Train Journeys, Coffee, and the Art of Not Getting Anything Done

There’s something about a winter train ride that lends itself to reflection. I was traveling from Copenhagen to Aarhus — a familiar route, but somehow it always feels a little different in winter.

Winter landscape seen from the train — somewhere between Copenhagen and Aarhus.

Outside the window, the Danish countryside blurred into soft whites and greys, small clusters of trees standing quietly against the snow-covered fields.

Like most times, I had brought a sketchbook. The plan (at least in theory) was to work on some ideas — quiet landscapes, imagined tree lines, perhaps a study for a future piece. I started sketching; the pencil moved almost on its own for a while.

But the rhythm of the train, the shifting light, the feeling of being between places — it all made me pause. Instead, I found myself watching the way frost clung to the branches, how the faint reflection of passengers flickered in the glass, or the slow swirl of steam rising from a fellow traveler’s coffee cup.

At one point, it started snowing again — thick, quiet snow that softened everything even more. I spent much of the journey just looking out the window at the quiet fields and frozen lakes, watching the countryside slide past, thinking about nothing in particular — just letting the rhythm of the train and the scenery settle somewhere in the back of my mind.

I opened my sketchbook again and started on a tree that caught my attention for no reason I could name. The drawing isn’t finished. Maybe it will be one day. Or maybe it’s meant to stay that way — a quick note of something that felt right in the moment.

A quick tree study from the train — unfinished, maybe meant to stay that way.

When we arrived, I walked through the historic street Graven and stopped for a coffee — the kind of small, warm break that seems made for winter afternoons, where the candlelight and coffee slow time down. The kind of spot where you could sit for hours and feel like no time had passed at all.

A quiet coffee stop in Graven — the kind of place where time seems to slow down.

Later, I visited Hans og Grete Kaffe & The, a tea shop that feels like it belongs to another time entirely. I left with two bags of Darjeeling — one as a gift, one for myself — and a vintage tea container I didn’t really need but couldn’t resist.

As a Danish illustrator, these small moments often shape my narrative art more than I realize at the time. It’s not always about finishing something — it’s about noticing. The way a landscape feels in winter, the mood of a train car, the quiet between stops. Ordinary things that leave an impression and find their way into future work.

I didn’t finish any sketches that day. But perhaps that’s not what the trip was for.

You can see more of my narrative art as a Danish illustrator in my portfolio.

If you’re drawn to details and old design — the kind you only notice when everything slows down — I recently wrote about some of my favorite vintage places in Copenhagen.