Judith reporting from the Nordics, today .. Denmark

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.

Maps and Places from Copenhagen by Missemai prints

 

Thank you Mia-Lousie for creating these handy and fun maps for us. Great to print and bring when we visit Copenhagen. {ps. would you like to see how Mia-Louise  lives?... click here...}

 

All images by Missemai. If you would like to uses these images for your blog or site, please be so kind and refer to this url.

Marjon reporting from Copenhagen

  

**Report by Marjon Hoogervorst

At the beginning of 2009 Maaike and I went to Copenhagen. Basicly we are only interested in shopping and eating. So you won't get any advise from me for cultural/architectural happenings! 
We started with the regular centre of the town where you have beautiful shops... First we had a delicious lunch at the very stylish Kafunky with great design, food and coffee (at the corner at Gammel Torv)(it is a little bit emty because we were early and hungry): 

I love the HAY shop when we talk about the design stores. Here you find nice design souvenirs to take home (I bought The Apehanger from OurChildrensGorilla  for my little son) and also beautiful pillows, furniture, carpets, .... And this lamp... i'm in love with it for two years now:

We walked in the area Norrebro and Vesterbro. These nice areas contains a lot of nice shops from upcoming artists and designers.

As usual we started with a smoothy and a muffin in this cafe ...

in the same street of Mayol (Blågårdsgade 5) , where I bouht my gray bag. (Everybody compliments my bag so it was a good buy!)

Istedgade is a street with great fahion shops, cozy cafes and cheap, yet good, restaurants. In the middle of the street you find Donn Ya Doll a women's clothing shop always upfront, but the many interior decoration shops of Istedgade are worth a visit as well! There I bought a really nice "dress" from FROKS ! The artists sew their clothes also in the back of the shop... 

Around the corner of the Istedgade. We drunk thea and eat very good handmade cake in this very cosey Thearoom where I don't know the name from. This is not my style, but very sweat!:

These are our shopping results we spread out on the ugly bed in our (ugly) hotelroom! On the left you see my buys were I wrote about (the gray bag from Mayol, the Apehanger and the skirt from FROKS):

This is the streetlife on sunday! Young parents park their pram in front of the cafe and go inside with their babies! Very nice!

We were there for three days and had to end our weekend on sunday with a boattrip because we didn't see anyting about the Christianshavn... 

During the boattrip we saw beautiful houses built on boats... like these: (I want to look inside!!!! ;)

And a few pic's from the Nyhavn where we went for a lunch befor we take or plane back...

..Marjon Hoogervorst

Sidsel reporting from Aarhus in Denmark

"First of all I would like to thank Irene for inviting me to take part in her project here at Bloesem.
Bloesem has been one of my favorite blogs since the beginning – and I appreciate this opportunity to share my local favorites with Bloesems´ readers.

I live in Aarhus, Denmark's second largest city, with a population of 300.000 inhabitants.
It´s one of the oldest cities in Scandinavia, but today one of the ”youngest” due to the averange age of the inhabitants - at the University of Aarhus alone there are nearly 35,000 students, and there is a total of 25 educational and research institutions in the city. What I enjoy most about living here is it´s location by the sea and forest and it´s cozy city center. It´s a city which has a lot to offer - and if you were my guest here in Århus I would make sure to share the following 2 things with you.

LYNfabrikken (the lightning factory)...best stop in Aarhus is LYNfabrikken and the first places that popped up when I had to choose a special place here in Aarhus. Because LYNfabrikken combines a lot of good things – like a clever concept, an organic café, a roof terrace with a view – creative people and a shop that displays and sells great products. It´s also a spot you will not easily find as a tourist – since situated in an old industry building - but it´s one of those little gems you would love to stumble upon when visiting Aarhus. In 2002 the building was converted  into design studios and the attic became a café with a shop. The studios are now working spaces for 32 creative people of diverse fields of work: Architecture, industrial design, furniture, writers, graphics and interactive design.

The café and shop was build around the idea that a kitchen is not only a place for eating and drinking - but a meeting point for exchanging news, discussing and talking about all sorts of things.To transform this “kitchen situation” and make it public was one of the basic ideas
for the foundation of the platform LYNfabrikken. A place for casual exchange
for designers - a place that encourages creative communication and networking within the design scene. And they have managed just that + the food is good, the design magazines are plenty, the internet is free and so on. And in the shop you will find some of my favorite young danish designers/ceramicists  like Joan Hoegh, Helbak, Tanja Moeller Jensen, Louise Kragh – so by picking Lynfabrikken I also had the chance to sneak in a few more names. I´ll leave you now on their roof terrace and recommend that you go for a walk in the forest afterwards – or go shopping in my hood the ” Latin Quarter” or have a look inside the Cathedral of Aarhus. Thanks for the visit – hope to see you again!"

* * *Spagat blog
* * *Spagat website

{original posting date 05/27/2008}