The South China Morning Post decided to find out why Danes were among the happiest country in the world by grabbing a bike and riding through the streets of a Copenhagen-summer.
Journalist Tim Pile of the South China Morning Post decided to visit Denmark to get a glimpse of what apparently made everyone so happy and wrote a small story about his experiences.
He came in the right time because anyone from Denmark will probably acknowledge that the survey branding them as the happiest is most likely done in the summer months, when the sun is out as opposed to the long and dark winters where depression sky-rockets and the isolation of the self explodes.
Anyway, Tim Pile visited in the summer and what we get is a glimpse of what people unfamiliar with Copenhagen first notice when they arrive: The bikes.
“The Danish capital boasts 454km of cycle lanes and pedestrians intending to cross the road have to negotiate a blonde stream of professionals, students and mums towing babies in trendy buggies before they get to the motorised vehicles,” he writes in the introduction.
From thereon he rides through the streets of Copenhagen, commenting on the Tourist Trap (the Little Mermaid), the flock of Danes drinking on the Queen Louise Bridge, breathing slow fumes in the free city of Christiania, and feeling with the overheated guard in front of Amalienborg.
In the end he hasn’t exactly found the reason for the very “happy” country, but nonetheless he has – and I know this as a Dane – listed many of the reasons why the winter is bearable: because of the summer.
