Our main goal for Copenhagen day 3 was to take the train to Sweden for some genuine Swedish meatballs! On the walk from our hotel to the train station we stopped at The King's New Square, a "relatively" new square, built in 1907. Below is the Equestrian statue of Christian V which sits in the King's New Square.
On the way to the train station we also stopped by the City Hall Square to take a picture of Tivoli Gardens, a 19th century amusement park with antique roller coasters. We never did get a chance to visit inside as everytime we were in the area it was very busy. The square also contains a statue of Hans Christian Andersen but unfortunately the light wasn't very good to take a picture of that statue.
Taking a 40 minute train ride across The Sound which separates Denmark from Sweden, we arrived in Malmo! If you search for "best swedish meatballs in Sweden" you'll probably find this article in the search results: "The Best Swedish Meatballs and Where to Get them.". The article says three cities have the best Swedish meatballs, Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmo. The recommendation for Malmo is to go to the Bullen restaurant, which is "known to serve the city’s tastiest köttbullar," Swedish for meatballs. When we arrived at the restaurant a bit before it opened there was already a line of people waiting to get in, all of them locals. We felt lucky to get seated right away, especially since shortly after we arrived small tour groups began to show up.
The seating was rather tight and we ended up seated between two taciturn locals. It seems that
Swedish people are a bit shy and need time to warm up to you. The linked article also mentions that it helps if you are drinking beer together. Luckily this restaurant also had some excellent beer which both I and the gentleman sitting next to us ordered. I broke the ice by asking which beer he might recommend. We actually ended up talking quite a bit with him. He told us how he lived nearby and came almost every day for lunch, usually getting the daily special. The daily special that day was roasted chicken which looked very tasty and was reasonably priced.
The waiter also instructed us on the proper way to eat Swedish meatballs. As you can see in the picture above the meal came with potatoes, toast and lingonberries, though the lingonberries are optional. All in all, we had very high expectations for the day and Bullen, and their other guests, exceeded those expectations!
Our Swedish Meatball craving satisfied, we took the train back to Copenhagen and walked to the Rundetaarn or Round Tower. This 17th century tower (round of course) has a spiral ramp to get to the top instead of stairs. This no doubt made it much easier to transport the telescope shown in the picture below to the top of the tower. The tower was built by King Christian IV in the early 1600's in memory of astronomer Tycho Brahe, who was one of the last major astronomers to perform his work before the invention of the telescope.
After the Round Tower we returned to Nyhavn (New Harbor) to take pictures of the colorful buildings that line Nyhavn. Click the picture below to see more pictures of Nyhavn, including a panoramic view of the harbor and its buildings.
At the end of Nyhavn is the Inderhavnsbroen, a bridge built just for pedestrians and bicycles, mostly bicycles. If you look closely at the pictures you'll see a lot of people sitting on the waters edge on the other side of the bridge enjoying the sunny weather. That area attracts a lot of young people on Friday afternoons and weekends when there is a food court with a variety of food and beers.
Click this link or one of the pictures above to see more pictures in the Copenhagen Day 3 photo album.
