Malmo & Moss Sleeps: The Danish Hamptons

October 1, 2017

Prior to July this year, if you had said Tisvideleje to me I would have said bless you. Fast forward 3 months and I still can't pronounce the name of this small village on the Danish coast without sounding like I am gargling mouthwash, but I have found my holiday heaven. The name "Tisvideleje" is derived from "Ti's vælde", meaning a place dedicated to the God Tyr which makes me think that he must be the Danish god of coastal chic. I discovered Tisvildleje after asking Danish instagrammer Kirsten Skovbon where cool Copenhageners liked to go on holiday in Denmark. It turns out this is their Hamptons, tucked away on the North coast of Zealand just 80 minutes on the train from Copenhagen. It takes little bit longer by car but it is a beautifully scenic drive through small towns, woodlands and then the last stretch right by the sea.

Beautiful beach huts dotted the coast as we drove to Tisvildeleje

Where We Stayed

Obviously ideally I would have been gazing out of the window drinking in the gorgeous nordic scenery listening to a soundtrack of Sigur Ros or something similarly etheral and evocative but being in a car with 3 kids I just had to try and imagine that as Imelda Stanton's Calypso version of A Squash and a Squeeze blared out instead. With Staunton's jaunty acapella rendition still ringing in our ears, we arrived at what was to be our home in the Hygge Hamptons: the Tisjvidleje Strand Hotel.

My favourite part of the hotel, the gorgeous internal courtyard

I had an instant #ClapboardClimax the moment we pulled up outside. The hotel oozed Cape Cod being housed in a gorgeous white clapboard building on a hill with front and back terraces filled with pale bamboo furniture. Inside it was like walking into the pages of Kinfolk with effortlessly stylish designer Danes at every turn. It quickly became apparent that by having a penis but no ponytail Mr Malmo was horribly off message compared to the rest of the male hotel residents. With his short back and side from AJ's Barber Shop he was little bit like Alan Sugar to their Joaquin Cortes at breakfast.

We had an interconnecting family room just off the gorgeous internal courtyard which was my favourite bit of the hotel. It had pale bamboo sofas with huge squishy cushions to lounge on and the whole area was strung with festoon lights and some very swoonworthy rattan pendant lights. The room itself was decorated in simple neutral colours although we did have a very un kinfolk rear view of the back of the kitchen and a fire escape. Am sure that for some trip advisors this would have been a big deal but we were just happy to have two rooms together so we didn't have to spend our evenings playing Scrabble in the toilet so as not to wake the kids.

Breakfast was included in the rate and it was lovely to sit sipping tea in a room lit by twinkling candles in the morning with a simple selection of breads, meats and eggs to choose from. There were lots of young Danish families there and babies are well catered for with very instagram friendly vintage wooden highchairs on offer (although if anyone else has a Highchair Houdini on their hands these are not particularly practical on account of their lack of straps).

Ten minutes down the hill from the hotel was the beach which is overlooked by thatched cottages dotted in behind the dunes with rocky groines leading out to sea. When I was not trying to stop the toddler from eating sand or locating a small lego catwoman my son buried "under a white rock" on a beach of 10,000 white rocks, I enjoyed channelling my inner Saga Noren and gazing out across the sea to Sweden.

5 minutes walk the other way from the hotel was the centre of Tisvilde which is dotted with lovely bakeries, cafes and interiors shops. My favourite cafe was Brod & Vin which bakes Kanelsnegle to die for (pop your elasticated waist trousers on and go and try the chocolate Snegle but be warned there will be no going back to Deliciously Ella's sweet potato brownies after you have opened Pandora's chocolate snegle box). Just across the road from Brod & Vin was also my favourite shop, No 17 Limited, which blended clothes and interiors together in a way that made you want to remortgage your house and buy everything in the shop.

We also loved Sommerhaven which was essentially a coffee hut in somebody's front garden. There was a slide, trampoline and clapboard wendy house so the kids were happy whilst we were getting our caffeine fix. My favourite part was the pallet seating and cool cushion combo that had me rummaging in skips looking for pallets to recreate the look once we got home. They also seemed to have mastered the art of planting raised flower beds with plants that blend well together and flourish rather than our own attempts at home which always end in everything dying except mint which then spreads everywhere faster than a veruca at a swimming pool.

I loved the super sweet little wendy house

How do they get those flowerbeds looking so abundant?

Another one of our favourites was the pizza place near the station called Den Rode Tomat because, if I am honest, whilst I love almost everything about Denmark, there comes a point for me when rye bread and pickled herrings just aren't hitting the spot. At which point I need an injection of melted cheese which this place delivered with knobs on. It serves great, reasonably priced pizza, has a cool bar made out of a shipping container, a lovely outdoor seating area with mini playground too. The place we fell most in love with, however, was the Helene Kilde Hotel.

