Week Four: Fastelavn on Sankt Peders Stræde

There are certain weeks when you can taste the season before you can name it. In Copenhagen, that week is Fastelavn, and for me it begins at Sankt Peders Bageri.

Tucked along Sankt Peders Stræde in the Latin Quarter, the bakery has been operating since the 1600s, which feels appropriate for a holiday with medieval roots. Fastelavn marks the days before Lent, a last moment of indulgence before restraint. Historically, it carried traces of both church calendar and folk ritual, with barrels, costumes, and small reversals of order. Today, it is mostly about children, community gatherings, and fastelavnsboller so rich they feel slightly unreasonable.

Sankt Peders is known year-round for its Wednesday onsdagssnegl, but during Fastelavn the window changes. Rows of buns line up like glossy little sculptures, some capped with dark chocolate, others with bright icing, all hiding cream at their center. The line moves slowly, but no one seems to mind. Waiting is part of it.

What I noticed, though, was not just the pastries. It was the costumes.

Fastelavn is often compared to Halloween, but the comparison does not quite land. There are not many witches or dragons. Today, I did not see a single mythical creature. No animals either, despite the old barrel tradition. Instead, the costumes felt pulled from everyday life, hyper-specific, slightly ironic, sometimes delightfully practical.

In front of me in line at Sankt Peders stood a child dressed as a Canadian.

Not in a vague lumberjack way. In a committed way. A red and white hockey jersey layered over a bulky winter coat. A small maple leaf stitched onto a knit hat. Snow boots already perfectly suited to the Copenhagen slush. He held his pastry order ticket as if it were official documentation. His parents stood behind him, unfazed, as if this were a completely ordinary national transformation.

It struck me that this felt very Danish. The costume was not about fantasy. It was observational. Specific. Around him were kids dressed as football players, police officers, maybe a pop star or two, recognizable roles from the real world. The effect was less about escaping reality and more about playfully inhabiting it.

Inside, the bakery windows fogged from the heat. Staff moved efficiently behind the counter, boxing buns with practiced precision. Sankt Peders has seen centuries of seasons turn, fires, wars, modernization, and yet it is still here, marking the pre-Lenten week with whipped cream and pistachio paste.

Fastelavn does not overwhelm the city. It slips into it. A crown here, a bat against a barrel there, a line stretching down a narrow street in Indre By. It feels small-scale yet deeply rooted.

By the time I reached the counter, the Canadian had already left, pastry box in hand, maple leaf bobbing down the cobblestones. Snow pressed into the edges of the street. The bells on the bakery door kept chiming.

There is something grounding about a tradition that centers on children swinging at a barrel and adults standing patiently for cream-filled buns. It does not demand attention. It simply fills the narrow street with sugar and wool and quiet anticipation, and then, just as easily, folds back into ordinary February.