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Travel Copenhagen to Malmö – The Öresundbridge Experience

This beautiful landmark, connecting two Scandinavian countries, has become the easy way to travel from Copenhagen to Malmö . The Öresundbridge connects the capital of Denmark, Copenhagen, with Sweden’s third-largest city Malmö. Copenhagen doesn’t need any further introduction, but Malmö might be unknown to some. This coastal city of south Sweden is a vibrant, hip, international town, with cobblestone streets and interesting buildings.

You might spend some time in Copenhagen, wanting to explore Malmö and other parts of Sweden. Or your flight might land at the Copenhagen Kastrup airport, for you to continue your journey in Sweden. Either way, the Öresund bridge is the fastest and easiest way to travel between the countries.

I remember when I was a kid, the excitement of taking the ferry between the two cities, Copenhagen and Malmö. It took about an hour I would get fika on the boat and also buy some tax-free candy. Well, those days are a thing of the past since the Öresundbridge was built.

Today, if you want the ferry experience between the two countries, you can travel between Elsingor and Helsingborg, where the ferry is still running. These two cities are located about 60 miles north of Copenhagen and Malmö. The ferry ride takes about 20 minutes, just enough time to do some shopping or enjoy a cup of coffee. They have tax-free shops and restaurants with delicious shrimp sandwiches :). I can go on about this fun ferry journey but let’s get back to the Öresundbridge experience.

The Öresundbridge

The bridge connects the road and railway of the Scandinavian peninsula with central and western Europe. Allowing Swedes and Danes to commute, visitors to explore, and travelers to connect easier and faster. You might see two different ways of spelling, Öresund or Øresund? Well, in Swedish, we say Öresund and in Danish Øresund, so both ways are correct.

The bridge opened July 1 in 2000, between Copenhagen and Malmö. It contains one bridge part, an artificial island, and an underwater tunnel.

The bridge part from Malmö to the artificial island Peberholm is almost 5 miles (8 kilometers) long. From Peberholm island, there is an underwater tunnel, Drogden tunnel 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) long, connecting the island with Denmark.

The reason for doing a tunnel instead of a bridge, closest to the Copenhagen area, was to avoid interference with air traffic from the Copenhagen airport and to provide a clear channel for ships going through.

The bridge has a total length of 25 738 feet or 7 845 meters. The height of the bridge is 669 feet (204 meters). It can get pretty windy at the top, and the bridge has been closed-down briefly during extremely bad weather.

In 2019, 7,454,231 vehicles crossed the bridge.

How to Cross the Bridge Copenhagen to Malmö

You can either drive, ride the bus, or take the train over the bridge. Going over by car is an exciting experience, and you have an amazing view of the two countries and the water.

To cross the bridge by car, you have to pay a fee. You can pay online, by the toll station, or set up an Öresund Bizz pass if you frequently cross the bridge . For a regular-sized car, it will cost you 49 EUR online, or 54 EUR (2020 prices) if you pay at the toll station.

When crossing the bridge, you will go from one country to another, and travel documents, like passports, might be required.

Take the Train Copenhagen to Malmö

When taking the train, you will actually be underneath the road. Yes, the two railway tracks go beneath the four road lanes. For the tunnel part, the railway and road, go side by side, in separate tunnels.

Operating the trains are the Swedish and Danish railways, Skanetrafiken, SJ, Oresundtag, and DBS.

If you travel from Denmark, you can get on the train at a few different places, with the main hub being the Copenhagen Central train station. Traveling from the Copenhagen Airport, the train station is conveniently located right beneath the airport. Just take the elevator or escalator down and catch the train.

On the Swedish side, you will have a stop at Hyllie station and Triangeln station before reaching the Malmö Central station. At times, the police will board the train in Hyllie, and ask for travel documentation, have your passport ready.

Traveling from the Copenhagen Central Station to the Malmö Central Station by train will take you about 40 minutes. Trains are frequent and depart every 20 minutes during the day. The cost for a one-way, single ticket is about $12.

An alternative is to join a guided tour, that will take you from Copenhagen to Malmo crossing the bridge. See some alternatives here.

