Most hotels — even good ones — are nondescript. Not so Hotel Fox. Just check out these rooms. It’s not the best hotel in the world — just a good one — but you’re unlikely to forget your stay in a hurry.
The breakfast here is excellent, too, although the cubic seating could be a little more comfortable.
February’s not the best time to visit Copenhagen — too cold and windy — but at least the last couple of days have been dry ones.
Today was nice and sunny, so we decided to hire bikes. The only place we’re aware of that has Christiania bakfietsen for hire is too expensive for our liking, so we went to another shop and procured a couple of normal bikes.
Sarah wasn’t comfortable with the low handlebars on her bike, so we went back to the shop after five minutes and she exchanged it for another one.
Well, we must’ve had that second bike for even fewer than five minutes before Sarah crashed down onto the cycle path as she was coming to a standstill. She somehow caught her right foot against the frame as she was dismounting on the left side and hadn’t put her left foot far enough from the bike to prevent her losing her balance.
This really isn’t the kind of thing you want to happen when you’re 34 weeks pregnant, but there you have it. It happened. With Eloïse in a child seat on the back of my bike, I couldn’t even attend to Sarah as soon as she went down. I had to first get Eloïse out of her seat. Luckily, a couple of passers-by rushed to our aid.
Fortunately, Sarah seems to be OK. Her main injuries are a gashed knee, a sprained wrist, a bruised thigh and a bump on her forehead; to say nothing of the wounded pride. The baby, thank goodness, shows no signs of the ordeal its expectant mother went through.
Sarah wanted to get back on and continue riding, but I insisted we take the bikes back to the shop, where the unfriendly owner wasn’t prepared to give us even a partial refund. 200 kr. for five minutes!
The name of the shop is Københavns Cykelbørs and it’s on Gothersgade 157. You may care to boycott it, given the owner’s unsympathetic attitude. He was well within his rights, of course, but I was surprised he didn’t offer to split the 200 kroner down the middle. I didn’t make a big fuss about it, though, because I had an injured wife waiting for me outside the shop.
We discussed going to the other shop and getting a Christiania three-wheeler, but in the end, nothing came of that idea. In spite of Sarah’s bloodied knee, she was able to walk, so she was lucky in that regard, at least.
After visiting a chemist’s and bandaging up Sarah’s knee, we walked south and across the water to the neighbourhood of Christianshavn, home to the very unusual, partially self-governing community known as Freetown Christiania, where the bike company of the same name started its life.
It was a bit of a disappointment, really. Pusher Street was aptly named, lined with dodgy-looking dope dealers standing next to oil drums from which the flames of bonfires licked at the air. Pitbulls and other low-brow canines cavorted together in the gravel, looking as if their antics might turn serious at any moment. Countless hordes of hooded youths stood around, drinking beer and smoking. Are these the idealistic inhabitants of a latter day Utopia?
Most of the places where one might grab a snack or a drink were closed, too, because it’s Monday. One establishment boasted that it was the safest café on earth, because it had had endured several thousand police raids over the years.
The Sunshine Bakery was the undisputed highlight of Christiania, serving delicious takeaway pastries and cakes.
After a quick look around at some of the houses and stopping to peer through the window of the eponymously named bike shop, we left Christiania and headed back to the centre of town, stopping for a late lunch at the excellent Café Kejzer. Through its windows, I spotted a solitary bakfiets.nl CargoBike Long being ridden by.
Speaking of good food, I must mention yesterday’s lunch spot, too: Café Norden. It has a great club sandwich, plus very tasty cakes.
It seems as if the Danes simply don’t countenance bad food. It must be out there somewhere, I suppose, but everything seems to be excellent, regardless of the price category.
A good example of excellent, but cheaper food was last night’s simple dinner at Café Salonen. This tiny place was packed out by 19:00 and we were lucky to secure a table. A DJ span music while we ate, but it wasn’t loud and the atmosphere was very cosy.
Anyway, rain is forecast for tomorrow, so I’m not sure what we’ll do. A café crawl is always an appealing thought, but Eloïse might not agree. We’ll see.
Here we are in our hotel room in Copenhagen. I’m staring at the bed in the darkened room and looking forward to creeping between its sheets.
It’s been a long day. We didn’t start out on the journey anywhere close to 09:00. It was more like 10:45 before we got going. We were up and about in time; it’s just that it takes a long time to pack the car, turn off the floor heating, put thermostats on holiday mode, program the lights to come on in the house while we’re away, etc.
