Travel guide: Copenhagen  

In the heart of Copenhagen lie the Tivoli gardens, opened in 1843 and with over four million visitors... each season one of the best attended and most popular recreational parks in Europe. The park's biggest attraction is the variety it offers: it is a fairground, a funfair with roundabouts and rollercoasters and a landscaped garden with a large lake and flower beds all in one. Numerous snack bars and 30 excellent restaurants are enough to tempt anyone's palate. Free ballet performances take place in the pantomime theatre with its striking dome, classical and modern concerts on the open-air stage. A pavilion, a Moorish-style bazaar and a Chinese tower lend the park its fairytale, in part exotic, atmosphere. The highlight of any visit is the magnificent midnight fireworks display every Saturday and on special occasions. Around 100 nine to sixteen-year-old boys form the Tivoli Guard, who now and then march through the park playing music. more

Christiansborg Palace, where today, among other things, the Danish parliament or Folketing convenes,... is not only worth a visit to look at from the outside. Inside, a tour of the Royal Reception Rooms on the first floor is highly recommended. Here, for instance, Denmark's Queen Margrethe II receives diplomats from all over the world to celebrate New Year. Visitors can see, for example, the Knight's Hall during a guided tour. At 40 m (131 ft) long and 10 m (33 ft) high, this is among the largest of the palace's many rooms. The tapestries in the hall are by the Danish artist Bjørn Nørgaard. Other important rooms are the Fredensborg Room with a portrait of King Christian IX. and the so-called Alexander Room, named after a 19th century marble frieze by Danish sculptor Berthel Thorvaldsen. About one hundred years ago, during building works to the current and, in total, third Christansborg Palace, workers by chance discovered the historic remains of ancient Copenhagen: the ruins that you can see today are the remains of the Castle, which was erected by the city's founder, Bishop Absalon. The current exhibition dates from 2006 and is well worth a visit. more

At the Experimentarium in the north of the Danish capital, young and older fans of science and technology... are in the right place: the most diverse natural phenomena can be learnt about over 5,000 m² (54,000 sq ft), where about 300 experiments and activities can be tried out through play. This equally entertaining and exciting experience includes finding out about the natural environment of Denmark's coast and high-tech reality: how do wind and waves form along the beaches and coastlines? How does the Internet actually work? And: can I fit my whole body inside a soap bubble? Provided you have the necessary urge to explore - and what child doesn't have that! - the visit to the Experimentarium, located at what used to be a Tuborg brewery site, can turn into a journey of discovery into the exciting world of physics that lasts for hours. And all this with no pressure and learning through play, or so-called "Edutainment". In addition to the 300 permanent experiments, the Experimentarium regularly presents scientific special exhibitions, such as "Dialogue in the Dark". Here, sighted people can experience what it is like to be blind for a while: try feeling your way over streets, across bridges and through cafés - and without seeing a single thing. more

A few kilometres south of Copenhagen, the spectacularly beautiful avantgarde design of the "Arken" (Museum... of Modern Art) is located: the "Arken" looks as if it had just landed on Ishøj beach. The museum focuses on contemporary art after 1945 - Danish, Nordic and also international art. The collection includes all genres, from paintings to sculptures and photography as well as video installations. The permanent and special exhibitions are not the only things worth seeing, as the building's architecture is alone worth a visit. The museum building is situated right in the middle of the sand dunes at Øresund, where it lays just like a giant ship's hull. Especially when viewed from the outside, the architect Søren Robert Lund clearly succeeded in creating the impression of an ark. The main element in the museum's interior is an approximately 150 m (492 ft) long axis of arts, with smaller exhibition rooms and galleries leading off from it. You can enjoy a lovely view across the beach and water from the museum café. more

The new Danish-Jewish Museum only opened a few years ago in the traditional main building of the Royal... Library on the government island of Slotsholmen. The well-known architect Daniel Libeskind, who also designed, among other things, Berlin's Jewish Museum or the Nussbaum Museum in Osnabrück, designed the slanting rooms inside. The collection focuses on Jewish culture, art and history in Denmark from the first wave of immigration in the 17th century until today. Visitors can gain an insight into the traditions of Danish Jewish communities by looking at about 3,000 partly private exhibits. They also learn of the fate of individuals during the period of the German occupation of Denmark. The exhibition also deals with the flight of Danish Jews from the German occupiers via Øresund to Sweden. In October 1943, fishermen from Zealand saved about 7,200 fellow Jewish citizens from the much-feared deportation to German concentration camps by helping them flee across the narrow straits at Øresund to safety in Sweden - in the middle of the Second World War, this was a unique rescue mission. more