What to See, Do, and Experience in Malmö Sweden

Crossing the bridge from Copenhagen to Malmö, you will see the tallest building in Scandinavia, Turning Torso. This famous, unique building is a residential skyscraper and has become a landmark in the city. It’s said to be the first twisted skyscraper in the world.

Malmö Castle, built in the mid 16th century, is the oldest preserved Renaissance castle in Scandinavia, and well worth a visit. If you enjoy art, the Modern Museum, and Malmo Konsthall, is well worth a visit.

Festivals and events are a big thing in Malmö. There is always something going on, especially in the summer, when different festivals, music events, food events, and concerts are arranged. Keep a lookout for the events going on while in Malmö .

A fun way to see Malmö is to take a canal tour or a walking tour to learn more about the city and the history behind it.

After your day in Malmö, you can spend the night and continue your journey in Sweden or head back over the bridge to Copenhagen. There is so much to see. If you are heading in this direction, don’t hesitate to contact me. It would be my honor to point you in the right direction.

Have you crossed the Oresund bridge by train or car? What’s your experience? I would love to hear your thoughts on it.

Just want to let you know;   some of my posts might contain affiliate links.  If you buy something through those links, it will not cost you  a penny more, but I might earn a commission.  That will allow for this site to  keep going.  Thanks!

Written by  Veronica

Born and raised in Sweden, now living in the US, Veronica has a passion for Scandinavian travel. As a former product design specialist with a Scandinavian tour operator, she has extensive knowledge of tour planning and the Scandinavian countries.

2 thoughts on “ Travel Copenhagen to Malmö – The Öresundbridge Experience ”

I’ve never been to Malmo but it sounds like a very interesting place to visit. Would it be worth more than just a one-night stay do you think? Or would 1 night be sufficient? And I’m curious, how long does it take to make that crossing by car? I didn’t notice you mentioning that….so my apology if I missed it.

Malmo is an international, fun, and interesting place to visit. If you have a couple of days, I would suggest that you take the train from Copenhagen to Malmo. If you drive, it takes about 10 minutes to cross the bridge. Explore the city, do a walking tour, and visit the castle. Spend the night in Malmo.

On the second day, take the train from Malmo to Helsingborg. It’s located an hour north of Malmo. Helsingborg is one of my favorite places, and I lived there for a few years. Stroll by the harbor, visit Karnan a tower with a beautiful view of the water and Denmark and visit Sofiero castle.

On the third day, take the ferry from Helsingborg to Helsingor. Visit the Hamlet castle, stroll through cobblestone streets, and enjoy the quaint little town. Oh and the ice cream here is delicious. From there, you can take the train back to Copenhagen, which is located an hour south of Helsingor. You can buy one ticket that includes the train/ferry journey.

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Guided tours based on the nordic noir series.

We are a tour guiding hobby-business that specialises in walks in Copenhagen based on the television series like The Killing, Borgen, The Bridge, The Chestnut Man…

The name Nordic Noir refers to the dark crime fiction genre, also known as Scandinoir or Scandicrime . These bleak, slowly developing and character-focused tv series are exactly what the Nordic countries do best. Now this unique genre has gained a worldwide fan base.

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If you are a fan of Birgitte Nyborg you don’t want to miss the Borgen tour. You will get to see Christiansborg and its beautiful surroundings which were used in the series. Walk underneath the arches were the politicians can be seen plotting and hear how the show both inspired and got inspired by Danish business and politics.

The Killing, The Bridge and the like...

The dark side of copenhagen.

On this tour you will see locations used in The Killing and The Bridge, hear stories about the TV series and how Copenhagen has been used as a backdrop to crime. You will see some dark corners you would normally not find on your own. You will hear the story behind the famous Faroese jumper and we will tell you about Danish/Swedish stereotypes. Please keep in mind that the tour does not take you near, on or over the bridge to Malmö.

Please note that there are NO open tours at the moment but please do not hesitate to ask as we are trying to gather a small group every Saturday or Sunday, hence sharing the cost of a private guide.

