First Time in Copenhagen

Our Local Expert Says:

A totally unique attraction: only in Denmark.

Description:

In 1971, a band of hippies decided to squat a collection of deserted army barracks close to Copenhagen's Christianshavn neighborhood, proclaiming the area as a Free State to be self-governed as a collective. Almost four decades later, Christiania continues as one of the country's biggest attractions, confirming the global view of Denmark as a tolerant nation able to accept Christiania as a 'social experiment'. It's possible to walk around the 32-hectare, car-free area, which houses a music venue ( Loppen), various vegetarian cafes and bars as well as a surprisingly classy restaurant (Spiseloppen). Since the notorious open-air marijuana market 'Pusher Street' was shut down in 2004, Christiania has seen a steady police presence, yet despite all attempts to gradually 'normalize' the area, it remains as a testimony to the tenacious free spirit of liberal Scandinavia.

Our Local Expert Says:

Quite magical.

Description:

The world-famous Tivoli Pleasure Gardens first opened its doors on August 15, 1843. It's said that the park's founder, Georg Carstensen, said that Tivoli would never be completely finished and, staying true to that statement, a new ride is added each year. Another story is that Walt Disney was moved enough after visiting to attempt to purchase the gardens and after being refused, went on to design his own Disneyland in California.

But Tivoli is more than just rides: In addition to the daily Pierrot pantomime shows, there are also regular classical concerts in the concert hall and free Friday night rock concerts with big international and local names performing on the Garden's open air stage. Tivoli is also famous for its extravagant firework displays, which take place a handful of times a year. In addition to its summer season, Tivoli's Christmas opening recreates a magical winter wonderland experience, while the most recent addition is the week-long Halloween season (which actually coincides more with the school autumn holiday than October 31).

Our Local Expert Says:

For many, this is Copenhagen's most beautiful museum.

Description:

Carlsberg Brewery founder Carl Jacobsen and his wife were some of the biggest art benefactors of the time, and presented their extensive collection to the Danish state in 1888/ 1899 - calling it 'Glyptoteket' after the Greek word for a collection of sculpture. The beautiful building was then built to house the huge collection, and is worth visiting for the architecture alone - which includes a delightful winter garden at its centre. Home to the largest collection of ancient art in Northern Europe - including Egyptian and Etruscan artifacts - it also houses an impressive range of French impressionist paintings, most notably by Gauguin and Rodin. Extensive modernizations have vastly improved access and facilities without destroying the museum's unique atmosphere, which is best experienced with an extended sojourn in the garden's café.

Our Local Expert Says:

A fascinating walkway to a great view of the city.

Description:

Europe's oldest functioning observatory, the Rundetårn (or Round Tower) was built under the orders of King Christian IV in 1642, and remains a fascinating piece of architectural engineering. Central to this (and unique in Europe) is the 209 meter-long spiral ramp, which twists around the tower 7.5 times before reaching the top of the 34.8 meter-high tower. With Copenhagen's landscape decidedly lacking in tall buildings, the summit still affords some of the best views over the city. As well as its astronomical purpose, today's Round Tower is home to a modest gallery hosting changing exhibitions as well as concerts.

Our Local Expert Says:

A must for fans of royalty.

Description:

The royal residence of Queen Margrethe II was built in 1749 and is widely considered to be a splendid architectural example of the Rococo-period. Amalienborg consists of four different buildings, Christian VII's Palace, Christian VIII's Palace, Frederik VIII's Palace and Christian XI's Palace, erected around an octagonal square. This square - Amalienborg Slotsplads - sees the changing of the guard daily at noon with a monument of Frederik V on horseback in the centre, completed by French artist Jacques Saly in 1771 after 20 painful years of building. While the Royal Family resides in Christian IX's palace, Christian VIII's Palace houses the Amalienborg Museum and - aside from occasional tours of Christian VII's Palace - is the only one open to the public.

Our Local Expert Says:

Four castles in one.

