For Thanksgiving, our good friends Bill and Melissa invited us to join them on their road trip through Denmark! Our normal travel schedule allows us just enough time to explore the city but we hardly ever have the opportunity to get outside and see more of the country. Fortunately, with some time off for the holidays combined with Melissa’s awesome trip planning, we were able to see a lot of Denmark!

Cole and I flew out Wednesday afternoon and after a short flight, we arrived in Copenhagen right as the sun was setting (at 4pm!!). We dropped off our bags at our hotel and decided to venture to Malmo, Sweden – which is only a short train ride away from Copenhagen. One of Cole’s coworkers grew up in Malmo and gave us some great recommendations of places to check out. Following his advice, we had dinner at a delicious restaurant in the beautiful Lilia Torg square. After dinner, we stopped into Pronto Cafe for some of their locally famous cheesecake. We then walked around the town and although it was dark and quiet since it was a weekday, we really enjoyed exploring the city.

The following morning we got an early start on our road trip and headed to Roskilde, this lovely small town west of Copenhagen. We checked out the Viking Ship Museum – immersing ourselves by thoroughly enjoying the museum gift shop first and then properly checking out the museum. Afterwards we wandered into the town center and stopped into the Cathedral, a UNESCO World Heritage site and where over 40 Danish Kings and Queens are buried! We rounded out our stop in Roskilde by grabbing lunch at a delicious bakery. We then continued our drive throughout the country and stopped in a few other quaint towns like Soro and checked out an old Viking fortress.

We ended our first day of the road trip in Odense, the middle child of Denmark. During the ride, we read that the city was going through a revitalisation and unfortunately we saw that for ourselves as almost half the town was under construction. However, that didn’t stop us from having a great time and celebrating Thanksgiving Danish style. We stopped by Hans Christian Anderson’s house, the famous story writer, and then grabbed drinks before deciding it was time for a Thanksgiving feast. We had passed this charming restaurant earlier on our walk into town and the boys convinced the host to squeeze us in for reservations later in the evening. Starving, we arrived at the restaurant ready for a nice dinner but were shocked when the waiter explained the menu – which consisted of TWO items – a charcuterie board or chicken thighs. We immediately hightailed it out of there and headed to a different restaurant, where we attempted to beg the server (again) to squeeze us in. They would only seat us if we split up so we decided to leave and settled on eating our Thanksgiving meal at Burger Anarchy. Burger Anarchy did not disappoint and I had one of the best burgers of my life (easily top 5). After dinner, we facetimed with some family to wish everyone back home a wonderful Thanksgiving before crashing for the night.

Unfortunately, the beautiful weather we had the previous day did not continue for our second day of our road trip. The fog was so think that you could barely see what was right  in front of your face. We left Odense and headed to our first destination of the day, Egeskov Castle. Just as we were about to get to the castle, we passed by the beautiful Egeskov windmill and decided to check it out. There were a group of people setting up for a Christmas market the following day. One gentleman in particular welcomed us with open arms and gave us a 30 minute tour of the windmill, taking us all the way to the top of the mill so we could see how the whole process of how wheat is ground to make flour. It was so cool to see the inner workings of a windmill after seeing so many throughout the Dutch and Danish countryside. We continued on our way to the castle but realised as we were the only car in the massive parking lot, that it was closed for the “winter season” (something we would hear a lot of this day), but we were able to snag a few cool photos.

We stopped for lunch at Jette’s Diner in Svendborg, a quaint seaside town, before heading over to the ferry where we would travel to Lolland, the fourth largest Danish island. After a short boat ride playing some cards, we hopped back in the car and headed to our next pit stop, the Medieval center. Unfortunately, they were also closed for the season, so we decided to not make any more stops and just head straight to the final destination of the day, Stege. Stege is this charming town on the island of Mon and not far from the famous Mons Klint, beautiful white cliffs along the Baltic Sea. We checked into our adorable Airbnb and headed into town to check out the brewery we read about online, Bryghuset Mon. We had a delicious dinner at the brewery and enjoyed all their locally crafted beers which were awesome. We then made our way over to the only bar in town before calling it a night.

On our final day in Denmark, we got up early to watch the sunrise over Mons Klint. Our timing was impeccable as we were fortunate enough to see not just one rainbow, but a double rainbow over the cliffs. After Melissa’s soul was bursting from this natural phenomenon, we headed into town to grab a quick breakfast before driving north to Copenhagen. We spent the day wandering around Copenhagen, enjoying the Christmas markets, snapping a quick photo of the famous little mermaid statue, walking along the water and painted houses of Nyhavn, and quickly checking out Freetown Christiania. We then grabbed beers at this awesome church bar and some snazzy cocktails before enjoying a delicious dinner at a fabulous restaurant Bill picked out. We then ended the evening and our trip by spending a few hours at Tivoli Gardens, a huge amusement park located in downtown Copenhagen. The park goes all out with its Christmas decorations and lights and its beautiful! We walked around enjoying some gluhwein, riding a rollercoaster and viewing all the lights.

We had such an amazing time exploring Denmark with Melissa & Bill and were so glad we could join them. Look forward to crashing some more of their future vacations 😉