Amusing Bouches: Borgen walking tour, Copenhagen, 2nd November 2013

I have a few obsessions (as well as eating out at nice restaurants). One of these is a composer/pianist called Ludovico Einaudi (see later post). Another is Scandinavian/Danish TV dramas including Borgen, The Killing and The Bridge. So Copenhagen had been somewhere I'd wanted to visit for a while and I'd happened to notice Einaudi was going to be playing there at the start of November. Circumstances meant that I was able to book a relatively last minute weekend away in the Danish capital. Luckily it turns out that Copenhagen is a good destination for a quick weekend away, even from Birmingham-a very nice, and shortish flight (with SAS airlines) from Birmingham to Copenhagen and only a short taxi transfer from the airport to the centre of Copenhagen.

The first two series of The Killing had pretty much passed me by-I couldn't see the attraction of watching a pretty slow, subtitled crime drama. It was only after getting into Borgen and The Bridge that I also started watching The Killing. At some point I was free and there was nothing else on TV on a Saturday night and Borgen was on. Two hours later I was hooked, although exactly why wasn't entirely clear-this was a (slightly slow), subtitled political drama. Two series later and I am still trying to work out why I like it so much, although the strong yet fallible female lead and some good looking male actors certainly help.

Copenhagen seemed to be small enough to be able to walk to most places and I was keen to see as many sights as possible (including some Borgen-related points of interest), so a Borgen-themed walking tour seemed like a good idea. I thought quite a few people may have jumped on the Nordic Noir bandwagon, but I could actually only find one company that were offering such tours-Peter og Ping. We met the tour guide at Vesterport station. Highlighting the fact that the appeal of Borgen has certainly spread beyond Denmark we were joined by people from Holland, Germany and a family from England.

First stop was the Town Hall, which was used for a lot of the filming of the parliament interiors (as they were not allowed to film inside Christiansborg itself). Then we moved onto Christiansborg-the home of the Danish Parliament amongst other things, there were a number of spots that were recognisable. Next we crossed the bridge to Christianshavn, pausing to be shown the buildings that were used as the exterior of the TV studios. Finally Christianshavn was the setting of Katrine's apartment. The whole tour took about an hour and a half. Despite the almost constant rain it was enjoyable and nice to chat to other people who have an even bigger obsession than me. I was definitely left eagerly anticipating the third and final series which is due to start on BBC4 later this month.