Tuesday, 14 June 2011 by Irene Hoofs

This report is written by Judith de Graaff from Joelix and all images are by Judith.

During the month of may, my husband and I travelled through Denmark, Sweden, and Norway for 3 weeks. We had a wonderful stay in the Nordics including reindeer, elks, tasty kanelbullar & Danish pastries, fjords, supercute red Swedish cottages, Legoland, great weather, excellent design shops and so much more. In this report I will take you along with me to the 3 Scandinavian capitals: Copenhagen, Stockholm, and Oslo.

But our first stop will be Odense on the island of Fyn in Denmark. Odense is a small city which is mostly known for the Hans Christian Anders hus, where the famous fairytale writer was born. It has now been turned into a museum. Of course we also visited Brandts, the Art Center which houses the Kunsthallen, Denmarks Mediamuseum, and the Photography Museum. After the visit we had coffee at Cafe Biografen at Brandts, which also houses a cult cinema.

In the city center you'll mostly find big chain stores. The store of the Grene Sisters (Vestergade 25) is no exception to that (you'll find many of their shops throughout Scandinavia) but it's still a cute and inexpensive shop for tiny decoration goodies, candles, storage boxes, notebooks and so much more. Definitely worth a visit.

Copenhagen is a great city for shopping. It's home of some of the best shops we've seen in 3 weeks. Vintage (genbrug) shopping is big too, there are a lot of second hand shops and fleamarkets everywhere. We were lucky to find a Fog & Mørup lamp for 50DKK (10USD) on a flea market in Nørrebro, near the apartment we rented through AirBnB.

One of my favorite shops in Copenhagen were Liebe (Kompagnistræde 23) and Stilleben (Læderstræde 14). Both shops carry contemporary handmade table wear, vases, door knobs, stationary and so much more. The styling of the Liebe shop is really amazing. You will absolutely find the perfect gift for a newborn baby in here. Susan Liebe really amazed me.

Other shops that I liked were &pagne (Hyskenstræde 7) and Another Nué (Krystalgade 3, near Henrik Vibskov and Wood Wood) for their great selection of women's wear with brands like Yvonne Koné (bags!), Nué Notes, and Wackerhaus.

Like in all the Nordic countries, the coffeehouse culture is really well developed. You can meet up with friends or family to spend some time together while tasting some Danish pastries and cookies. It's called fika. Most coffeehouses are very child friendly too. One of the best we visited was in Vesterbro, at the end of the Vesterbrogade (coming from the Central Station).

Thank you Judith! Please visit Judith's website Joelix to learn more about her, her work and Studio Sapique.