Description:

There have been castles on Slotsholmen since the island was first settled in the 12th century, on the site from where the country is still governed. Along with the Houses of Parliament, Christiansborg is also home to the Prime Minister's Office and the Supreme Court, and still used by the Royal Family, who moved out in 1794. Put simply, Parliament (Folketinget) uses the southern half of the building and the Royal Family the northern section, though you can't get from one end to the other without leaving the building. The current building, built between 1907 and 1928, is the third version of Christiansborg, one having burnt down and another torn down. Christiansborg's 106-metre high tower is the highest in the city, and its façade contains granite collected from the entire country, including Greenland. While much of Christiansborg is closed to the public, it is possible to visit the Royal Reception Rooms, including the Great Hall, where the Queen's Tapestries hang, as well as a far older piece of history: underneath the modern palace are the remains of the original Absalon Castle, built by Bishop Absalon in 1167 and discovered accidentally by workmen in 1907. The ruins were reopened... read more

Our Local Expert Says:

The best of the city's many street markets

Description:

Street markets are a common sight on Saturdays in Copenhagen, particularly in the summer, but the one on Thorvaldsens Plads stands out as the most exclusive, not only because of its perfect location in front of the stately Thorvaldsens Museum and overlooking the canals, but also because it offers the chance to pick up some real gems - like Royal Danish blue porcelain, a crystal vase or a genuine piece of Georg Jensen silver. Though quite small, this market, on one of Copenhagen's sunniest squares, is still pleasant just to wander around - before taking the weight off the feet at an outside table in one of the many cafes, enjoying the view across the canal to Gammel Strand and downtown Copenhagen.

Our Local Expert Says:

See Copenhagen from the water and get a whole new perspective of the city.

Description:

For once, it's the tourists who get it right - locals almost never experience Copenhagen in this way, and they're missing out on a treat, experiencing the old city centre from a different perspective and seeing almost all the downtown attractions from the water. DFDS Canal Tours offer five different tours of the city, ranging from 60-75 minutes in duration, both with or without a guide. They leave from Gammel Strand and Nyhavn, with longer ones taking you as far as the Little Mermaid and out into the Øresund Channel to the tiny fortress island of Trekroner. On Sunday and Thursday evenings during summer months there's even a 90-minute jazz cruise, with live music aboard the boat.

Our Local Expert Says:

The perfect starting point for a lesson in Danish art history.

Description:

Despite its unassuming exterior and out of the way location, the Hirschsprung museum has one of the world's largest collection of paintings from what is known as the Danish Golden Age of art and thus offers a fantastic overview of Danish 19th century art. The extensive private collection of tobacco tycoon Heinrich Hirschsprung (1836-1908) and his wife Pauline includes a great deal of work from the Skagen painters, including P.S. Krøyer and Michael and Anna Ancher. This small, old-fashioned museum is positively crammed with art, the walls filled with gilt-framed oil paintings - even the furniture is a period antique from the family collection.

Our Local Expert Says:

Situated in attractive grounds, Rosenborg is filled with the mysteries of Denmark's most fascinating king

Description:

When King Christian IV ordered Rosenborg Palace to be built in 1606, he imagined it as his summer house outside of the city. As with many of Christian IV's plans, he could never quite finish his dream castle, and additions continued right through his reign and long afterwards, the last being in 1758. Apart from in times of emergency (when the British laid siege to Copenhagen in 1801, for example), Rosenborg has not been used as a royal residence since 1710, and now functions as a museum, its most treasured artifact being the nation's crown jewels. Every day at noon, guards march from the barracks outside Rosenborg through the city to the other royal palace, Amalienborg. Though the city has grown around Rosenborg, the surrounding King's Gardens (Kongens Have) serve as one of Copenhagen's most popular parks, full throughout spring and summer with picnic-goers and sunbathers.

Our Local Expert Says:

Legendary.

Description:

When all the city's gourmet restaurants were competing for a place in the Michelin guide with French cuisine, chefs Rene Redzepi and Claus Meyer took a gamble - to open a high-end restaurant serving only Scandinavian ingredients. They called it Noma, an abbreviation of 'Nordic Mad' or Scandinavian food. Some years later and with Redzepi - formerly of Michelin-rated restaurants like Spain's El Bulli - still at the helm as head chef, it has been named as the third best restaurant in the world. The dishes are Scandinavian, not in a Viking-inspired meat fest but with the ocean as inspiration - sea food and indeed seaweed combine with peculiarly Nordic berries and fruits, with any of the ingredients hailing from Greenland, the Faroe Isles and Iceland. The menu, which changes according to season, reads like a poem: tartar and wood sorrel, musk ox and grilled leeks. The location is a little out of town, right next to the harbor - the waves seem to lap right up to the tables - in a 250 year-old former warehouse shared with the North Atlantic Cultural Center. As a compliment to the cuisine, the decor is simple and rustic. Reservation is necessary - this place books up months in advance.... read more

Description:

This very popular old-style lunch restaurant, not far from Højbro Plads, dates back to the eighteenth century, and has belonged by the Kik family since 1910.Kik is a place where ordinary Danes go for lunch with a beer and schnapps. There is a crowded, smoky atmosphere down here.Traditional open sandwiches are the speciality of the house, and traditional Danish they are. Here, you won't find a single leaf of coriander or drop of balsamic vinegar: this is old-school Danish. All the open sandwiches available are lined up on a big table. What you see is exactly what you get! Then you order, and while you wait by your table the open sandwiches are freshly made, typically with rye bread, butter, herring and onions or mature Danish cheese and a drop of rum. Another classic is smoked salmon with fresh dill on it. You pay DKK34-70 a piece. A good selection of Danish schnapps is available.

