Places to see in Copenhagen

Originally, the kings, queens, their families and the court stayed at Christiansborg Palace. In the 1750s, noble families erected four mansions that were placed around a statue of Frederik V, in the middle of the Amalienborg courtyard. Shortly after the Great Fire of 1794, the king bought two of the Amalienborg mansions for himself, his family, and the court.

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This is the house in which Prince Frederik VII first met his future wife, Louise Rasmussen, who would later become Countess Danner – one of the most remarkable women in Danish history. She was born into poverty, but Frederik defied convention and chose to follow his heart, marrying Louise Rasmussen against the wishes of his family and the court.

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Probably the best beer in the world. This is the slogan of Carlsberg, Denmark’s famous beer brewery. The building was founded by brewer Jacob Christian Jacobsen in Valby, right outside of Copenhagen.

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Today you can see ministers biking to and from work at the Danish Parliament, which is located at Christiansborg Palace, on the ruins of both Absalon’s Castle and the medieval Copenhagen Castle. Both renovations and all-consuming fires have changed the look of Christiansborg Palace over the years. In 1906, construction of what would become the third Christiansborg Palace began, and this is the building that still stands today. This has been the site of many of Denmark’s most fascinating dramas throughout history.

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Christian IV knew that Copenhagen needed protection against the Swedish, and he also needed a place to house the Dutch immigrants. Thus he ordered a new town to be built, which was given the name of ‘Christianshavn’ after the king. While great parts of Copenhagen burned down in the fires of 1728, 1795 and 1807, Christian’s Harbour was never touched by the all-consuming flames. Therefore many of the original buildings still stand today.

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Countess Danner (born Louise Rasmussen) spent her life fighting her way up the caste system. She worked as a ballet dancer to support herself, and later married Frederik VII. After his death, Countess Danner inherited great riches. But despite her newfound position, she never forgot her roots, and in 1873 she founded the Frederik VII Foundation for Poor Working-Class Women.
Today, the Countess Danner House is one of the country’s oldest and biggest crisis centres for women and children affected by violence.

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Imagine Copenhagen before the middle-ages: A small, local trading post in the spot where inner Copenhagen lies today. In the 13th century, Copenhagen received its first monastery, and three new churches. One of them was the Church of Our Lady (Vor Frue Kirke) on Nørregade. This was the church in which Margaret and the Norwegian King Haakon were married in 1363.

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Visit the court theatre, which set the stage for one of the biggest, most dramatic scandals of Danish history. Queen Caroline Mathilde, her husband King Christian VII and the king’s royal physician Struensee were attending a masquerade ball on January 17, 1772. The following night, Caroline Mathilde, Struensee and Enevold Brandt were arrested and accused of high treason. The physician and his old friend were beheaded, and the queen was banished. But before that, Struensee had managed to introduce radical reforms to better the conditions of the poor, while the king’s mental illness darkened his soul.

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Leonora Christina and Corfitz Ulfeldt lived in an estate on the square, which is named after the Gråbrødre (‘Greybrothers’) Monastery that was once located there. But Corfitz Ulfeldt betrayed his country, and in 1663 the king erected a bust of shame on the square where Ulfeldt had lived. The citizens were encouraged to spit on it as they passed. The bust of shame was damaged during the fire of 1728, and renovated in 1747. In 1841, the hate towards Corfitz Ulfeldt had dissipated so much that the bust was removed. Today, the fountain ‘Vandkunsten’ stands where the bust used to be.

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If you stand by the railing and look down into the water, with Christiansborg Palace on your right, you can see the Merman and his seven sons, his arms outstretched in a silent plea for Agnete to return to him. The light keeps changing, and the surface of the water is shimmering. It gives the statues a certain eerie light – just as in the fairy tale. Hans Christian Andersen adapted his story from the old medieval folk song about a girl who is drawn to the sea, marries a merman, has seven sons and ends up returning to the surface, as that is where she belongs.

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From the age of five until he was 17, Søren Kierkegaard attended the Borgerdyd School in Klareboderne. It was one of only three schools in Copenhagen at the time that allowed its students to continue on to university. The slight boy was considered a funny, impudent student, who teased the other students and wasn’t afraid to talk back to the teacher.

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Under the rule of Frederik III and his successor, Christian V, the big square known as ‘Kongens Nytorv’ (The King’s New Square) was a beautiful, oval garden for people to see and be seen. Unlike squares like Gammeltorv (Old Square), this one wasn’t used for knights’ tournaments. Rather than seeing the king in action, they could look upon his statue.

