8 days in scandinavia

At the end of the summer of 2026, we spent eight days traveling through Copenhagen, Denmark; Stockholm, Sweden; and Bergen, Norway, and had a great time. We also booked the whole thing at the last minute — I’m talking two weeks before we left — with the tours booked a few days later and most of the restaurants chosen the day of. [We joke that we’re probably your most Type B friends.] It all worked out, and we rarely felt like we’d missed a thing, so naturally, no lessons will be learned for next time.

Copenhagen | Stockholm | Bergen

Day 1: Arrived in Copenhagen 🇩🇰

• We arrived in Copenhagen early in the morning and checked into our hotel, Fairfield by Marriott Copenhagen Nordhavn, which we’d booked for the night before so we could rest as soon as we arrived. The hotel was cute and new, but not totally central. It was chosen because it had last-minute availability and also because we use accrued credit card points to pay.
• But first, pastries from nearby Andersen & Maillard: Our first of many cardamom buns of the trip, a perfect roll thickly spread with salted butter, and a gorgeous chocolate croissant. Excellent coffee, of course. It’s Copenhagen!
• After a nap, we got the kids out of bed with promise of ice cream at Isoteket, which was phenomenal. I haven’t stopped thinking about the non-dairy strawberry since and the chocolate was excellent too.
• Walked around Nyhavn and along the waterfront and took the light rail (Letbane) when we got tired.
• Hot dogs at John’s Hotdog Deli (a stand across from Tivoli).
• Tivoli Gardens is obviously unmissable, gorgeous and fun for everyone. We’d aimed for dusk, as we had read that the park is prettiest then. The kids were pretty tired so we were just there for a couple hours. [I bought admission tickets without rides as I didn’t know how many the jetlagged kids wanted to go on and presumed, correctly, we’d pay less if we just bought per ride. However, just a small irritation: neither the Tivoli website nor app would save credit card information or let you use a card in your phone’s wallet so I was hand-typing my card every single time my kids wanted to take a ride, and felt my mind unraveling a bit more each time. Maybe it will be better by the time you go?]
• Late dinner at Barr, a gastropub with upscale classics. The food was excellent but even in the casual bar room, it was pretty fancy with high price points, hardly uncommon in Copenhagen. [I hadn’t realized this was a Redzepi partner restaurant before we went, sigh.]

Day 2: Copenhagen 🇩🇰

• Swore to ourselves we’d get up early to beat the line at JUNO the bakery; overslept instead and yes, the line was long. We got warm, excellent cardamom buns, delivered back to our sleeping children, plus some of their housemade Danish butter cookies to bring as gifts. (They even have tins! Which you can later use for sewing supplies, as per generational tradition.)
• Bought the most perfect tiny strawberries on the street.
• Walked around Rosenborg Castle and King’s Garden.
• Lunch at Aamanns 1921: I’d checked Reddit for recommendations for classic smørrebrød [“smuhr-broht”] in Copenhagen and this came up. It was a gorgeous restaurant, the meal was excellent but, as was becoming a theme, quite fancy.
• Stromma Classic Canal Tour We’ve learned that the kids love a canal tour on trips — sneaky learning that doesn’t require listening to mom and dad! — and chose this inexpensive, one-hour tour for the afternoon. It was raining (they provided disposable ponchos) and I thought my grumpy kids would throw me overboard with irritation at first but they loved it and the tour guide was hilarious. I’m sorry I didn’t write down his name.
• Ice cream stop at Østerberg. [This is how we bribe our kids to keep walking.] The mango soft-serve was spectacular. I had wanted very much to check out the Designmuseum Danmark next — it has a hall of chairs! — next but ran out of steam.
• Dinner at Kødbyens Fiskebar, an industrial-looking restaurant in a former meat market with a focus on sustainable seafood. The food here, too, was quite cheffy but we enjoyed everything. I particularly loved the blue mussels, they reminded me of ones I once gushed about in Scotland.
• We took The Copenhagen Metro, their fully automated, driverless subway system around town and my NYC born-and-raised kids nearly wept with the beauty, quiet, and modernity of the system. It’s not fair to compare systems built 100 years apart — it’s actually not fair, almost cruel, to compare any public features or infrastructure in Copenhagen with anything in NYC — but we did, and now we just dream bigger. That’s the point of travel, right?

