logistical and personal reasons it made more sense for me to stay overnight first in London and then take a short direct flight from Heathrow Airport with British Airways to Copenhagen at a more flexible time of my choosing. Taking this approach would then give me lots of time to explore the city unimpeded by the demands of the conference to start on the next day.
Having already been to Stockholm four times several years ago without any issues whatsoever to worry about, it was perfectly reasonable to expect that my arrival to Copenhagen would also be a very smooth and efficient process. This was certainly the case here and it was only a matter of a few minutes before I had already passed through the security border control and reclaimed my luggage at the carousel, ready to explore the city at my earliest opportunity.
As it turned out, however, there was one unusual and intriguing venue I wanted to experience immediately that would unfortunately be best described as a catastrophic failure! In fact, it was such an upsetting experience that it threatened to ruin the rest of my entire first day in Copenhagen and perhaps even sour me from enjoying the rest of this trip altogether. Given all of the positivity I just experienced in Copenhagen upon my arrival, this sudden departure from that expectation was a very jarring and surprising contrast to encounter. Further details of what exactly happened will be explained at length in Part 3 of this series.
Immediately prior to leaving the airport and heading to my first city destination, I made a point of taking some extra time to get myself acquainted with its layout. As well, I took some time to also find the location of my airport hotel situated nearby for my final night’s stay in Copenhagen prior to my flight to Vancouver via Reykjavik the next day. Taking these precautions is something that I would definitely recommend for all travellers to do when arriving at a foreign destination for the first time. This is in order to eliminate the potential near the end of the trip to become flustered while struggling to figure out under time pressure where to reach the gate in time for the flight home.
My First Time Using Public Transportation in Copenhagen
Once I had my mini excursion in Copenhagen Airport, the next task was to buy myself a metro pass to use its extensive light rail system that connects it to any major destination in Copenhagen and elsewhere throughout Denmark. It’s a remarkable fact that a metro ride from the airport to the city centre takes only 15 minutes with several trains running back and forth each hour! Furthermore, the ride was very smooth and efficient in handling the multitude of passengers who rely upon its operation when getting to and from the airport.
As for the metro passes to travel within Copenhagen, they range from 24 hours to five days in duration that are valid over the entire 24 hour period corresponding to each day. It’s very important to note that the city transit authority validates the passes via random spot checks for passengers to present to them for inspection. Furthermore, they are very strict when it comes to enforcement, something that I witnessed first-hand when I saw a family from outside Denmark get caught without holding a valid pass. They were summarily fined a heavy penalty for their infraction, which included collecting their passport information on file to ensure enforcement after they return home. Aside from that issue to be concerned about, using the metro system was very straightforward and problem-free.
Author’s Note: This multi-part series on Copenhagen continues with Part 3: An Upsetting Experience Afterwards that Nearly Ruined my First Day. Stay tuned to find out exactly why I referred to it as a catastrophic failure and why I will never attempt to go there again for any future trip to Copenhagen.
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