What To Do In Copenhagen: See, Visit & Explore

Sculpture parks on the edge of the sea. Installation art in underground cisterns. Ski slopes on top of green energy plants. Alongside its brilliant museums and bracing harbour baths, Copenhagen has plenty of sights you won’t see anywhere else…

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La Banchina, ©Rolands Varsbergs

ART & DESIGN

Design Museum

This is the place to explore Denmark's rich design history. Housed in an 18th-century former hospital, the Design Museum’s collection spans medieval crafts to Bang & Olufsen's sleek audio equipment. Its permanent Danish Modern exhibition shows why mid-century Scandinavian furniture still feels so perfectly contemporary, while traditional techniques meet avant-garde thinking in the fashion and textiles rooms.

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Louisiana Museum of Art

An easy train ride out of town, a trip to the Louisiana Museum of Art is a wonderful way to spend an afternoon. Its modernist main building sits right on the Øresund coast, mingling its impressive collection of contemporary art with ever-changing sea views. The sculpture park alone is worth the journey: Henry Moores and Giacomettis are scattered on lawns that roll down to the water – on a hot day, you might even consider dipping a toe into the Baltic Sea. Year round, the nearby Rudolph Tegners Museum offers a quiet encounter with the Danish sculptor's powerful works.

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Cisternerne

Beneath Frederiksberg lies one of Copenhagen's most atmospheric art spaces. Vast underground cisterns that once supplied the city its water now host rotating exhibitions that play with light, sound and the cathedral-like architecture. The space transforms each show – we've seen video installations, but also sound art that seems to emerge from the very walls.

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Louisiana Museum of Modern Art

Kunsthal Charlottenborg

This baroque palace turned contemporary art space sits right on Kongens Nytorv, making it Copenhagen's most central gallery. Exhibitions tend toward the cutting-edge, often featuring Nordic artists alongside international names. After browsing, head to the Apollo Bar – the cocktails are as thoughtfully curated as the art around it, and the crowd is exactly the one you'd hope for in a gallery bar.

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Copenhagen Contemporary

In an old welding hall on Refshaleøen, CC pairs its industrial setting to a bold art programme. The soaring ceilings and raw concrete make a fine backdrop for large-scale installations and experimental works, but this is an institution that only started building a permanent collection in 2024, so you don’t know what you'll encounter – only that it will be memorable. Its first permanent acquisition is an immersive light installation by the Californian great James Turrell that’s worth the admission price on its own.

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Finn Juhl's House

Finn Juhl is a legendary Danish designer whose home has been preserved exactly as he left it, offering an intimate glimpse into mid-century modern living. Every piece of furniture, every carefully chosen objet is a part of the story of Danish design's golden age. Out on the edge of the Copenhagen suburbs, this is a pilgrimage site for any design lover. Part of the adjoining Ordrupgaard art museum, the house is open only for guided tours during the week, or you can visit freely at weekends.

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Odense Harbour Bath, ©Mitch Wiesinger

Finn Juhl's House

Grundtvigs Kirke, Rolands Varsbergs/Unsplash

Arken Museum of Modern Art

At the southern end of the city, this striking white building on Køge Bay resembles a ship run aground. Arken’s permanent collection features work by Damien Hirst, Ai Weiwei and Olafur Eliasson, but will also point you towards lesser-known Scandi artists. Temporary exhibitions often impress with their scope and ambition.

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V1 Gallery

One of Copenhagen's most respected commercial galleries, V1 has introduced the city to street artists from Futura 2000 to Banksy. Even if you're not in the market to buy, its converted warehouse space in Flæsketorvet is a great showcase for both emerging and established artists.

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Vester Vov Vov Cinema

This beloved indie cinema has been screening alternative and arthouse films since the 1970s. The magic happens in a building with a wonderfully eccentric history – it’s a 19th-century Roman bath house that has also been a tearoom and paint works. Decorated with vintage film posters and old cinema projectors, its foyer café offers natural wines, locally roasted coffee, and an atmospheric pre-show experience.

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Design Museum

OUTDOORS

Tivoli

One hundred and eighty years after it first opened, this 19th-century pleasure garden remains an irresistible joy. Amid Chinese pagodas, Moorish palaces and flower gardens that change with the seasons, you can settle down for an evening concert or gear up to ride its vintage wooden roller coaster. In winter, a Christmas market transforms Tivoli into something from a Hans Christian Andersen story, confirming that its fairytale atmosphere is real. For first-time visitors to the city, Tivoli should be the first port of call.

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Botanical Garden

Copenhagen's green heart is 10 hectares of carefully tended tranquillity. Its Victorian-era Palm House is a graceful glass dome filled with tropical plants that transport you far from Nordic latitudes. The surrounding gardens are a wonderful place for a pause.

Visit SNM.DK

Copen Hill

In a country with no natural hills to speak of, the locals have had to get creative. With future-forward Danish ingenuity, Copenhagen has transformed its waste-to-energy plant into its coolest recreational facility, where the views from the top stretch across the Øresund to Sweden. You can ski down its artificial slopes in winter, hike to the summit year-round, or simply marvel at the resourcefulness that makes it all possible.

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Martin Heiberg

Dragor

Only eight miles from the centre of the capital, Dragor is an antidote to urban life. The cobblestone streets and yellow houses of this beautifully preserved fishing village have remained unchanged for centuries, and its harbour is still busy with working boats.

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Assistens Cemetery

This sprawling cemetery in Nørrebro doubles as one of Copenhagen's favourite parks, where joggers share paths with philosophy students seeking inspiration. In the shade of its tall lime trees, you can seek out the resting places of famous Danes including Hans Christian Andersen and Søren Kierkegaard or make like the locals and set up a picnic.

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Harbour Baths

Copenhagen’s waterfront is dotted with floating harbour baths. They’re the legacy of a clean-up operation that began in the 1990s and means the water in the city’s harbour is now good enough to swim in. The most famous are Islands Brygge, where there are no fewer than five pools as well as diving boards up to 5m high. Sluseholmen is known as the ‘coral bath’ for its reef-inspired design. Fisketorvet is ‘Copencabana’ and has a 50m pool for serious swimming. Twenty minutes out of town, Kastrup is a conch-shaped sea bath with views of Sweden. Entry to them all is free, facilities are good, and water quality’s tested daily – you’re running out of excuses not to give one a go.

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Canal Tours

If you’d rather stay on the water than dip into it, a canal tour is our favourite way to see some of Copenhagen’s most famous sights. A single trip can take you up to and past old and new icons of the city’s waterfront – from the Opera House and the Black Diamond library to the Little Mermaid herself.

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