Copenhagen at Walking Pace, Which Is Slow

In a city of bicycles, the only rebellion left is walking.

Everyone in Copenhagen cycles. I cycle. My grandmother cycles, and she is ninety-one. So on a bright Saturday in May I did the most radical thing a Copenhagener can do: I left the bike at home and walked, very slowly, through my own city. Breakfast was a cardamom bun at Bageri Kardemomme on Jægersborggade, still warm, and coffee on the bench outside watching a thousand bicycles rush past like a river I was refusing to swim in.

Then Assistens Kirkegård, the cemetery that is also a park, where Hans Christian Andersen is buried and locals sunbathe between the graves without any sense of irony. Over Dronning Louises Bro, the bridge where young people sit on the edge on summer evenings, and along the lakes, where swans were judging the joggers.

Lunch was smørrebrød at Frokoststuen Pølse & Rug near Kongens Have: rye bread with pickled herring, egg, and a glass of cold schnapps, because it was Saturday and my grandmother wasn't watching. Then I lay on the grass of the King's Garden in front of Rosenborg Castle and slept for half an hour.

In the evening I walked to Nyhavn, which I usually avoid, sat on the canal edge with a beer and the tourists, and watched the coloured houses turn gold. It was beautiful. Don't tell anyone I said so.

Lived May 17, 2025.