Our Local Expert Says:

Excellent dining, historic surroundings.

Description:

This superior restaurant in Christianshavn is housed in a historic building formerly owned by Customs & Excise with windows opening directly onto Christianshavns Kanal: These are not the only reasons to visit the place, however, as the food here-traditional Danish food with a French touch-is created with care and passion, enough in fact to have earned it a Michelin-recommendation 'Bib Gourmand' in 2010. Guests can choose from a set menu (3-6 courses, DKK 360-495), a 3-course vegetarian set menu or the a la carte menu, with a variety of both fish and meat dishes on offer that change according to season. Reservation recommended.

Description:

Zeleste is a combined café and restaurant, a small but nice place whose trademark is modern world cuisine. In summer, you can enjoy your meal directly off the barbeque on the lovely patio.Young, talented chefs create food inspired by places from all over the world. There is a lot of seafood, but also frogs' legs and other specialities - the menu always befits the season. You can get a three-course dinner for DKK325. Four courses will cost you DKK375. Zeleste has a great selection of wines, mainly European, but also some from the New World. Prices go from DKK195 a bottle, DKK55 a glass.

Our Local Expert Says:

A perfect starting point for discovering the Danish lunch

Description:

Rugbrød, the heavy rye bread staple of the Danish diet, has found an unexpected fan in Oprah Winfrey, who professes to eating a slice every morning since visiting Copenhagen recently. Rugbrød is the basis of the traditional Danish open sandwich known locally as smørrebrød and still favored by many Danes over more conventional sandwiches for lunch. Visiting Copenhagen without sampling smørrebrød would be like a tour of Tokyo without trying sushi, and the open sandwich is as much an art form as its Japanese counterpart. For the first-timer, Ida Davidsen is the perfect place to start - authentic and reasonably-priced, yet still on the tourist map. The family have been making open sandwiches since Ida's great grandfather Oscar started the business in Nørrebro in 1888, and the Davidsen name has become internationally synonomous with smørrebrød; Ida Davidsen and her son Oscar offer a menu with no less than 250 varieties to choose from. Note the shop is closed during July, at weekends and in the evening.

-For an interview with Oscar Davidsen, see Creating the Perfect Danish Open Sandwich.
read more

Our Local Expert Says:

Copenhagen is famous for its jazz scene, and the Jazzhouse is at its heart

Description:

It may not look like much from the outside, but Copenhagen Jazzhouse has been central to the jazz scene in Copenhagen-as well as Denmark-since it opened in 1990 to fill the gap left by the closure of legendary jazz club Montmartre, which reopened in 2010. Jazzhouse is one of the most important jazz venues in the world, and presents more than 200 concerts a year that both showcase up-and-coming talent and bring big international names to the city. One of the main hosts of the Copenhagen Jazz Festival held every July, the Jazzhouse comprises a number of different clubs, including Classic Jazz Club, the more contemporary, improv Jazznow! As well as Swing Pigalle for lovers of big band swing. The nightclub runs every Fri-Sat after the concerts, as well as the upstairs cocktail bar Herluf.

Our Local Expert Says:

Inexpensive, central and welcoming

Description:

Not many bars in this area can boast of both cheap beer and a friendly atmosphere appreciated by locals and tourists alike, but Drop Inn manages it. There's live music - usually blues - offered at the weekend on the tiny stage, and the place has been given an artistic makeover - you can't miss the huge red aeroplane hanging from the ceiling.

Our Local Expert Says:

For concerts and club nights, the locals go to Vega

Description:

This hip venue on the far edge of the Vesterbro neighborhood is worth the trek out of the city center: since its opening in 1996, Vega has grown from trendy nightspot to an established and reliable venue for both clubbing and for catching big name touring bands. Located in vast premises dating from the 1950s, Vega has preserved the dark, wooden decor of the era and is actually a listed building. Because of its unique design, Vega is frequently used as a film set, in photo shoots or for fashion shows. It consists of the larger concert hall Store Vega (capacity 1500), the more intimate Lille Vega (capacity 500) and the late-night Ideal Bar.

