Tim and Gem's Honeymoon Adventure: Now we understand why everyone loves Scandinavia November 25

So somehow I forgot to write about our week in Copenhagen and Stockholm, probably because we had such a good time while we were there, so here it is in brief.

We flew from Slovenia to Copenhagen, and were immediately impressed by Denmark’s cleanliness, efficiency and their impeccable English (which is easily better then mine).

We had no trouble finding our hostel, but it was was dark by the time we arrived so we decided to take it easy and find some dinner.

The following day we were up early and embarked on a five-hour walking tour of the city that was very interesting and gave us a good insight to the cities history. We saw some of the famous landmarks and were told some amazing stories. Here are a few interesting facts that we discovered:

· Danish people are known as the happiest in the world, (no surprise). They pay high taxes, but in turn they have amazing health care, free education and great benefits. Not to mention the city itself is beautiful.
· Scandinavians are beautiful. One of the theories is that when the Vikings travelled to other countries and stormed the towns, they would steel the prettiest girls and makes them their slaves (in more than one way). Eventually resulting in Scandinavian’s all being beautiful people.
· After months of crappy coffees, I was stoked to see a flat white on the menu, and with a $7 price tag I was relived that it was one of the best coffee’s I have ever tasted.
· The Queen (who we saw leaving her palace in a black Bentley) is awesome! She speaks 5 languages fluently, translated all three volumes of the Lord of the Rings books from English to Danish, loves a drink and a smoke (rumored to smoke 60 cigarettes a day) and is renown for her potty mouth.
· The Danish really DO love Princess Mary. Apparently she learned Danish within three months of moving there.
· Copenhagen has suffered multiple destructive fires over its long history. As a result most of the buildings are relatively new, with many of the buildings burnt and rebuilt several times. For some reason until recently they kept building them with wood.
· Denmark is home to Europe’s most disappointing tourist attraction, the Little Mermaid. This very underwhelming statue is very small but to be fair it is the ‘little’ mermaid, so a large monument wouldn’t make much sense.

It was a great tour, and I could keep going on and on.

We wanted to visit Christiana one day, which is known for its liberal ways and the semi legal views on marijuana. It sounded like the Nimbin of Denmark. Unfortunately, the day we planned to go it was pelting down with rain so decided against it.

Our final day in Copenhagen was grey and gloomy day, but not letting this dampen our spirits we decided to head to the Christmas markets at Tivoli, which are were by far the most impressive we have ever seen. Like everything in Scandinavia, it wasn’t cheap with a $30 entry per person (entry alone). But it was worth it. The markets were more like an amusement park with stalls, rides and shops lining the festive themed streets of Tivoli. Apparently Walt Disney visited Tivoli when he was younger and it helped inspire Disneyland’s design.

We spent hours walking around, looking in the shops, admiring the handicrafts, enjoyed some glogg (Scandinavian mulled wine) and ate a delicious pulled pork roll (another thing they do very well) and said hello to a few of Santa’s reindeers. Gemma was in awe at three strollers containing 16 Danish babies - 4 in each stroller, which I must agree was pretty cute.

After a big day of exploring Tivoli it was nice to get back to the hostel for a few Tuborg Christmas beers and an early night ready for the train ride to Stockholm the next day.

Our train was one time (no surprise) and we were on the super fast train to Stockholm. Big comfy chairs and quiet trains made the journey fly by, and in no time we were in Sweden.

We arrived at about 3pm and of course it was dark and felt like 8pm! But with our hostel only a short walk from the station we were shortly settled in. We spent the rest of the afternoon strolling the streets and having a look in some of the shops and stopped off for some dinner in a nearby café.

Day two we ventured to the old town, which is a little island a 15 minute walk from our hostel. The old town was beautiful with a maze of cobblestone streets filled with cafes and shops, and not to mention a few hundred tourists as well. We spent the whole day walking around and taking in the beautiful city. It was a city I fell in love with and could easily live in.

Day three we headed over to Skansen on Museum Island, which is like olden day Sweden. On weekends it hosts a beautiful Christmas market (thankfully we were there on the right day!) We walked around looking at all the stalls, scoping out all the tasty treats and finally getting my first glimpse of a real moose in the flesh! As well as the moose, we saw reindeer, seals, lynx, bear and a huge half-ton Bison! Once the sun disappeared the temperature plummeted and we became walking popsicles, so we decided to call it a day.

That night we caught up with a few Swedes I met in Koh Tao a couple of years ago. We went to a restaurant called Garlic and Shots, and as the name suggests it serves everything with garlic (including garlic beer and vodka). It was a great night catching up with the girls and having a few laughs and consuming more then a years worth of garlic.

Our last day we did some shopping, drank some more amazing coffee, wandering around the streets and then got ourselves back to the train station, ready for our 17-hour train ride north to a little town called Abisko in the Artic Circle.