Copenhagen: Art and Architecture in a Northern Light

Familiar to fans of Nordic noir and perusers of style bibles, Copenhagen is a compact, welcoming and thoroughly modern capital. Its historic rise from fishing village to outward-looking metropolis mirrors the transformation of Denmark from a feared Viking kingdom to the poster child of Scandinavian social democracy. As you strolling down pedestrianised cobblestone streets and over shimmering canals to dine at some of the world’s most celebrated restaurants, it is easy to suppose that Copenhagen has twenty-first century urban living figured out.

But Copenhagen is more than a hipster paradise of cafes, craft breweries and groundbreaking cuisine. It boasts an array of splendid castles and palaces, and a lovely Neoclassical city centre, rebuilt after Royal Navy bombardment in 1807, including the Thorvaldsen sculpture museum. The Danish National Gallery contains archaeological treasures as well as masterpieces by Rembrandt, Dürer and Picasso, and, just beyond the city limits, the Louisiana is one of northern Europe’s very finest postwar art galleries, set among rolling green hills on the shore of the Øresund Sound.

We will venture further afield too, to visit Frederiksborg, a 17th-century Renaissance palace, the largest in Scandinavia, and its splendid gardens, and the preserved Viking ships and thirteenth-century Cathedral at Roskilde. There will also be enough free time to visit fashion boutiques or award-winning New Nordic restaurants without feeling guilty.