I’ll be in Copenhagen for six days in early July. Any recommendations for restaurants, sites, day excursions, etc.?
I’ve only been there once before, for two days, 40 years ago, so it’s pretty much completely new to me.
Thanks!
We went this past February for four days and had a great time. Some thoughts:
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Get the Copenhagen Card. It gets you into almost all the museums and is a transit pass. Unquestionably worth the money.
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Take a boat tour early in your trip (there’s one free with the Copenhagen Card). It will give you the layout and background of the city and point you to things you want to see.
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Palaces, palaces, palaces. We went to three and they were all pretty cool. You can’t miss Rosenborg Slot, which has basically been a museum for the past few centuries. If you’ve been to some of the British palaces, the ones in Copenhagen show how comparatively un-stuffy the Danish monarchy is.
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Copenhagen is a great walking city. With a little planning, you can take a bus or subway to one part of the City, and spend the whole day hitting tons of attractions a just few blocks from each other.
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The food was fantastic (though expensive). Everything we ate we really enjoyed, from hole in the wall places we stumbled into to fairly nice restaurants.
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Everyone speaks English, and anything at all tourist/international traveler related has signage/menus/etc. in English. There was really no language barrier. And, when there was something I wanted to read in Danish, someone told me about a Google Translate app for your phone which, when you view the text in your camera, translates it nearly instantly (and even renders the translated text in the same font as the original).
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Shopping was blah. Pretty much everything was stuff you would get in any major international city.
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There are tons of museums, sites and attractions. Go to the www.visitcopenhagen.com site and also the Copenhagen Card website and pick things that interest you.
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Just about everything touristy is closed on Mondays. If you’re there over a Monday, check carefully what is open, and plan to do it that day.
You’ll have great time. Enjoy!
I was there in 2000.
There’s a bridge across the strait; it had opened a month before I was there, and I arrived by train, crossing it on the way from Stockholm.
I believe Copenhagen now has a metro system.
I was staying at the apartment of someone I knew slightly through Pasporta Servo (couch surfing for people who speak Esperanto). One day, I took a bus from his apartment to the train station (half an hour), the train from Copenhagen to Vejle (1.5 hours), and another bus (half an hour)… to end up at Legoland! To me it was a good day trip, about the same time for each method of transport as going from my then apartment in Oakville to visit my father in Oshawa, crossing the Greater Toronto Area… but when I told my host, he said*, “You went halfway across the country?!!” We looked at the map. It was indeed halfway across the country. 
I walked around downtown Copenhagen, eventually going as far as the Little Mermaid statue. Which is a lot smaller than I expected.
During this exploration, I stumbled across a museum of the Danish resistance during World War 2. I went inside and looked around at the historical pictures. But then, in a little courtyard, I saw actual examples of the distinctive concrete posts that supported the barbed wire around the concentration camps. I was rocked back emotionally. All my life, I had seen black-and-white historical pictures, but for the first time it hit me. It had been real.
Later, I took the night train to Hannover (waking at one point when my phone said, “Welcome to Belgium”). I looked out at the green and prosperous German countryside and thought of the war machines and horrors it had seen.
*original dialogue not in English.
Just from the thread title I was going to recommend the original fine cut as long as the can was dated within the last two weeks. 
Copenhagen is my second favorite European city. I think Billdo covered most of the tourist things well. The food** is** great. We walked or rode bikes everywhere. I would caution against trying to ride during rush hour, the Danish bike riders are very reminiscent of rush hour commuters everywhere, not very tolerant of tourists who don’t know where to merge.
If you are good with heights climb the tower at Vor Frelsers Kirke
I got turned onto bacon wrapped figs in a tapas restaurant somewhere in Copenhagen, no idea of the name of the place.
This is excellent advice IF planning on doing much of what the card covers. If you’re not then it’s not economical.
We’ve been getting city cards for European cities for a couple of years now. If you do a lot of stuff they save you a ton of money plus let you skip lines, use public transport, include very good maps, etc…
I’ve found the Turbopass to be the best one and most affordable. Unfortunately it doesn’t look like they have one for Copenhagen so use one of the other kind, they’re all quite good.
Thanks, all, this is really helpful!
If you like jazz, the Copenhagen jazz festival starts this Friday - http://jazz.dk/en/copenhagen-jazz-festival-2018/concerts/ - and a lot of it’s free. Runs until the 15th.
Take a day trip (train) up to Helsingør - see Kronborg (aka Hamlet’s castle), and the maritime museum which is built in an old dry dock. http://mfs.dk/en/ Also bimble about the streets of Helsingør looking at all the drunken Swedes enjoying (by Swedish standards) cheap alcohol.
Take a day trip (train) out to Roskilde, the cathedral is where the kings and queens of Denmark are buried, and the viking ship museum is also worth a visit.
Avoid: Strøget (pronounced ‘tourist trap’) which is a very long street full of shops and tourists who look like they are wondering what they are doing there. The triangle bounded by Gothersgade, Nørre Voldgade and Strøget contains quite of lot of smaller, more interesting shops and potentially more affordable (by Danish standards) eating places.
What sort of stuff do you like? Copenhagen is a very walkable city. There are even free walking tours 
We took the free walking tour (free except for tip) and found it useful.
Definitely second the boat tour. Ours took us on the canals also.
We liked the Copenhagen City Museum, which was near our AirBnB, but it seems to be closed for a move now.
No one seems to like The Little Mermaid, and the Lego store downtown is unimpressive. I didn’t much care for Tivoli Gardens, which is free with the pass. But everything else was fantastic.
I forgot something. Everyone in Copenhagen rides bikes (at high speed.) Our kids rented some, and got around much faster.
I went with my husband for three days in May, 2016. My husband and I spent most of one day in Tivoli Gardens. We both loved the rides and we ended up having lunch and dinner there. Canal boat cruise around the centre city, past the little mermaid and Freetown Christiania. Took the train across Øresund Bridge to Malmö for a few hours, We went to the city centre but someone we spoke to said if you get off at Hyllie there is Emporia mall with 144 stores and cheap (for Denmark) priced goods. We did walk along Strøget but all we bought was a juice and a coffee. By the way, Danish pastries aren’t called that there. I think they call them wienerbrød (Vienna bread)
Booze is dear, but not as dear as Norway apparently.