Day 3: Stockholm 🇸🇪

• We had one last breakfast in Copenhagen — I required freshly-baked rugbrød and a soft-boiled egg in a tiny chalice with an even tinier spoon, and procured it back at Andersen & Maillard.
• Flew to Stockholm late in the morning, and checked into our hotel, Courtyard by Marriott Stockholm Kungsholmen. This was also not quite central, but we considered it a fair compromise for how late we booked the trip. It wasn’t a long walk to the (also excellent) subway. Ubers/Bolt cars were relatively inexpensive too.
• We had lunch outside at Nystekt Strömming, a fried herring kiosk and easily one of the family’s favorite meals of the trip. Or perhaps we were especially welcoming of casual food after Copenhagen?
• We mostly wandered around in the afternoon, walking through Gamla Stan, the historic old town of Stockholm, Stortorget, the city’s oldest public square, and the Royal Palace.
• Showed up for our 9:30pm dinner reservation at Restaurant Pelikan at 7:30pm (I blame jetlag and my embarrassingly American fumbling with the 24-hour clock), but fortunately they didn’t make us wait very long. Pelikan is a historic, grand beer hall and restaurant with a focus on traditional Swedish comfort food (husmanskost). We had Swedish meatballs (but they just call them meatballs, ba-dum tss) and biff rydberg, which involves potato hash and steak, hooray. I thoroughly appreciated Sweden’s affection for horseradish as a condiment, an affection I share.

Day 4: Stockholm 🇸🇪

• Yes, that is Kalles Kaviar, a Swedish brand of smörgåskaviar (roe spread) in a toothpaste tube at the hotel’s breakfast buffet. More than one friend asked me to steal it, but I refrained.
• No, I don’t speak or read Swedish but in my defense, this is a sign we passed. One child concluded that the letter a had been on sale.
• I did not get to any grocery stores on this trip (one of my favorite ways to experience places I visit) but I did absolutely freak out over this mountain of chanterelles (which are much more of a luxury here) from a street stand, as well as fresh peas in pods, which my family walked around eating raw. I was so proud.
• It was a necessary pre-game for our next stop: Caramella, because someone I’m married to had promised to take the kids for Swedish candy in Sweden, ostensibly a thing apart from the Swedish-style candy stores that have popped up all over NYC. I probably don’t need to tell you how serious Swedes are about candy. The half-room devoted to black licorice was also awe-inspiring. I couldn’t resist the pastellfiskar (Swedish fish), although their flavor was noticeably less pronounced than the deep-red ones we get here.
• Next we headed to Djurgården, where most of the museums are.
• We’d been told that the Vasa Museum was not to be skipped and I confess that I was skeptical that my kids would be wow-ed by a near perfectly-salvaged 17th-century warship. I’m delighted to announce that I was utterly wrong. We loved it. We stayed for at least two hours and read every sign, which they managed to present in a way that was fascinating for all ages.
• Had sandwiches and salad at nearby Mackverket where we debated whether we wanted to go to the ABBA Museum next. We might regret it, but we did not go. I did, however, watch Mamma Mia! on the flight from New York. Does that count?
• I decided to do a little shopping on my own while the family went back to rest, only to realize I was arriving at most of the stores I was hoping to check out as they were closing. [It is I, your most Type B friend, reporting for duty.]
• We did, however, decide to make one more museum stop before dinner, to the Fotografiska Museum Stockholm. We really enjoyed it, especially the late Martin Parr’s photos on display. Wasn’t he wonderful?
• We had dinner at Blå Dörren, another classic Swedish beer hall and restaurant for variations on potatoes and meat with horseradish, i.e. heaven on a cold, rainy day.

Day 5: Bergen, Norway 🇳🇴

• We flew to Bergen the next day, checking into the Thon Hotel Orion.
• The kids told us they were too tired to do anything, so we headed out for hot dogs at Trekroneren without them.
• We also bought half of us new rain coats! Did you know that Bergen is the rainiest city in Europe? It rains about 240 days a year. We were there about two hours before I realized my raincoat — truly a windbreaker — was a joke and bought a new one. (Don’t worry, the stores are full of rain gear and shivering people, just like you.) We also bought a new one for my previously windbreaker-clad daughter. [I’d upgraded my husband’s and son’s raincoats the year before, lest you worry they were neglected.] We also bought the kids warm hats. I do not regret a single penny spent; the trip would have been considerably less pleasant without them.
• We continued to walk around Bryggen and the fish market (which is no longer a true fish market, definitely a tourist trap), then took Floibanen funicular to the top of Mount Fløyen, a quick ride.
• The kids emerged for dinner at Horn of Africa, an Eritrean and Ethiopian restaurant. It was fantastic.

