toilet trouble designer style in Copenhagen

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If you can get the measure of a place by its toilets then Copenhagen is probably the best city in the world, if comfortable ablutions are your thing. There is, from what I can tell, no such thing as a bog standard bog in Copenhagen. Which is good, because so far the Danish love of pickling everything in sight has meant that I've spent a disproportionate amount of time in them. You can visit the Dansk Design Musuem all you like but you only have to visit 'det lille room' to see that the Danes take their design seriously. Everything, down to the quality of the toilet paper has been pondered and hand picked. What I like most about them is that they tend to be a whole room, floor to ceiling. Nothing like their British counterparts, that favour the highly impersonal saloon style doors that a) promote stage fright and b) on succesful visits, allows everyone in the wash room to enjoy the assorted parps and grunts that float over the top of the door.

But enough of that. We (my husband Steve and I) arrived yesterday for a two night quickie without the kids and we're having an absolute ball. We hadn't eaten by the time we arrived so first stop was the cosy setting of Det Lille Apotek (the little pharmacy) which claims to be the oldest restaurant in Copenhagen. Here was our first encounter of the pickled herring phenomenon. They had been marinated, sweet and soured, curried - you name it. Very nice it was too, and our Greek waiter was very helpful when it came to tutoring us in the language, asking us if we had taken Danish lessons before coming, which clearly, we hadn't. It was cosy and old fashioned, and our window seat gave us a spectacular view of everyone's ankles on the street outside.

Our phrasebook turns out to be a bit crap. It's all very well and good breaking phrases down into phonetics but when they don't make an iota of sense then it all starts to fall apart. Even trying to order a coffee was tricky. I asked a friendly looking bloke behind us how to ask for our drinks and he just smiled and said he was Swedish. He said, "round here, they speak with a hot potato in their throats", as if to explain why we were having such trouble.

One thing we have seen that has captured my imagination are the famous bike barrows. They're basically a box strapped to the front of your bike, into which you plonk your kids as and when you want to cruise around the city. Miles safer that the trailers that float around behind you in the traffic in the UK. These marvellows contraptions originated in Christiania, although there are makes and models that haven't, but all, I'm reliably informed, cost a small fortune. bloody great though. One chap appeared to have gone the full hog and had his barrow adapted to cart his aged, wheelchair bound mother, and labrador, about they place. She didn't seem to mind.

But getting back to the details, maybe I don't get out enough but I've never been anywhere else that felt it should build a shrine to the humble shaver, hoover, lampshades, and countless other household items in the form of the Design Museum. Copenhageners, perhaps the Danes in general, are devoted to finding ways of making the mundane more interesting. The people are cool, achingly hip and, most unusually for a trendy city, disarmingly affable. Love it.

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Photos

danish lav
if they will go and pickle everything....

Zoe and Steve
....on the obligatory boat trip.