“Don’t go to Copenhagen, it’s insanely expensive, and the cold is unbearable,” several people told me in Berlin. But I decided not to listen and escaped for a few days in October to visit the Danish capital, prepared for the infamous high prices (which, indeed, are exorbitant) and the 50 km/h winds my iPhone had predicted.

I don’t know if it was because I had just come from spending time in Berlin, a graffiti-laden, anarchic city, but Copenhagen seemed incredibly beautiful to me in the sense of balance. A Platonic form of beauty—one of harmony.

I found myself in a warm city where the famous hygge isn’t just an abstract idea but a way of life, seen repeatedly in the caramel lighting of cafés and the friendliness of the people. It’s known for being cold and windy, but it greeted me with sunshine, 15°C, and a massive full moon that followed me everywhere.

Though there are huge buildings, they are proportionally flat, and you can always see the sky in Copenhagen. Every time I looked up, even during the day, the moon was there, perched somewhere in the blue mantle, as if giving me a knowing wink for visiting despite all the rumors about Nordic countries.
Copenhagen is old, with buildings from the 1600s, like the Rosenborg Castle in Dutch Renaissance style, and it’s futuristic, like the Danish Royal Library, a black marble-and-glass structure that looks like a spaceship yet still retains warmth.

I don’t know how it does it, but the city manages to be extremely modern and cozy at the same time, like an expert alchemist transforming opposites into something new and greater. Perhaps that’s what we really pay for when we visit: this unique blend of warmth and cold, old and new, which makes it scarce and precious.

Yes, it’s true, it’s expensive. Everything costs about twice as much as in Berlin. But when I sat by the canal, holding an 8-euro coffee in my hands, watching the serenity of the people and the view, breathing the clean air of one of the most sustainable cities in the world, I think I understood why it’s worth what it costs.

And to think I almost didn’t come, I thought, as I walked aimlessly, feeling a little dopamine rush through my body for making the right decision. I spun on my axis like a clumsy dancer, stretching my neck to check if I was missing anything behind me. My weak eyes couldn’t keep up with all the beauty, so I helped myself with my phone, taking photos nonstop.

On my last night, seeking refuge from the winds that had indeed arrived, I discovered another Danish classic: a bar known for board games. There was a free section with fairly worn-out classics, and a paid section with premium games like Battleship.

My Mallorcan friend Liliam, with whom I spent two days wandering, chose Jenga from the free section and brought it to the table. We won one game each while talking casually about men, nephews, and work in multinational companies. We then descended to the most basic game of all, as it was the only one that didn’t require understanding Danish—besides Jenga. And like 8-year-old girls, we played a few rounds of UNO while drinking tea.

The last thing I have to share about Copenhagen was actually one of the first things that made me feel very foreign. The hotel had a hybrid check-in system that, like the city, mixed the warmth of the staff at the front desk, who asked for my physical passport, with the modernity of ATM-like machines where each guest had to complete the check-in process themselves: filling out a form, entering a credit card as a guarantee, and accepting terms and conditions. When I selected my nationality, the machine didn’t give me “Argentina” as an option. I was initially outraged, but then I laughed and selected Australia, which seemed the closest.

In the end, I think that small glitch at the beginning was a welcome gift: it alerted me to discover every detail of a city in which I was a complete stranger. And though I didn’t know it at the time, that same city, which made me feel off the map, silently accompanied me from the moon at every step, transforming the strange into something familiar with its unique ability to alchemize.

*Victoria Borelli is an Argentinian writer