Helenekilde is located right above the beach in a stunning white house which was originally built as a summer home by a construction magnate called Mr. Grüner for his wife in 1896. Oh to be Mrs Grüner! In 1904 it was converted into a summer and seaside boarding house and then, in 2008, was renovated into the paradise that it is today by former ballet dancer Alexander Kølpin. He also owns the Strand Hotel where we stayed so is clearly a major #DanishHamptonsMogul. It has a gorgeous veranda, outdoor terrace and gardens that stretch down to the sea. When we were there people were preparing for a birthday party winding hundreds of fairy lights into the bushes and hanging photographs from the trees. What I wouldn't have given to be a guest at that party. Inside is just as beautiful as outside with log burners for the winter months and lots of hygge corners to hideaway in.

A gorgeous gallery wall in the reception area

I am hoping for a lottery win before we next visit so that we can check in. We would probably be a few Kroner closer to that dream if I hadn't discovered Esther's Garage on the road out of Tisvileleje. It is doesn't look like much at first glance but inside it is a complete treasure trove of homeware both contemporary and vintage, all beautifully curated and displayed.

If you want to explore a little further up the coast then I cannot recommend a day trip to Elsinore highly enough and not because I am a #HugeHamletBuff. Bear with me when I say it is, in fact, because of the Maritime Museum. Don' t worry, I am not a secret naval nerd, I don't know my port from my starboard. But you don't have to be interested in boats to enjoy this place. Converted from an old dry dock, the interior is an industrial luxe lovers dream being hewn out of concrete with huge panels of architectural glass. But it is not just the building that is stunning. Everything had been so beautifully curated that at times I forgot I was learning about Danish maritime history and just stood spell bound by huge, scrolling projections of old shipping routes.

One of the stunning video installations at the Martime Museum

It strikes a great balance in appealing to both adults and kids. When we visited, there was a treasure hunt for the boys to do which ended in a lego workshop room where boxes as big as sheds all filled with lego awaited them. If you can tear them away from that lego mega load, then be sure to take in the cafe which is housed in an exposed concrete atrium and will take your breath away.

Have you ever seen a museum cafe like it?

We returned home from our trip to Tisvildeleje dreaming of owning a cabin on this stretch of coast but alas only Danish residents are able to buy property in Denmark. So, whilst I wait for an answer back fromPeter Schmeichelto my bigamous marriage proposal, I will have to settle for the best Air BnB has to offer instead. I figure this one would do. If you would like to get your hygge on in the Danish Hamptons then read more here.

Malmo & Moss Sleeps: Copenhagen

September 3, 2017

I spent my formative years in the North-East of England where my only contact with Scandinavia was the Gateshead branch of Ikea and even on trips there I was initially more interested in the mini hotdogs and 50p whippy icecreams than the bleached birch Billy Bookcases, Sodermalm sofas and fabulous faux sage. But somewhere along the way I discovered my inner Agnetha and this North-Eastern girl went Nordic. I began to dream of moving to a Scandinavian country and even went to so far as to take Swedish lessons with Mr Malmo who proved his undying love and devotion to me by spending his Thursday evenings desperately trying to form a Swedish sentence that didn't just sound like he was trying to clear a sticky piece of flem out of his throat. When it became obvious that we would struggle to ask for a Daim bar in a Netto we downgraded the plans to emigrate to frequent holidays there instead. Two Summers ago we went Scandi with the kids for the first time (if you don't count frequent trips to Edmonton Ikea) staying in Copenhagen and then crossing the bridge (yes, The Bridge) to Malmo to stay in the house of one of my all time favourite bloggers My Scandinavian Home. We had a brilliant time so this year, having sired another son (in medieval times I would surely have been given a cow or something by now) we decided to head back to Copenhagen.

The beautiful living room of My Scandinavian Home

Where We Stayed

I am one of life's nervous flyers. I am about as comfortable on a plane as Nigel Farage would be at a Liberal Democrat conference in a vegan cafe. However, it was not my extreme fear of flying that led to our last minute decision to drive rather than fly to Denmark. It was rather the fact that I left it until 2 weeks before the date of departure to book seats by which time return Ryanair flights were about the same price as a small helicopter. But 14 hours with 3 small children crammed into an overpacked Audi were quickly forgotten the moment we stepped inside our Air BnB apartment in Copenhagen. Even with my right eyeball still manically twitching from the 4 large cans of Redbull consumed to keep me awake on the autobahn, I could see that it was the apartment of my Danish dreams.

It is owned by a couple in their early thirties called Signe and Mark who live there with their two young children. They describe themselves in their profile as civil servants and design entrepreneurs causing me to radically re-evaluate my previous stereotypes of civil servants as people who wear short sleeve beige shirts, keep pens in their top pockets and have an encyclopaedic knowledge of Common Agricultural Policy.