Tours can be booked at any time of the week, providing the availability of the guide (Christine/myself!).

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+ Tour 1 : Borgen + Tour 2 : The Killing, The Bridge and the like

Each tour lasts approx. 1h30. Children/teenagers under 18 do not count as paying persons.

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If so what's the best and cheapest way to do it please ?

2 replies to this topic

The alternative is to take a bus. It gives you better views of the bridge itself, if that is something you're interested in. But it takes longer and is not as flexible as traveling by train. Check for example with Flixbus.

Lund is nice and worth checking out if you have the time. Just a short hop from Malmö (or just stay on the same train from Copenhagen, as they all stop in Lund too after departing Malmö).

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In the footsteps of power: a ‘Borgen’ tour of Copenhagen

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Borgen is a Danish drama focusing on the life of Birgitte Nyborg (Sidse Babett Knudsen), a politician trying to do it all — power, politics and family. Many of its preoccupations are local to Denmark, and revolve around the difficult and necessary compromises of governing in coalition. Borgen (Danes say it as “born”) first aired in 2010 but became a global hit once it was picked up by the BBC and other international networks. It has been back in the news because Netflix and the Danish broadcaster DR made a fourth (and probably final) series that aired in 2022.

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Most of the locations for the series — especially seasons one to three, when the filming budget was much tighter — are within a small area of central Copenhagen, and as a superfan I wanted to see them all. Christine Bordin from the city’s Nordic Noir walking tours agreed to show me round on a tour that other fans can book. It took us about 1.5 hours — with a lot of stops for talking — and the walk is a flat 3km.

Copenhagen is a compact city, and its claustrophobic, gossipy political world is reflected in Borgen (meaning “the castle” — the local term for Christiansborg Palace, the building that is also home to the parliament and the Supreme Court).

Bordin is French but has lived in Copenhagen for 25 years, and has a wry insider/outsider view of Denmark’s society and political system — and the international popularity of the Nordic noir genre that includes Copenhagen-set The Killing and The Bridge . Many of her guests on these tours are British, American and German.

Borgen is an outlier series in terms of the Nordic noir genre. “ Borgen is and is not Nordic noir,” Bordin says as we begin our tour on the vast City Hall Square ( Rådhuspladsen ). It has a thriller-ish feel with all its political intrigue and backstabbing, but nobody is murdered.

Birgitte Nyborg, who unexpectedly becomes prime minister of Denmark at the very start of Borgen, is part of a long tradition of strong female characters in Nordic film and literature, and before that in Old Norse religion and culture.

“Saga Norén [the Swedish detective in The Bridge ] is called Saga for a reason — that refers to the sagas,” Bordin says. That should probably have been obvious to me, a woman so enamoured of all things strong and Norse that I named my daughter Freya.

On one side of the square sits the office of Politiken, a serious broadsheet newspaper founded in 1884. A huge sign on the top of the building telegraphs its importance to the politicians inside City Hall, which sits almost opposite. The tense and mutually important relationship between journalists and politicians is one of the themes at the heart of Borgen , and Bordin outlines how the plotlines sometimes reflect real events. In the early 2000s, a disgraced MP went straight into an editor’s job at a tabloid paper in the same publishing group as Politiken — a controversial event that Borgen ’s creator, Adam Price, echoed when Birgitte’s scheming (aren’t they all?) political rival Michael Laugesen becomes the editor of a tabloid.

Season four of Borgen focuses on a plotline about an oil discovery in Greenland, with Birgitte forced to make morally compromising decisions — always with the mighty US involved, as well as Russia and China. It offers an education for viewers about Denmark’s ambivalence and Greenlanders’ anger about the colonial past and the power structures that still linger.

We walk on to the nearby canal, where Kanal-Caféen is one of the oldest and most traditional restaurants in the city. It’s a power-lunch fixture for government officials and MPs and features in Borgen and The Killing . The context — as Danish viewers would know – is that women were not allowed to eat here unless accompanied by a man until the mid 1960s.

