New Year's Eve in Copenhagen
Spending New Year's Eve in a European capital can be a great way to reconcile days of forced holidays, the desire to do something out of the ordinary and spend the first night of the year in a new place to visit a city where you have never been.
We, this year, toasted to the new year in cold Copenhagen.
The Danish capital, on the occasion of New Year's Eve, is a swarm of people who walk through the cold city streets and take refuge now in a cafe, now in a charming design shop. The risk of finding shops and businesses closed during the holidays is always high, and of course on January 1 even the bustling Copenhagen is a silent set of empty alleys, lowered shutters and dormant restaurants.
Take advantage of the last day of December, so, to make some purchases, such as a design accessory for your home, or an accessory for your winter clothing, buy a local cookbook, or one of the beautiful watches made in Denmark, and enjoy the festive atmosphere of the hundreds of people who crowd the streets of downtown waiting for the evening of festivities.
For the first part of the evening we chose to immerse ourselves in the fairytale world of the Tivoli Gardens, an amusement park that for the winter turns into a (artificial) snowy Christmas world, with lots of markets, decorated trees and rides invaded by a thousand lights.
Despite the crowd, it is a pleasant place to spend a few hours browsing the kiosks, tasting some street food and watching the daredevils who with -8 degrees have the courage to hurtle on the roller coaster.
We do not recommend that you dine in any of the restaurants, mostly fast food, in the park, but rather take advantage of some kiosk of crepes or caramelized almonds. The Food Hall is the place that offers the most inviting choice, provided that on an evening like this, you can find a place at the counters of the theme bars.
In the fairytale world of Tivoli, however, there is a hidden drawback. All the bars and restaurants in the park, in fact, close their doors at 23, to allow the organization of fireworks, and let people out before midnight. This makes it necessary to spend an entire hour, until the New Year's Eve, out in the cold, waiting for the fireworks display. Flu assured, if you do not have with you a blanket under which to shelter sitting on a bench.
If you bravely choose to face this long hour of cold to wait until midnight, take the opportunity to look for the best place to watch the fireworks before the crowd begins to gather. Our advice is to take a seat around the lake, in the park area between the local Viften and Færgekroens Brewery, where you will enjoy a beautiful view of the mirror of water reflecting the fires and the festively lit Chinese pagoda.
At midnight and thirty, after the wonderful fireworks display, and a further half hour of freezing, the park closes, and then you can go and warm up in a room to toast to the new year.
The city is invaded by fireworks, organized and amateur, and in every street an uncontainable crowd lits all sorts of firecrackers to celebrate the New Year. Don't worry about safety regulations, because there aren't any! The police close the streets of the center to traffic and only monitors that there are no dangerous clashes, while the boys light the fuse of a thousand fireworks that could graze every passerby in the streets.
We wisely avoided the crowd that invades the main square, the Rådhusplads, which seemed to us the least safe place to enjoy the evening and the uncontrolled fireworks. These, on the other hand, are thrown from every corner of the city, for hours and hours, until 3 am, without interruption, and are worthy of observation.
If you really want to enjoy this unique spectacle, without sacrificing security, you will find a privileged observation point, above the roofs of the historic center: we chose the Roof Bar of the Citizen M hotel (where we also stayed), overlooking exactly the square of the City Hall, and equipped with a panoramic terrace from which we watched the fireworks that set fire to the entire sky of Copenhagen, up to the horizon. An exceptional spectacle, despite some uncontrolled fireworks that occasionally touched the terrace of the hotel.
The bar is completely glazed, and you can sip a drink watching the show to toast to the New Year.
