Welcome back!
I should tell you right away – this post will be a little different. Why?
Last Saturday, I was sitting at the table thinking: “It’s been over a month since I moved to Copenhagen, and I still haven’t gone to see a sunrise – that’s really not something to be proud of.” I had already seen quite a few beautiful sunrise photos taken just a street away from my apartment, and I decided it was high time I captured one myself.
I quickly checked the weather forecast for the following morning – to my delight, it promised fairly clear skies around sunrise.
And so began a morning photo session at sunrise. Since there are too many photos and not all that many stories to accompany them, I decided to create a sort of gallery instead of a typical blog post this time.
I hope it takes you into the magic of that morning, which for me began at 6:30am.
The first photos were taken on “my” street, and the next ones at the end of it, from the middle of the bridge connecting two parts of southern Copenhagen:
The goal was to visit the nature park in the area of Vestamager (Western Amager), where I wanted to photograph the landscape bathed in the soft colours of sunrise. So I quickly wrapped up my photography in the neighbourhood and continued my 20-minute bike ride along the coast to the main destination. The journey itself was beautiful. Sadly, the light was still quite low, so I don’t have much to show from the ride. The route is a narrow paved (concrete? asphalt? – I’m honestly not sure what the difference is) path, with grass alongside and a small trail for runners and walkers who prefer a softer surface. I only encountered one jogger along the entire way.
Mist, birdsong and fresh air greeted me at the end of the coastal path – by a curious little lake called Birkedam, which has a small island in the middle and a lovely camping spot nearby. The lake is part of Vestamager, which takes up roughly a quarter of the island of Amager.
*Amager is a large island that also hosts Copenhagen’s airport.
This area is full of former islets, now forming gentle isolated hills; in the 1940s it was dammed and drained to be used as a military training ground. Later, the area saw the development of transport infrastructure, a landfill site, a golf course, and an industrial zone. Fortunately, most of it today is returned to nature – young forests, wetlands, and a fairly large area of pastureland with grazing livestock and wild animals. The area was only opened to the public in 2010, after, among other things, the removal of unexploded ammunition. Before that, it was too dangerous to walk off marked roads and paths. The south-western part is now a protected Natura 2000 area, so visitors must stick to marked trails within the park – which, by the way, is absolutely stunning. I mostly stayed in that part and explored many of the paths by bike.
Wildlife sightings (for those curious about what’s hidden in the photos): European hare (we stared at each other for about five minutes before…), cattle (very loud – their voices echoed through the mist; you could hear them long before you saw them), fallow deer (the population is maintained at around 400 – that’s what the land can support), grey heron, gulls, crows, magpies, ravens, horses, tufted ducks, mute swans (Denmark’s national bird – nearly a third of the population lives in this area), barnacle geese (those classy black-and-white ladies) + a few birds I couldn’t identify. Can you? Let me know in the comments. 🙂 This is a paradise for bird lovers – there are several observation points throughout the park.
And now, I’ll let the photos speak for themselves. I hope they evoke something warm in you – just as I was enchanted by watching all those morning scenes unfold live before my eyes. At times, I could hardly believe they were real.
And a little challenge – somewhere among the first 10 photos hides a jellyfish – can you spot it? In the final photo, you can already see the first autumn colours emerging in nature. I wonder what colour combinations autumn will bring to Denmark this year? I can’t wait to witness them for the first time in my life!
I’ll check in again soon. Until then – take care and enjoy!
*I sometimes share daily snippets over on Instagram too 😉
<3, Alenka