Day 6: Day Tour to Steindalsfossen + Bondhusvatnet 🇳🇴

• Chasing waterfalls and a glacier lake! We booked a full day tour that took us by bus from Bergen to Bondhusvatnet, a breathtaking glacier lake nestled in Folgefonna National Park. We also visited Steindalsfossen, a waterfall you can walk behind (which was also one of my favorite experiences in Iceland), took ferries, saw scenic spots, and did a little hiking. Dinah, our tour guide, was phenomenal. We were entertained all day, and learned so much about Norway. I will never stop cracking up over “The Cabin” song.
• Dinner was at a random pizza place not worth mentioning, but suited our exhausted family just fine.

Day 7: Day Tour to Flåm Railway + Nærøyfjord 🇳🇴

• Norway in a Nutshell: Listen, I might joke about being your Type B friend, but we do at least show up on time, and usually at least 5 minutes early, for most things. You can see where this is going. We booked a single day Norway in a Nutshell self-guided tour but due to greatly underestimating the amount of time it would take us to get to the train station, missed our first train to Voss. This meant we would also miss the next point, the bus that went from Voss to Gudvangen. We called Norway in a Nutshell in a panic and they recommended a bus that went from Bergen, but when we got to the bus station, there weren’t enough seats left and no other bus for a couple hours. So, faced with losing out on the entire rest of the paid-for day, we ordered a Bolt/Uber car to take us on the 2+ hour drive to catch up with the tour at Gudvangen, at a price we will not discuss, now or ever again. Didn’t happen, ok?
• The remainder of the tour took us on a (pretty!) electric fjord cruise from Gudvangen through the UNESCO listed Nærøyfjord, the scenic Flåm Railway, a brief stop at Kjosfossen waterfall, and then a train back to Bergen.
• Does this sound a little tiring? It is! We’d been advised against doing a single day Norway in a Nutshell tour (2 to 3 days is recommended) but due to our late planning, one day is all that was bookable. [We supplemented with single-day tours from other companies. See: Day 6 and Day 8]. But honestly, I’d totally skip the whole thing at any length next time; we vastly preferred the guided tours, which somehow felt less touristy despite being quite the very definition of a tourist activity. Friends, these travel guides I write are free to read, and this is clearly why.
• While we had a long list of restaurants we wanted to try [Pingvinen, Spisekroken, Marg & Bein, Lola] it turns out when you’re quite tired from your second full-day tour, you could not care less about where you go, only that it’s dinner. So, we had margaritas and nachos and fajitas at Cartel, and everyone was happy.

Day 8: Day Tour to Voringsfossen + Mount Hanguren 🇳🇴

• It’s true, we went on a third day tour, also booked through Viator. [The link is no longer active.] I thought the kids would riot — one, perhaps, needs only two — but we loved this one. It was a smaller group, just 8 people in a van, so it was much more intimate but also relaxed, so we could chat more. Our tour guide was very knowledgeable too. On this tour we did have an overlap with two previously-visited waterfalls (turns out they’re just as wonderful the second time) but also saw new ones (Skjervsfossen, Voringsfossen, with some of the most stunning, sweeping views I’ve seen in my life). We also went to Hardangerfjord, saw the Hardanger Bridge, and took an incredible gondola up Mount Hanguren. We had excellent coffees and hot chocolate at the lodge up top.
• We stopped for lunch on the tour at Vik Restaurant, which was cozy and excellent. At the Bakeri next door, I bought loaves of (warm from the oven) rugbrød to bring home, plus their granola.
• We had our final dinner at the fish market, which perfectly hit the spot for us tired travelers as it was between the tour bus stop and our hotel.

Day 9: Back to NYC 🇺🇸

And that’s a wrap! If I were plotting this trip again, I might opt for a full day in Oslo, Norway as we were flying through there on our way home anyway. But, aside from the time we missed that train (which, of course, didn’t happen), I really enjoyed the balance of how we spent our days in each country and was thrilled we were able to do so much in just over one week. My only regret was not bringing back more Smash!, a chocolate-coated salty corn chip-like snack — three bags were absolutely not enough.