On our Scandinavian honeymoon, we walked 77 miles, touched down in four countries (Germany, Denmark, Sweden, and Belgium), took five boat rides (including the ferries in/ out of Denmark/ Germany) and made countless memories together! While it was not a restful honeymoon, it was the first time in a LONG time that we spent a week together without the hassles of our jobs, projects around the house, wedding planning and everything else. We complement each other well as travel partners. Daniel is excellent at navigating unknown places and deciphering train schedules, whereas I like to think I’m pretty good at packing and repacking suitcases and reminding us to drink water and eat treats . Driving home from the airport, Daniel said “I think we picked the right honeymoon for us” and I had to agree!
The Itinerary:
We departed from Washington DC on June 29 and had a quick stopover in the suburbs of Munich before heading to Copenhagen. We spent four nights Copenhagen, staying just around the corner from the historic town hall, Tivoli, and Christiansborg Palace. Then, we took a bus ride (with a ferry service) to Lübeck, Germany on July 4 and spent three nights in Lübeck, staying in Old town near St. Mary’s church. On July 7 we took a ride back to Copenhagen, followed by a train into Malmö, Sweden for dinner. On July 8 we departed home from Copenhagen with a brief layover in Brussels, making it back to Richmond around dinnertime (or midnight as it felt for us jet-lagged folk!). It felt like a nice mix of big-city and small-town offerings.
The highlights:
Copenhagen was lovely, the people where friendly, the weather by freak chance was insanely beautiful (low 80s with no humidity), and there was so much to do. The best/ weirdest part was that most attractions where nearly empty. Several times we were the only people exploring a part of a castle or touring a gallery room. For me, it felt like our private city retreat. I hope to go back to Copenhagen at some point- there’s certainly more to discover, and its refreshingly totally different than a U.S. city.
Lübeck was added to the itinerary after hearing how expensive a week in Scandinavia can be, and I am glad we did. The city came into importance during the Hanseatic trading period due to its role in trading salt to Scandinavia (remember they REALLy like pickled herring). Today its Old Town still feels like a medieval city, with its winding roads, networks of courtyards, and collection of historic churches, shops, and restaurants. We enjoyed the slower pace of a smaller city. For much of the time we were left to draw our own conclusions about the city and its sites as much of the information was just in German.
From Lübeck we enjoyed taking a day trip to Hamburg. It was fun to explore a bigger German city (in fact it’s the second largest city in Germany); but we were both glad we chose to stay in a smaller town for our stay.
When we got back to Copenhagen we made the impulsive decision to head to Malmö, Sweden for dinner, since when else would we have the chance to take a 30-minute train ride and end up in another country. I heard that Malmö was more similar to Denmark than the rest of Sweden, but I was pleasantly surprised that it had a different feeling than Copenhagen. We enjoyed wandering around the old town and stumbling upon a lovely town square lined with restaurants. We had a delightful Italian dinner (since Scandinavian seafood is not my thing) and got to watch Croatia beat Russia in the world cup quarter finals. It was odd seeing so many people cheer for Russia! We got back to our hotel around midnight and awoke just before 4am to catch our flights home. That alarm was certainly unwelcome at the time, but I’m so glad we got to have a memorable last night of our honeymoon.
Thank you for reading and for all the social media “likes” from the pictures we already shared.
With love,
Kari
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