Across the canal is an 18th-century entrance to the Christiansborg Palace. We head through this into the grounds of the current Christiansborg Palace (built in the early 20th century – the two previous palaces on the site burned down ) and walk through the colonnades that line the square. This is the location for a lot of “walking and talking” meetings take place in the early series of Borgen , although, as Bordin points out, it is echoey, and therefore in reality “would be the last place people would be gossiping”. I decide to power-pose like Birgitte there, nevertheless. Maybe some of her political nous will rub off on me.

There’s a massive and unsightly horse paddock in front of the palace. The most extraordinary fact I learn from this entire tour is that the current queen of Denmark, Margrethe II, had a historic fountain ripped out (it features in early scenes where Birgitte and her mentor, Bent Sejrø, can be seen talking or eating sandwiches). Bordin drops the bombshell: the fountain was dismantled in 2013 because it was rumoured that the queen, who has a wing of the palace, wanted a place for her horses. A law in Denmark had been passed requiring all horses to have a paddock – but I can’t help wondering if there might have been other spaces available to the Crown. We are discussing politics on this walk, but it turns out the queen of Denmark still wields plenty of power.

All the scenes that were supposedly shot inside the Danish prime minister’s office in the palace were in fact recreated in studios, carefully curated with Danish design pieces — and art from a well-known city gallery owned by the parents of Borgen star Pilou Asbæk, who plays spin-doctor Kaspar Juul.

Round the corner, though, is the famous main entrance where newly elected PM Birgitte stands on the steps to give her victory speech in series one. It’s imposing and ceremonial but nearby is the informal Royal Library Garden , also familiar from many scenes in the series.

This peaceful public park — which has been named as one of Copenhagen’s most romantic spots — has (thankfully) managed to keep its lovely fountain. Real MPs often eat their lunch here in good weather, and it was also used for Birgitte’s “walk and talk” scenes. I make a note to rewatch: Bordin says there are far fewer of these in later series, and especially in season four. By this time Birgitte is far more powerful and sure of herself — and the camera focuses on her alone.

From here it’s a short walk to the harbour, and the so-called “Black Diamond”, the Royal Danish Library . A scene in a series-two episode called “In Brussels, No One Can Hear You Scream” was shot in the restaurant here. (It’s been shut since Covid.) Bordin talks about the shifts in the series that reflect the country’s deepening relationship with Europe. “Early in the series, when Birgitte wants to get rid of someone, she sends them to Brussels. Then you see a shift in mentality — [in series four] 10 years later she’s minister of foreign affairs”. By the end of the series, there are rumours that Birgitte will be appointed EU commissioner. “It reflects the changing Danish relationship with the EU,” Christine says.

Looking across the harbour, Bordin points out a striking row of blocks of flats, which stand in for exterior shots of the Danish national broadcaster, where Katrine Fønsmark (Birgitte Hjort Sørensen) works as a newsreader and interviewer before becoming Birgitte’s head of press. The real studios are some way from the city centre.

As we head over the bridge into the Christianshavn district, we pass the real — and brutalist — Ministry of Foreign Affairs , where Birgitte works in later series, having rejoined government as the leader of her own New Democrats party.

The last stops on the tour take in some of Copenhagen’s loveliest canalside streets. This is Katrine’s neighbourhood. Her flat is above the Eiffel Bar , which has been a bar since 1737, and a few steps away, Café Wilder , is where Kaspar Juul declares his love for her.

How, I ask Bordin, do Danes feel about the success of Borgen ? “It was an immediate hit in Denmark when it first aired, then it became a hit abroad, then it became even bigger in Denmark,” she says.

It’s both specific — Adam Price sometimes took near-verbatim quotes from real Danish politicians about the issues of the day and put them into his characters’ mouths — and universal in its honest depiction of the impact of ambition, power and less-than-moral compromises on the individuals involved. We may have seen the last of Birgitte, but I still hope it’s vi ses (see you soon) and not farvel (farewell).

Nordic Noir Tours runs bespoke “Borgen” and “The Killing” & “The Bridge” tours, from DKr800 (about £95) for one person to DKr250 (about £30) each for four or more.

Do you know any other places in Copenhagen where “Borgen” was filmed? Tell us in the comments

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