The apartment is part of a block in which the Danish Prime Minister lived during the second world war. But as you can see it is no gloomy underground Anderson shelter. The main living space is a huge, double reception room with high ceilings and gorgeous sanded original wooden floors. The rest of the rooms lead off that main space and are all painted white creating a beautifully spacious, light and serene feel.

It was a case of love at first sight for the boys as well. However, it was the massive smart enabled TV loaded with car racing games rather than the Dinesen reminiscent floorboards that captured their young hearts. Whilst their new found precious bought us a few uncharacteristic holiday lie-ins, the downside was that anytime we left the apartment to take in some Danish culture at one of the many brilliant museums and galleries Copenhagen has to offer, they had a tendency to ask us at 10 minute intervals when we would be going back to the holiday home to play Nitro Blast.

I loved the the texture and colour they had added to the living room with their choice of rugs and throws

My favourite part of the apartment was, in contrast, the kitchen. It featured all the modern rustic elements that I love. Rough hewn wood: tick, earthy collections of ceramics: tick, accents of dark metallics: tick. It was a lovely space to sit with a cup of tea flicking through one of their Nordic cookbooks pretending that I am not the kind of person who thinks that rye bread should be reserved for hamsters instead of humans. We tended to eat out at lunchtime and then come back to have dinner at the apartment around the lovely rustic kitchen table having picked up ingredients from the local Meny (the Danish equivalent of Waitrose) on our way home.

There was also a branch of Lagkaghuset next door to Meny so at breakfast time, whilst one of us put the kettle on and stood in the weetabix firing line, the other would pop out to pick up the best cinnamon buns I have ever tasted (and believe me when I say I have tasted a lot!). It is a chain so you can find branches all over Copenhagen should you need a cinnamon top up at any time during the day. I guess they are the Danish equivalent of Greggs but with polished concrete floors, pale wood, twinkling candles and handsome bakery assistants called Lars.

In the evenings once we had the kids in bed we would light some candles in the kitchen (when I say we I obviously mean me as there is about the same chance of Mr Malmo independently lighting a candle as there is him suggesting we sit down to watch a Vicar of Dibley boxset) pour a glass of wine and make plans for the next day together. One of my favourite features of the kitchen was the black pendant lights hung at different heights over the table and worktops, they added a little bit of edge to all the natural textures and got me thinking about changing up our kitchen lights at home.

The kitchen looked out over a gorgeous internal courtyard which was a lovely spot to sit in the sun, watching the boys play with toys shared by all of the apartments with the Danes not being territorial over their tiny tikes. When we visited in late July there were mounds of hydrangeas in whites and pinks in full bloom to enjoy.

There were 3 bedrooms. The master bedroom was a beautiful tranquil space as it was flooded with light from the two big windows which looked out over the quiet street and a small park. The only blot on the bedroom landscape was that the bed had, as is the Scandi way, two separate single duvets on the bed rather than one double. I am not sure if this is because Danish men are chronic duvet stealers so the divorce rate is kept low by everyone having their own duvet, but I found that it meant that I frequently woke up in the night to find that Mr Malmo had rolled off with both duvets leaving me exposed to the Danish indoor elements.

Although the other two bedrooms were used as kids bedrooms, one had a double bed in and could easily have been used as an adult bedroom if you didn't mind waking up with the squad of FC Copenhagen (on the wall rather than in your bed that is unless you had enjoyed a particularly wild night on the Aquavit.) The other bedroom had a small cabin bed in and the only adult it would be suitable for would be wee Jimmy Krankie. Although the bathroom didn't have a bath it had a huge walk-in shower which was perfect for hosing down three mucky boys at the end of every day.

The Local Area

The apartment is located in the Østerbro neighbourhood and is about 15 mins walk from the City centre. It is known as the old wealthy neighbourhood in Copenhagen with lots of beautiful old architecture, broad shopping streets and leafy squares with cafes and shops. Whilst it is definitely not as hip and trendy an area as say Norreborre or Vesterbro, it is super family friendly so will work well if it is first class playgrounds rather than pulsing nightclubs you are after. If your kids are good at walking without claiming their leg batteries have run out, then take a stroll down to the lakes where there are some great restaurants and a section of townhouses so drool worthy that you will be wondering if having watched every episode of the Killing, Borgen and The Bridge will be enough to qualify you for Danish citizenship post Brexit.

2 minutes walk from the apartment was Faelled Park which our kids completely loved. It has an adventure playground, outdoor trampoline park, beach volleyball courts, football pitches, a mini traffic roadway system, a play equipment recreation of the Danish equivalent of Buckingham Palace and vast expanses of green open space. The home stadium of FC Copenhagen also borders the park if you have football fans in the family. Mr Malmo took our eldest son to see a match, buying tickets on the day that cost less than £30 for both of them.

Make sure you tune into the blog this Autumn when I will be sharing more Malmo & Moss tips on where to eat, shop and entertain kids in Copenhagen (when you can prise them away from Nitro Blast that is) and how Danish design has influenced my interiors style at home.