Copenhagen Continued & Noma

I’ve been recounting my adventures while not on the road. My sister and I started out our Scandinavian trip with a great first day in Copenhagen. We would do more sightseeing and eating today!

Prior to visiting Copenhagen, we had looked into something called a Copenhagen Card. You would purchase it based on duration and it would grant you access to the entire public transportation system, discounts at restaurants and admission to a large variety of tourist activities within the city. If you’re not much for museums, tours etc. it may not be for you, however for my sister and I, we were all over it!

Being very “value orientated” we had planned to maximize our card’s value and so, we had busy schedule ahead of us.

We started off with a quick stroll through central Copenhagen to a small coffee shop we had scoped out the day before.

Copenhagen Canal Tour

With our trusty Minions in tow, we started our day with a very cool Copenhagen Canal tour. There is a large network of canals in the area and seeing Copenhagen from the water was a unique and beautiful perspective. We were introduced to many major landmarks, including a few we had walked by the day before.

Some of the bridges over canals BARELY fit our boat

After disembarking from our boat, we strolled through Nyhavn once again. On our way to the our next stop Amalienborg Slot (Castle).

Amalienborg Slot (Castle)

There were two things we wanted to see that we didn’t get to on our initial walk through this area: The changing of the guard and  the castle museum with our trusty Copenhagen Card.

It’s a bit fuzzy, but I don’t have too many pictures of the museum itself. I’m wondering if it was one of the few places that didn’t allow us to take photos. Update: I think I simply did not snap too many photos while indoors!

After we were done, it was lunch time. We stopped at a small street side restaurant called Amalie near the castle to enjoy two very tasty dishes: Roast Beef with Fried Egg and Pickled Herring on Rye Bread. I’m going to say this a lot. I Love This food!

Christianborg Slot

With our bellies full, we made our way to Christianborg Slot and the royal reception rooms. These rooms are used by Danish royalty to receive other country’s heads of state and as you can imagine were quite grand.

By the time we were finished with our tour, it was late afternoon and we had dinner reservations tonight so we returned to our hotel to get ready for the evening.

Noma

Noma is considered one of the World’s best restaurants. When we visited, it had been ranked No. 2 in world (oddly enough it was no. 1 in 2012 and 2014, go figure!). And both my sister and I had been eagerly anticipating this visit. In fact when we had made our reservations, it was like we had bought front row tickets to a Backstreet Boys concert from ticketmaster online! Reservations are released exactly three months in advance and so we had logged onto the reservations site and had been feverishly “refreshing” until one of us was able to complete a reservation. We were relieved and excited and now the day had come!

We were greeted with some of the friendliest staff I’d ever encountered. I was slightly worried that a restaurant of such prestige would be a bit stuffy, but everyone was very down to Earth and made us feel at home. Noma itself is very “homely” and the decor is modern yet rustic. As its a set menu, all we had to decide on were drinks and the food experience started!

All I can say is the food was amazing, creative and wildly imaginative. There was a heavy Scandinavian theme with an emphasis on foraging.  Its definitely unlike anything I had ever tasted before, the mix of flavours, textures and even colours was a treat for all the senses. This is one experience I will treasure for a lifetime and I highly highly recommend trying to include this in your future travels if you can. (Hover or click on the photos for food descriptions)

It was a great way to end an amazing day. But we’re only beginning, we have more of this Copenhagen Card to use!