“We can only assume that he visited here,” Marianne Kolos, the owner since 1987, tells me. Along Strøget, this bakery/confectionary opened in 1870, five years before the death of Hans Christian Andersen, Copenhagen’s master of fairy tales. You will find herring throughout Scandinavia, and you may even begin to like it. It is prepared with capers, onions and tomatoes and is raw and marinated. The herring, on the other hand, will clean your arteries. It’s lardlike, meant to be spread on your bread, but a little heavy and greasy for my taste. But don’t dip your knife into the white buttery stuff if you want to keep your arteries clean. There are two types of bread, white bread and Rugbrod, dark bread with sunflower seeds served with the Kroplatte. The Kroplatte, or The Innkeepers Platter (pictured), is a sampler platter that comes with the requisite herring in the center (the locals usually eat it first), a fried filet of fish, and six items on individual beds of lettuce to place on bread. If you’re visiting either the Karen Blixen Museum or the Louisiana Art Museum, just outside Copenhagen, stop for lunch at a century-and-a-half-old restaurant located in a more than 250-year-old thatched-roof home, Rungsted Kro, (just past the Shell Station heading north from the Karen Blixen Museum.)įor lunch, be sure to try the Scandinavian specialty, Smorrebrod, an open-faced sandwich of sorts. For lunch or dinner, you can hardly go wrong. If you are staying in Copenhagen before or after your cruise, your hotel will likely include breakfast, so you will be off to a good start.

Cruisers the big salad