72 Hours in Copenhagen

I so love this place, I said. I really think I could live here.

'You can't judge a place by how it shows itself in the summer. You must visit it in the midst of winter to really understand whether or not you would want to live there'.

I have been traveling with different eyes lately. The eyes of someone who doesn't simply visit a place, but who is at the same time evaluating the elements of a life in that place. What does it feel to live here, I was thinking while walking through the neighborhoods of Copenhagen – along its lush parks and pedestrian streets. What does it feel to be able to bike everywhere, not having to take a crowded train to work, and living this lifestyle which seems so laid back, relaxed and human?

We left London on a rainy, misty day at the end of May and landed in a place where the sun didn't seem to ever go away. Days were long and warm, and we were pushed to the edge of our energies, eager to suck it all in, to see it all, to breathe the fresh air of a city where bikes outnumber cars and buses, where the breeze from the harbour clears the sky and allows the sun to shine bright, as high up as I had never seen before.

We have been lucky, they told us. It isn't always like that in Copenhagen, they said. Winters are long, and dark and harsh and demand a great leap of faith – the certitude that daylight will abound once again, sometime soon- to get through them. We were oblivious of all that for a while – everything was too bright and beautiful and warm and so very colourful in comparison to what we had left behind to picture such times would ever come. Only after a couple of days were we brought back to reality during a lunch at The Nordic Food Lab. We were, funnily enough, talking about the weather, praising the glorious days we had been gifted with, when one of the visiting interns said something that, for simple that is was, stuck with me since. 'This is just like any other day in LA'.

These thoughts, see, these glimpses would never even occurred to me if I was simply visiting Copenhagen, if I wasn't rather considering moving there. Would I be able to take it – the dark, the long winters, the cold, the expensive citrus? Would it be much different from London in that aspect? Would I trade a life in a place that is warm and summery and where I would feel like a living human being for most of the year for a life somewhere beautiful, slow-paced, functioning, yet so expensive and just, simply put, so Nordic?

 

The first impression I had of Copenhagen was that it looks a lot like the California you get to know through media – and the fair weather helped to complete the picture. Everybody is blond – I could have easily titled this post '50 shades of blond' – beautiful, tall, fairly fit, and surprisingly enough, lightly tanned. Every young couple seem to have at least one child, who is carried around in a bin-like attachment in the front of bikes. Everybody bikes in this town of over one million, which seems to reduce stress and crankiness, together with pollution, and is definitely facilitated by the presence of bike paths in both directions in every single road. Bikes have priority over cars. There are bike rush hours, they told us, and when it snows bike paths get cleaned before roads and sidewalks. I was in owe in front of such demonstration of civilisation, coming from a country where bike paths are a mirage and take decades to build, and living in another where bikers risk their lives among cars, buses, taxis and enjoy a good deal of fumes while at it. 

The pace of life is, of course, so dramatically different from the hectic rhythm of London – no one seems in a hurry, no one tries to take over you, I have never felt rushed by someone behind me or in someones trajectory. The only similarity I found with London – it must be a common thing among sun-deprived populations – is the eagerness for the outdoors. As soon as the sun is out, everybody is out, hanging out at the park with beer, eating their lunch along the canal, laying on the grass after work or school and enjoying those remaining four hours of sunshine.

A Venetian Crema with Almonds to Celebrate Two Years of Italian Table Talk

If I had to pick a sweet I am particularly fond of – and I am not fond of any sweets in particular – I would go for something creamy. Pannacotta, gelato, zabaione. Something where the the airy texture can make up for the sweet punch. 

It must be in my genes. The women in my family have never been great pastry chefs, yet they could always crack a good pudding. My mum's mum, for example, was known for making the best zuppa inglese in town, with layers of chocolate and marsala cream between cookies drunk with alchermès. My mum for her part, although she has never been the most keen baker, managed to pick up her mum's crema-making skills. So, whenever there is an occasion requiring un dolce – something sweet – she would usually skip the baking altogether, and go for what she was well-known for in our family: tiramisù. Such occasions were usually birthdays and the random ferragosto dinner, which, being on 15th August, automatically called for a chilled dessert. 

This is how my brother and I grew up – with tiramisù as a birthday cake, and the rich, palate-coating sweetness of crema al mascarpone mingled with the bitter accents of unsweetened cocoa and coffee; and with the idea of cake being so soft that it could be tackled with a spoon. Year after year, twice a year at least, our fridge has been dominated by the comforting presence of a large glass pan with a dark, powdery top barely able to cover the overflowing pale yellow cream.