Our Local Expert Says:

Adding a Latino lilt to the Danish capital

Description:

Club Mambo is the only club in Copenhagen for serious lovers of salsa and other Latin dance forms, offering free salsa and merengue lessons for beginners one hour before the nightclub opens Thursday thru Saturday. Music in the nightclub varies from salsa to reggaeton and R'n'B, and the club has a reputation for inviting Cuban (and other South American) stars to Denmark. If you'd like to eat before the dancing starts, note that the restaurant is only open to those with reservations.

Our Local Expert Says:

Laid-back music, drinks and food until late.

Description:

Barbarellah offers Latin American cuisine at its very best. The Argentinean beef, Chilean Pebre and Bolivian Huacaina Salad all bear typically spicy flavors. An exquisite range of cocktails with margaritas and mojitos are worth indulging in. Apart from great food and drinks, the DJ gives the restaurant and bar a fun ambiance. This venue has a cosmopolitan feel with visitors from all walks of life.

Our Local Expert Says:

Strangely, this tiny statue is Copenhagen's biggest landmark.

Description:

Denmark's most photographed tourist attraction is also the nation's smallest and, for many, something of an anticlimax. A tribute to the most well known of Danish fairy tale writer Hans Christian Andersen's characters, the bronze figurine The Little Mermaid has sat on her rock out in the Øresund Channel along Langelinie since 1913; over the decades she has been vandalized numerous times, most famously in 1964, when she was decapitated in what later turned out to be an artist's prank. In 2006, The Little Mermaid acquired a neighbor, Bjørn Nørgaard's 'Genetically Modified Mermaid', a contemporary commentary on the landmark. In 2010, The Little Mermaid was moved for the first time ever, when it was exhibited in Shanghai as part of world exhibition EXPO's Danish Pavilion.

Description:

Kastellet is a star-shaped fortress near Langelinie. Its bastions and moats are almost unchanged from when they were a part of the original structure built in 1660 as per recovered drawings of Heinrich Rüse, a Dutch fortress expert. Kastellet was built as a result of the wars against Sweden at the time. The forts appear today almost as they did towards the end of the nineteenth century, but without the outer parts. This has been made possible by thorough restoration work financed by the company A.P. Møller. It is now possible to walk on all of the bastions. Entrance is through the recently restored Kongeporten (the King's Gate), dating from 1663. Inside are barracks where you find the state prison and Kastelskirken church. Exit is through Norgesporten (the Norwegian Gate). For many reasons, Kastellet has become a popular place to visit. It is wonderful to walk around the bastions in all seasons. Since most old trees have been removed, there is an excellent view over Langelinie, the harbour and the centre of the city.

Our Local Expert Says:

Landmark building, world class shows

Description:

One of the most expensive opera houses ever built, Copenhagen Opera House was designed by Henning Larsen and officially opened in January 2005. Located on Copenhagen's harbour, it lies directly opposite Amalienborg Palace and the Marble Church (Marmorkirken). In addition to the lavish productions of the Main Stage, the smaller black box theater 'Takkelloftet' is used for experimental performances. Also the official home of the Royal Danish Orchestra, Operaen has full disabled access.

Description:

The Oresundsbro bridge opened to create a new connection between the neighbouring countries of Sweden and Denmark on 1 July 2000. Along with a new highway on Amager and a fast train connection from the Central Station across Amager to Sweden, Oresundsbro unites the two countries not only geographically, but also culturally. The bridge is a hanging construction, beautiful in its engineering simplicity. The turns it takes across Oresund make the experience all the more extraordinary when you cross it. The bridge has so far not had the greatest possible success, because the users - especially the Danish ones - complain about the high prices for crossing. But the management is working on it, and price changes are on their way in the near future. The bridge makes it possible to take a day trip to the Swedish side, where a lot of exciting places await you. The shopping facilities in Malmo are quite good too.

Our Local Expert Says:

A tourist must.

Description:

This small harbor street is one of Copenhagen's biggest visitor attractions, and while its row of timber-built, brightly-painted 17th-century buildings-most of them cafes-are an obvious tourist trap, there is something delightful about sitting here by the water on a hot summer's day. While all the cafes offer outside seating in spring/summer as well as a mostly traditional Danish lunch menu, a cheaper alternative is to buy a bottled drink from a local supermarket or an ice cream and sit on the edge of the pier. Nyhavn has two very different sides, with the Charlottenborg side much quieter. It also has a lively and chequered past: Just 30 years ago, the street was a rowdy collection of notorious drinking dens frequented by sailors. Heavily cleaned up for tourists, traces remain in the tattoo parlor and the all-night Hong Kong Bar. Note that should you be visiting Copenhagen in wintertime, off-season Nyhavn is virtually deserted.