With surprisingly few stretches of unrestricted autobahn and several stops for lunch and the call of nature, we didn’t roll into the German ferry port of Puttgarden until around 17:30. It was very busy there, with most of the cars sporting Swedish plates. Judging by the number of such cars, the omnipresent ski-rack on top and the presence of children inside, I’d guess that Swedish schools had their half-term holiday last week and that most of these families were returning from skiing trips in Bavaria, Austria or Switzerland. Honestly, the Swedes outnumbered the Danes by about five to one.
By the time we had rolled to the front of the queue and purchased our ferry ticket, we were just in time to miss the 17:45 sailing. We were literally the first car that didn’t make it on. No matter, though; the next crossing was only half an hour away: enough time for a toilet break.
And the crossing to Rødby in Denmark was a fun one, as it provided an interesting glimpse of Scandinavian behaviour.
Although the crossing lasts only forty-five minutes, the passengers make excellent use of the time, racing around the duty-free shops to load up on fags and booze, and then scurrying to the on-board restaurants to scoff down curried sausage and chips. There were Danish pastries, too, of course, but those seemed to be less popular.
The ferry also had a children’s playing area, which Eloïse greatly appreciated. She wasn’t put off by the older children playing on it, and steamed straight in to make use of the slide.
Once we hit Danish soil, it was a straight 175 km drive through the rain and darkness to Copenhagen, where we were astonished to find that that it took no time at all to drive straight to our hotel in the centre of town. There was almost no traffic, even though it’s Saturday night. We pulled up outside at about 20:40.
A late dinner was had at Chit Chat, just around the corner from the hotel, on Sankt Peders Stræde. Pricey, but good.
The heroine of the day is Eloïse. She has been as good as gold for the entire journey. No complaints about the length of time spent strapped into her car-seat, no soiled underpants, no tantrums, no moodiness… nothing. She even behaved well at this evening’s restaurant, in spite of the lateness of the hour. What a daughter. She really made the drive an enjoyable one. Without her cooperation, it could and would have been a living hell.
Anyway, I need some sleep. I can’t wait to get outside in the morning and see what the city has to offer.
We have a long day ahead of us tomorrow.
I’m hoping to get out of here close to nine o’clock in the morning. Eight hours on the road, plus a ferry crossing, will see us travel from Amsterdam to Copenhagen, cruising along Germany’s autobahns on the way. Ah, the last haven of the legal speed freak!
This time tomorrow, we’ll be tucked up in bed in the Danish capital.
Our new bakfiets has been ordered and will be ready by the end of March. In the end, the order went to WorkCycles. The shop is up in Zeeburg, which isn’t exactly our neighbourhood, and that’s the reason we hadn’t already been there to have a look.
However, when Henry, the owner, commented on a recent blog entry of mine, it was the nudge I needed to get on the bike and head over there. I’d already been impressed with the information on his shop’s Web site and the knowledge evident from his blog, so I realised we’d actually be doing ourselves a disservice if we didn’t at least go and have a look.
Henry’s a bit of an oddball in the Dutch cycling world, as an American who lives in Amsterdam. Nevertheless, he thoroughly understands the concept of the bakfiets and appreciates even those bicycle parts that are quite uncommon in his fatherland, such as the trusty dynamo.
We’d already decided on a CargoBike Long as our next bike, so we were mostly interested in Henry’s customisations. In other words, apart from the promise of excellent service, why buy a bike from him instead of a shop closer to home?
For a start, his bikes look very distinctive. The frames are two-tone, which Henry explained is virtually dictated by practical necessity. He orders the frames pre-coated with an anti-rust layer. Once the top layer has gone on, you can’t tell his frames apart from untreated ones. Therefore, the only way he can be sure that they don’t get mixed up at the factory — resulting in his being supplied with untreated frames — is to order them in unique colour combinations. No other shop orders frames in this style.
Amongst other things, Henry fits an 8 speed internal Shimano gear hub and a riser for the MaxiCosi car-seat. This allows the child on the bench to slide its feet under the riser. The riser does get in the way of the optional second bench, but it can be removed when the child outgrows the MaxiCosi and can be tolerated for incidental use of the second bench.
Bike shops often devise their own method of securing the MaxiCosi car-seat, as there’s no perfect solution to the problem of securing the baby, whilst maximising space in the box.
The standard MaxiCosi seat brace takes up so much room in the box, that a second child can hardly fit on the rear bench, never mind a front bench. Many shops therefore reject the idea of the brace, most preferring to simply fit a seat-belt that is then fastened across the base of the car-seat. That’s fine, but then there’s nowhere for a child on a front bench to put its feet. Henry’s riser is a good solution to this problem, even if it’s still not ideal.
On the subject of bikes, I bought Eloïse a LIKEaBIKE yesterday. These are lovely, if expensive, wooden bikes from Germany with proper tyres and adjustable saddle height. She seems very happy with it and has already noticeably improved as a rider in the few hours that she’s had it.
