Vesterbro: Copenhagen

Starting at the Central Train Station, the working class neighborhood of Vesterbro is dominated by the parallel streets of Istegade and Vesterbrogade. One of the city's most racially-mixed neighborhoods is ideal for the under-26 traveler, offering nightlife and left-of-centre culture.

Once seen as one of the city's seediest quarters best known for its basement stripclubs and porn shops, large-scale urban regeneration projects have transformed it into a dynamic mix of smart café-bars, inexpensive ethnic restaurants, eclectic shopping opportunities and constantly changing clubs. South of Istegade along Halmorvet and Sønder Boulevard, streets and squares with names like 'Flæsketorvet' (or 'pork square') provide reminders of the neighborhood's past as a meat district: now, where the squares were once filled wth the pigs and cattle brought from the outlying villages to be sold in the marketplace, artists and clubbers have moved in. The grand building of Øksnehallen on Halmtorvet, for example, was once a cattle market but has been transformed into a vibrant exhibition center. The old meat-packing district of Kødbyen, meanwhile, has seen artists, DJs and musicians move in to the warehouses industry has left abandoned.

Building has been most intensive around the S-Station of Dybbølsbro, and includes smart waterfront hotels, the modern sports complex DGI-byen and the shopping mall and multiplex movie theater at Fisketorvet. There is also a footbridge that connects Dybbelsbrø and surrounding Vesterbro with the waterfront neighborhood on the south side of the harbor at Islands Brygge.

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