Twelve colossal marble apostles line the nave of Copenhagen's cathedral, leading the eye toward Bertel Thorvaldsen's serene Christ figure above the altar - a sculptural programme so dominant that the building is sometimes described as more Thorvaldsen's church than the architect's. The site on Norregade has carried a church since the late 1100s, when Bishop Absalon's successors raised a chalk-stone Church of Our Lady that was completed around 1209. Fire and war treated its successors brutally: t.....

A bronze bishop on horseback rises above Hojbro Plads, axe in hand, gazing toward the island of Slotsholmen where his fortress once stood. The equestrian statue portrays Absalon (c. 1128-1201), the warrior-bishop of Roskilde and later archbishop of Lund who is credited as the founder of Copenhagen: around 1167 he built a castle on the islet that now carries Christiansborg Palace, and the fishing village beside it grew into the Danish capital. The monument was created by sculptor Vilhelm Bissen .....

Denmark's national HIV and AIDS organisation has its headquarters at Vestergade 18E in central Copenhagen, a few minutes from Radhuspladsen. Founded in 1987, AIDS-Fondet works with prevention, advocacy and support for people living with HIV, and the Vestergade address also houses Checkpoint, its community clinic offering free, anonymous testing and counselling for HIV and other sexually transmitted infections on walk-in and appointment basis. The premises are primarily offices and clinic space r.....

Classical drawing is taught here as a craft to be trained, not a talent you either have or lack. Akademiets Skoler, founded in 1986, is a private drawing and design school on Stockholmsgade in Copenhagen's Osterbro district, about five minutes from Osterport station, and has prepared generations of students for careers and further study in illustration, design, architecture, animation and the other aesthetic disciplines. The school runs courses for children, teenagers and adults alike: classica.....

Just a short metro ride from the centre of Copenhagen, Amager Strandpark is a popular beach park that gives the Danish capital its own stretch of sand and sea. Created in its present form in 2005, the park added a two-kilometre artificial island just offshore, separated from the original shore by a shallow lagoon, greatly expanding the city seaside playground. The design cleverly created two very different bathing experiences. The calm, shallow lagoon between the island and the mainland is idea.....

Mozarts Plads in Copenhagen's Sydhavn spent years as little more than a fenced-off metro construction site; when the square finally reopened with its own station on the M4 line, ANKER opened at its edge and quickly settled into the rhythm of the neighbourhood. The cafe serves coffee, beer and sandwiches from morning until evening - some days as late as 8 pm - with the metro delivering visitors practically to the door. Reviewers have praised it as a place that feels like an extension of the old,.....

Museum restaurants rarely earn their own cookbook, but Apollo did: the courtyard restaurant of Kunsthal Charlottenborg, at the mouth of Nyhavn beside Kongens Nytorv, is the home kitchen of chef Frederik Bille Brahe, one of the defining figures of Copenhagen's casual-fine-dining wave. The setting is the historic courtyard of the 17th-century Charlottenborg palace, which houses the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts and its contemporary exhibition hall - no exhibition ticket is required to eat here.....

From the street it looks like any other classic Copenhagen shopfront, but behind the window on the corner of Stormgade and H.C. Andersens Boulevard archaeologists sit sorting, washing and registering finds dug up from beneath the city's streets. The Archaeological Workshop (Arkaeologisk Vaerksted) is a working facility of the Museum of Copenhagen, opened in 2017 on the back of the huge public interest in archaeology generated by the metro excavations. On selected open days - typically during sc.....

Taxidermied animals in fancy dress stare down from the walls of Bankeraat: deer heads on human mannequin bodies, doll-head lamps and candlelit corners have made this corner cafe in the Nansensgade quarter one of Copenhagen's most photographed interiors. Opened in 1992 (some sources date the founding to 1989), it styles itself the city's original bohemian cafe and reshaped local cafe culture as a home for students, artists, musicians, night owls and neighbourhood regulars. By day it is a classic.....

With more than 1,000 beds upstairs, the bar of Danhostel Copenhagen City never lacks company. BAR50 occupies the ground floor of the high-rise hostel on H.C. Andersens Boulevard by Langebro bridge, and works in shifts: breakfast room in the morning, cafe through the day with coffee, cakes and snacks, and from evening a proper bar pouring draught beer, bottled specials, cocktails and wine with a view over the harbour canal. The design-hostel setting - Gubi furniture and Bestlite lamps run throug.....