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.....

Four matching rococo palaces face one another across an octagonal cobbled square to form Amalienborg, the winter home of the Danish royal family in the heart of Copenhagen. Built in the mid-eighteenth century for noble families, the palaces were acquired by the crown after a fire destroyed an earlier royal residence, and they have housed Danish monarchs ever since. At the centre of the square stands a grand equestrian statue of King Frederik V, around which the four palaces are arranged with el.....

Seat of three branches of Danish power under a single roof, Christiansborg Palace in central Copenhagen houses the national parliament, the supreme court and the offices of the prime minister, while also serving the monarch for state functions. No other building in the world is said to host all three branches of government together, giving the palace a singular constitutional role. The present palace, completed in the early twentieth century, is the third to stand on the small island of Slotsho.....

Famous for the helter-skelter staircase that spirals up the outside of its spire, the Church of Our Saviour in the Christianshavn district of Copenhagen is one of the most distinctive landmarks on the city skyline. The baroque church was completed in the late seventeenth century, but its celebrated corkscrew spire, with an external stair winding to a golden globe near the top, was added in the 1750s. Climbing the spire is the great draw for visitors. After ascending through the tower interior, .....

Not a place but a pass, the Copenhagen Card is the city official sightseeing card, bundling entry to a long list of attractions and unlimited public transport into a single ticket bought for a fixed number of hours or days. Aimed at visitors planning to pack several sights into a short stay, it is designed to simplify travel and cut the cost of a busy itinerary. The card grants free admission to dozens of museums, palaces and attractions across the Danish capital and its surroundings, from the .....

Dominating one end of the city central square, Copenhagen City Hall is a grand brick building in the National Romantic style, completed in 1905 and topped by a tall clock tower that ranks among the highest points in the old city. Its imposing facade, decorated with a gilded figure of the city legendary founder, looks out over the bustling Radhuspladsen. The building is the seat of the municipal council and the working town hall of the Danish capital, but much of it is open to visitors, who can .....

Eating well is something of a Danish art, and a guided food tour offers an efficient way for visitors to taste the city through bakeries, smokehouses, market stalls and modern kitchens in the space of a single afternoon. Several operators run such tours through central Copenhagen, weaving stops through the colourful Nyhavn quarter, the historic Latin Quarter, the food hall at Torvehallerne and the meatpacking district of Vesterbro. A typical tour gathers a small group with a local guide who wal.....

Floating like a glass-and-stone ocean liner on the water across from the royal palaces of Amalienborg, the Copenhagen Opera House is one of the most striking modern buildings in Denmark. Opened in 2005 on the island of Holmen, a former naval base, it was a private gift to the state from the Mollers shipping family and quickly became a focal point of the harbour skyline. Designed by the Danish architect Henning Larsen, the house sits beneath a vast cantilevered roof that hangs out over the harbo.....

Founded in 1859, Copenhagen Zoo is one of the oldest in Europe and has grown from a small collection of birds and farm animals in the Frederiksberg gardens into a leading research and conservation centre that houses thousands of animals on a wooded site on the western edge of the city. The zoo is best known for its Elephant House, designed by the British architect Norman Foster and opened in 2008, where Indian elephants live in spacious paddocks shaded by glass domes that bathe the enclosures i.....

A nation that has produced architects from Arne Jacobsen to Bjarke Ingels deserves a museum to match, and the Danish Architecture Center, known to all as DAC, occupies the BLOX building on the Copenhagen harbour front. Designed by Rotterdam-based OMA and opened in 2018, the centre is itself a piece of contemporary architecture worth a visit in its own right. The centre core role is to present Danish architecture, urbanism and design to a broad public, both Danish and visiting, through changing .....