Happy Danes?

The Danes are apparently amongst the happiest people on the planet. In Copenhagen a few weeks ago, I decided to find out if all the hype about hygge and happiness was for real, or for tourists.

I love the customer service feedback buttons that are cropping up in places now. Even solemn-faced passport control offers you an ironic scale of smiley-happiness to grade your bag search experience that day.

I live in fear that these buttons may one day find themselves into our homes, giving couples and families a way to make a point digitally when something hasn't been done to a required standard.

Seeing the buttons at Copenhagen airport, I felt almost obliged to plump for the super-smiley one, having arrived in one of the happiest places on the planet, full of expectation.

Happy?

I wasn’t overwhelmed with happy people by any stretch. The first really happy person I met was a Spaniard - a barman in the hotel. Another happy contender was an Indian taxi driver who frantically took us “through the palace” 007 style, whilst joking that he’d better not get too close to the armed guards on account of his ethnicity. 

But no Danes. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t find them unhappy - just not overflowing with joy. Oh, and there was the incident with the cyclist who didn’t take kindly to my daughter stopping in a bike lane and swore at a her loudly in both Danish and English. I must admit I was impressed at her ability with instantaneous translation under pressure. 

We crossed the border to Sweden, traversing the bridge made famous by the detective series of the same name. The Swedes were pretty genial, probably more so than the Danes, leading me to wonder if Hygge - Danish connection of happiness based on candles cakes and soft furnishings - was either just for tourists or exclusively for use in the Danish home and not in public.

Famously Danish 

What springs to mind when you think of Danish produce? For me it was Danish pastries, Danish bacon and Danish butter. In four days and extensive travels I saw very little bacon or butter and the only Danish pastries my fiancée managed to seek out were covered in tomato and cheese and more closely resembled a pizza than a pastry.  All of which made for an interesting breakfast.

The mystery was solved by the Indian taxi driver who told us the story in a satirical but highly intelligent narrative that only the best taxi drivers have. The bottom line was that they send all the bacon, butter and pastries abroad. Apparently, there are some fantastic bakeries in the city but I didn't see any. We were probably trying to avoid near death experiences on Copenhagen's famous cycle paths.

How do you turn left?

I was OK cycling in a straight line through the middle of the city, leading the way for my family. But as soon as we had to turn left across a number of busy lanes, I was clueless - feeling like a sort of incompetent Pied Piper. A dismount and Google search prompted evidence that "the Copenhagen left turn for cyclists" is a very popular search and, by all accounts, quite hair-raising. I wasn't surprised.

The left turn problems were exacerbated by my hired bike. After being thrown clear of the saddle twice, I reached, again for Google. Passers-by may have wondered why a man lying in the side of the road with bike on top of him was surfing the web.

It turned out that I had a coaster bike not a freewheel hub bike. This basically means that when you freewheel and turn the pedal backwards slightly, a sharp brake is activated. How kind of the bike shop guys not to mention that. Perhaps it gives them some sort of sadistic happiness to imagine foolish Brits taking a tumble. I knew we shouldn't have left the EU - they're all ganging up on us now.

But seriously

Copenhagen is a great city to visit. From the charming waterside Nyhaven cafes and bars to the treasure-laden Rosenborg Castle there is much to tempt the visitor. A visit to Tivoli gardens - the oldest funfair in the world is a must. Apparently, it is was the inspiration for Disney World. Or so the Danes say, anyway. But perhaps they made that up, along with the whole happiness thing. 

A nation of storytellers, I wonder? Well, the most famous storyteller of them all, Hans Christian Andersen was himself a Dane. 

I rest my case.