Copenhagen Sights

  1. Botanisk Have

    In the 10-hectare Botanisk Have you can wander along fragrant paths amid arbours, terraces, rock gardens and ponds. Within the Botanisk Have is the Palmehus, a large walk-through glasshouse containing a lush collection of tropical plants. There's also a cactus house and an orchid greenhouse. One entrance to the Botanisk Have is at the intersection of Gothersgade and Øster Voldgade, while the other is off Øster Farimagsgade.

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  2. Dansk Design Center

    The Dansk Design Center showcases Danish industrial design alongside international design trends.

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  3. Dansk Jødisk Museum

    Designed by Daniel Libeskind, the Danish Jewish Museum is housed in an early 17th century building - formerly the Royal Boat House - now transformed into an intriguing geometrical space. The entrance is on the southern side of the garden which lies to the rear of the Kongelige Bibliotek.

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  4. Davids Samling

    East of Kongens Have, Davids Samling is a wonderful curiosity of a museum housing Scandinavia's largest collections of Islamic art, including jewellery, ceramics and silk, and exquisite works such as an Egyptian rock crystal jug from AD 1000 and a 500-year-old Indian dagger inlaid with rubies.

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  5. De Kongelige Stalde & Kareter

    At De Kongelige Stalde & Kareter visitors can view a collection of antique coaches, uniforms and riding paraphernalia, some of which are still used for royal receptions. You can also see the royal family's carriage and saddle horses.

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  6. Den Hirschsprungske Samling

    Dedicated to Danish art of the 19th and early 20th centuries, Den Hirschsprungske Samling is an enchanting little museum, full of wonderful surprises for art lovers unfamiliar with the classic era of Danish oil painting from the early 19th century.

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  7. Experimentarium

    The extensive hands-on technology and natural-world exhibits at Experimentarium are housed in a former bottling hall of Tuborg Breweries in Hellerup, north of the city. Containing some 300 exhibits, it's a fun place for kids, featuring such time-honoured standards as the hall of mirrors, as well as computer-enhanced activities that make it possible to compose water music, stand on the moon or ride an inverted bicycle. To get here take the S-train to Hellerup from Central Station.

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  8. Frihedsmuseet

    Frihedsmuseet features exhibits on the Danish resistance movement from the time of the German occupation in 1940 to liberation in 1945. There are displays on the Danish underground press, the clandestine radio operations that maintained links with England and the smuggling operations that saved 7200 Danish Jews from capture by the occupying Nazis.

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  9. Gammel Dok

    Home to the Dansk Arkitektur Center, this converted 19th century warehouse offers changing exhibitions on Danish and international architecture, as well as an excellent bookshop.

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  10. Guinness World of Records Museum

    The touristy Guinness World of Records Museum on Strøget uses displays, film and photos to depict the world's superlatives - the tallest, fastest, oddest and so on.

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  12. Kunstforeningen

    The HQ of Denmark's artists' union showcases local and international artistic talent with changing exhibitions. Across the hall, the Fotografisk Center, holds temporary photographic exhibitions by leading Danish and international photographers.

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  13. Kunstindustrimuseet

    There is a cluster of sights along the upmarket street known as Bredgade, home to many of the city's top antique dealers and auction houses. Kunstindustrimuseet, north towards Kastellet, is based in the former Frederiks Hospital. This large, rambling museum boasts an extraordinary, if eclectic, collection of nearly 300,000 items from Asia and Europe, dating from the Middle Ages.

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  14. København Universitet Bibliotek

    The main university building in this part of town faces Vor Frue Kirke across the higgledy-piggledy cobbles of Vor Frue Plads. In the lobby you can see one of the most curious sights in all of Copenhagen, a British cannonball fired from the fleet that attacked the city in 1807.

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  15. Københavns Bymuseet

    True to its name, the Københavns Bymuseet in Vesterbro has displays about the history and development of Copenhagen - mainly paintings and scale models of the old city. There is also a small room dedicated to philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, who was born in Copenhagen in 1813 and died in the city in 1855.

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  16. Lille Molle

    The 17th-century Lille Molle is a windmill that was turned over to the National Museum in the 1970s and has been preserved as its last owners left it - and they left it in a very interesting state. It's situated on the ramparts that are southwest of Christiana, and if you time your visit just right, it's perfect for a guided tour preceded or followed by an excellent meal at Bastionen & Løven, the attached restaurant/café.

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  17. Medicinsk-Historisk Museum

    There is a cluster of sights along the upmarket street known as Bredgade, home to many of the city's top antique dealers and auction houses. Just across the street from Alexander Newsky Kirke is the Medicinsk-Historisk Museum, housed in a former surgical academy dating from 1786 and dealing with the history of medicine, pharmacy and dentistry over the past three centuries. Guided tours are conducted in English.

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  18. Museum Erotica

    A cross between a museum and a peep-show, Museum Erotica is full of supposedly erotic paintings, posters, photographs, statues and sex toys. These items range from hand-coloured daguerreotype photographs from the 1850s to a multiscreen video room playing modern porn movies that are not for the easily shocked. In our opinion, this place is overpriced, exploitative and a little sad - but that doesn't stop it from being one of the city's most popular attractions. It's two blocks north of Strøget.

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  19. Nationalmuseet

    If you want to learn more about Danish history and culture, you couldn't do better than spending an afternoon at Nationalmuseet, opposite the western entrance to Slotsholmen.

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  20. Nikolaj Kirke

    This 13th-century church is now the home of the Copenhagen Contemporary Arts Centre, which hosts around half a dozen exhibitions of contemporary art each year.

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  21. Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek

    The newly renovated Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek houses an excellent collection of Greek, Egyptian, Etruscan and Roman sculpture and art. It was built a century ago by beer baron Carl Jacobsen, an ardent collector. The museum's main building, designed by architect Vilhelm Dahlerup, is set around a delightful glass-domed conservatory, replete with palm trees, which houses a lovely café - the perfect escape from the Danish winter.

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  23. Orlogsmuseet

    Orlogsmuseet, occupying a former naval hospital on Christianshavn Kanal, has more than 300 model ships, many dating from the 16th to the 19th century - meaning that if you are, or someone you know is, the type to get high from tooling around with hobby glue, then you have stumbled upon the mother lode. The museum also displays figureheads, navigational instruments, ship lanterns and the propeller from the German U-boat that sank the Lusitania .

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  24. Overgaden

    Rarely visited by tourists, this tucked-away gallery mounts challenging exhibitions of contemporary installation art and photography, usually by younger artists.

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  25. Planetarium

    Copenhagen's Planetarium, 750m northwest of Central Station, has a domed space theatre that offers shows of the night sky using state-of-the-art equipment capable of projecting more than 7500 stars, planets and galaxies. The planetarium's 1000-sq-metre screen also shows Omnimax natural science films on subjects ranging from astronauts to Australia.

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  26. Ripley's Believe It or Not!

    Whacky Ripley's Believe It or Not! museum displays the expected collection of unexpected oddities from around the world (such as a six-legged calf) replicated in wax figures and tableaux. Revelling in its own outlandish clichés, this place gets packed with young folk. The Hans Christian Andersen 'museum' next door really isn't worth the entrance fee though.

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  27. Statens Museum for Kunst

    Denmark's national gallery, Statens Museum for Kunst, was founded in 1824 to house art collections belonging to the royal family. Originally sited at Christiansborg Slot, the museum opened in its current location in 1896. Statens Museum is the largest art museum in Denmark, thanks to an enormous, light-filled modern extension constructed in recent times.

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