Aarhus

Inside the cubist, red-brick walls of Aarhus’ showpiece art museum are nine floors of sweeping curves, soaring spaces and white walls showcasing a wonderful selection of Golden Age works, Danish modernism and an abundance of arresting and vivid contemporary art. The museum's cherry-on-top is the spectacular Your Rainbow Panorama, a 360-degree rooftop walkway offering views of the city through its glass panes in all shades of the rainbow.

The Danes’ seemingly limitless enthusiasm for dressing up and re-creating history reaches its zenith at Den Gamle By. It’s an engaging, picturesque open-air museum of over 70 half-timbered houses brought here from all corners of Denmark and reconstructed as a provincial market town from the era of Hans Christian Andersen. It also includes a recreated neighbourhood from 1974.

Opened in 2015 as part of Aarhus' large-scale waterfront regeneration, Dokk1 is the kind of public space Danes excel at, and houses Scandinavia's largest library. It's a great building, home to countless reading nooks, a cafe, kids' play area and an information desk for visitors to the city.

A former garage at the back of the bus station now houses a buzzing street-food venue serving everything from pizza slices to bumper burgers, by way of Thai curries, Chinese dumplings and Vietnamese baguettes. The place is one of the places to meet, greet and graze in town – on-site bars stay open until midnight Friday and Saturday.

While you’re exploring the old part of town, be sure to wander along idyllic Møllestien, easily Aarhus’ prettiest street – all cobblestones, pastel-coloured cottages and climbing roses.

Don't miss the reinvented Moesgaard Museum, 10km south of the city, housed in a spectacularly designed, award-winning modern space. The star attraction is the 2000-year-old Grauballe Man, whose astonishingly well-preserved body was found in 1952 in the village of Grauballe, 35km west of Aarhus. Aside from the Grauballe Man, the museum brings various eras (from the Stone Age to the Viking era) to life with cutting-edge archaeological and ethnographic displays.

There's a food revolution sweeping Aarhus, with new restaurants, cafes, microbreweries and provedores springing up regularly and giving diners plenty to hunger over. Options swing from farmers markets to fancy-pants dining; two food halls feed grazers and hipsters while gourmands can choose from a handful of Michelin-starred restaurants.