Copenhagen (København) is
Scandinavia's most vibrant and
affordable capital, and one of
Europe's most user-friendly cities.
Small and welcoming, it's a place
where people rather than cars set
the pace, as evidenced by the
multitude of pavement cafés and the
number of thoroughfares that have
been given over to pedestrians and
bicycles. Amenable and relaxed, it
also offers a range of entertainment
which belies its relatively modest
size: at night there are plenty of
cosy bars and an intimate club and
live-music network that could hardly
be bettered, while in summer,
especially, there's a varied range
of entertainment as the city's
population takes to the streets.
This is not to mention a beckoning
range of cultural attractions,
including major national museums, a
selection of magical art galleries,
a healthy assortment of performing
arts events and one of Europe's most
interesting film scenes.
Physically, much of Copenhagen
dates from the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries, a cultured
ensemble of handsome renaissance
palaces, parks and merchant houses
laid out around the waterways and
canals that give the city, in
places, a pronounced Dutch flavour.
Successive Danish monarchs left
their mark on the place, in
particular Christian IV, creator of
many of the city's most striking
landmarks - including Rosenborg Slot
and the districts of Nyboder and
Christianshavn - and Frederik III,
who graced the city with the palaces
of Amalienborg and the grandiose
Marmorkirke church, along with the
elegant royal quarter of
Frederikstad in which they are
located. These landmarks remain the
highest points in a refreshingly low
and undeveloped skyline which
continues to measure things on an
emphatically human scale.
Historically, Copenhagen owes its
existence to its position on the
narrow Øresund strait separating
Denmark from Sweden and commanding
the entrance to the Baltic - one of
the great trading routes of medieval
Europe and now the site of the
region's grandest engineering
project, the massive Øresund
Bridge. It's this location, poised
on the dividing line between Europe
and Scandinavia, that continues to
give Copenhagen its distinctive
character. Compared to the
relatively staid capitals further
north, Copenhagen has a decidedly
European flavour, from the innocent
hedonism of the famous Tivoli
gardens to the sleazy goings-on
around Vesterbro's red-light
district. It's no surprise that the
city's most famous export is a beer,
Carlsberg, and the freedom with
which it flows in the city's
thousands of bars is in stark
contrast to the puritanical
licensing laws found elsewhere in
Scandinavia - a fact attested to by
the thousands of thirsty Swedes who
descend on the city each year. Yet
Copenhagen is also a flagship
example of the Scandinavian
commitment to liberal social values,
as exemplified by its laid-back
attitudes to everything from gay
marriages to toplessness and
pornography, and is also home to the
unique "Free City" of
Christiania, whose drop-out
community is one of Europe's most
intriguing social experiments.
For all its twentieth-century
success, however, the new millennium
finds Copenhagen facing an important
set of changes and challenges. On
the one hand, the magnificent new Øresund
Bridge, opened in 2000 to link the
city with Malmö and southern
Sweden, has given Copenhagen the
infrastructure to become the western
Baltic's leading urban centre, and
there are many who would like to see
the city develop into a suitably
internationalist and forward-looking
metropolis. On the other hand, there
are many Copenhageners who regard
the bridge, at best, as an
irrelevance or, at worst, as a
symbol of all those foreign
influences that threaten to
undermine traditional Danish values.
Above all, these influences are
typified by Copenhagen's burgeoning
immigrant community, and simmering
racial tensions - and the resulting
rising power of the right wing -
pose increasing challenges to the
city's tolerant image. At the same
time, Denmark's landmark decision in
a referendum of October 2000 to opt
out of the single European currency
also suggests a national desire to
remain isolated from the continental
mainstream, with the possible result
that Copenhagen will be relegated to
a position of provincial
irrelevance. For all that, it's
worth remembering that the city's
occasional smugness and resistance
to change is the result of its
citizens' pride in their capital and
determination to protect its unique
character, and as a visitor you'll
be made to feel welcome wherever you
go, especially since absolutely
everybody speaks English.
Copenhagen, as any Dane will tell
you, is no introduction to Denmark -
indeed a greater contrast with the
sleepy provincialism of the rest of
the country would be hard to find.
Thanks to the rapid transport links
which connect the capital with its
surrounding countryside, however,
you can enjoy all the pleasures of
rural Zealand without ever being
much more than an hour away from the
bright lights of the capital.
Amongst the many attractions which
ring the city are the great castles
of Kronborg (the "Elsinore
Castle" of Shakespeare's Hamlet
) and Frederiksborg , while
the ancient Danish capital and
ecclesiastical centre of Roskilde
, with its magnificent cathedral and
museum of Viking ships, offers
another enticing day-trip.
