One of the first really Danish foods I fell in love with was flæskesteg. Flæskesteg translates simply to pork roast, so there isn't anything particularly crazy about it, but the Danes leave the skin on the cut so you get an incredibly yummy, crispy pork rind with every slice. I like pig, and I like crispy pig. Sold! Anyway, it isn't surprising that it was one of the first Danish meals I wanted to learn to cook. I cracked open my Claus Meyer Almanak cookbook to see what he had for me and he had yummy yumminess awaiting. (By the way, he is like the Danish food god and Almanak is one of the Danish food bibles.) I made Sommerflæskesteg med nye kartofler (Summer pork roast with new potatoes) and it really was great. It is a classic flæskesteg, but stuffed with herbs and lemon. Read more about Sommerflæskesteg (Summer Pork Roast)

Now that we have a sense of the layout of Copenhagen and how to get here to start with, I want to get into moving about the city. I already talked a bit about the metro and regional train from the airport, but I'll dive a bit deeper now, as well as cover a few other ways to move about, namely buses, boats and bikes.

For assistance with figuring out what transport to use to get somewhere, you can use the handy travel planner service Rejseplanen. At the bottom of that site, you can click on either English or German. I use this site extensively to help me sort out how to get form point A to point B, especially if there are buses involved. Read more about Getting around Copenhagen

There are quite a few ways to get to Denmark. There are the typical airplane and train methods, as well as a ferry or two, which isn't surprising for a country with so much shoreline. Most everyone arrives in Denmark through Copenhagen, so I'm focusing there, though it is possible to arrive through other ports of entry.

Flying

The Copenhagen Airport, Københavns Lufthavne, is a European hub and is the main hub airport in Scandinavia. It is located in Kastrup, on the island of Amager, just to the south of downtown Copenhagen. It is quite close to the city and has frequent, direct, and fast (15 minutes) connections into the city on both metro and train. There are three terminals which are all connected, so if you end up not where you need to be, you may have a little hike, but you can walk all the way through to the one you need. The metro and trains to the city (and Malmö, Sweden) are in terminal 3. My next post will dive into getting from the airport to the city center. Read more about Arriving in Denmark

Before I start blogging a lot about where to stay, what to do, etc., you need a little orientation to the neighborhoods of Copenhagen. There are a lot of travel guides out there which explain different aspects of the various areas of the city, but I like to have a clear map of where things are. I just generally love maps actually. There are a fair number of official districts (bydele) in the city, like many cities, but postal codes are grouped into a smaller list of areas for addresses. I'll start with these areas since that is a simpler breakdown and when you look at an address for a place, you'll at least have a rough idea of where it is located. Read more about The 'hoods of Copenhagen