Many years later Georg Carstensen, the man behind the Tivoli Gardens, would often cross the big square to get to his favourite café, the Á Porta, which lay on the corner next to Magasin. Today there is a McDonald’s in its place.

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Before he created the Tivoli Gardens, Georg Carstensen found his success as a party planner in the King’s Gardens. To begin with he arranged everything himself, but he soon employed the help of a young architect named Harald Conrad Stilling, who decorated the garden while Carstensen himself handled the entertainment. The parties were beautifully lit, with big orchestral arrangements, good food, and impressive fireworks.

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The fairytale The Little Mermaid is one of Hans Christian Andersen’s most well-known and beloved stories, and on Langelinie in Copenhagen, you can see a sculpture of this very mermaid. The sculpture was a gift to Copenhagen from brewer Carl Jacobsen, and created by sculptor Edvard Eriksen.
The Little Mermaid has been a victim of vandalism several times. Twice she has been beheaded, and she’s had paint poured over her several times. But each time she is saved and restored to her former glory.

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In the middle ages, it was important to keep one’s towns protected.
Back then, Copenhagen was a very small town. The first of its fortresses lay in the area which today is marked by the houses facing Rådhuspladsen, Vestergade, and Gammeltorv-Nytorv. The fortifications were eight metres wide, about 1.5 metres high, and around it was a moat of approximately the same size.

On the inside of the fortifications, there would probably have been a narrow walkway. The last piece of this is still preserved today, and can be found in Mikkel Bryggersgade. The streets of Mikkel Bryggersgade and Kattesundet still maintain their original 14th century shapes, and some of the small plots can still be seen here.

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Aided by both private funds and the government, Niels Bohr had a brand new Institute of Theoretical Physics constructed in 1921. This became a hub of scientific discoveries, including early studies of atom physics and the foundations for modern physics. This creative, scientific oasis attracted the likes of Albert Einstein, Niels Bohr’s respected colleague.

Today, the Niels Bohr Institute is a melting pot of the physics courses taught at Copenhagen University. It spans the fields of astronomy, geophysics, particle physics, quantum physics, nanophysics, and biophysics.

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In 1834, H.C. Andersen moved into a small apartment in Nyhavn 20, to stay with a captain’s widow and her four children. In these two rooms on the second floor – one facing the street, the other facing the courtyard – H.C. Andersen wrote his first stories for children, including The Tinder Box, Little Claus and Big Claus, and The Princess on the Pea. Later he moved again, and in October of 1848, he moved back to Nyhavn, this time to number 67.

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Denmark’s most marked philosopher, Søren Aabye Kierkegaard, was born on May 5, 1813, on Nytorv 2 in Copenhagen.

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Rosenborg Castle is where Leonora Christina watched over her dying father. Originally her father, Christian IV, had lived at the old medieval Copenhagen Castle, but he found it terribly old-fashioned.
Instead he wanted a better and more inviting home. He bought up 40 plots of land outside the city limits where his leisure castle would be built. There was also a splendid park and a vegetable garden for the court. To begin with, he lived in a modest house with two floors. After a few years he added a tower with a drawbridge, and the house doubled in size. More floors were added, one of which was devoted to a great hall.

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Once, the city’s life revolved around the Royal Theatre. It is therefore not surprising that it was from the king’s box close to the stage that King Frederik VII first laid eyes upon his future wife. In 1855, he had a box for the court nobility erected in the middle of the balcony, so the rest of the royal family would not have to sit with Countess Danner, whom they despised. When he died in 1863, the box was removed, and since then there has only been a royal box on the side balcony.

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Christian IV, a visionary, realised that it was important to be able to trade with other countries, and decided that Copenhagen would be the world’s future centre of trade. In 1618 he asked his master builder to construct an exchange hall in the architectural style of the Dutch Renaissance. The dragon spire, which has been designed to look like four intertwined dragons’ tails, has become the symbol of the Stock Exchange. Legend goes that the spire protects the building from both enemies and fire. The three crowns symbolise Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. The Stock Exchange is one of the oldest surviving buildings in Copenhagen, and the oldest stock exchange in Europe.

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The Round Tower was built by Christian IV between 1637-1642, because the king wanted a university church for the Professors at the University of Copenhagen.
Aside from the church itself, he also wanted a royal library, and an observatory.
At this time, Denmark was well-regarded in astronomy circles thanks to noted astronomer Tycho Brahe. When he died, Christian IV wished to continue Brahe’s work with a university observatory – which became the Round Tower, one of Denmark’s most famous buildings.

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Karen Blixen was born in a big, beautiful house north of Copenhagen. She grew up here with her siblings; in the house’s schoolroom she learned to read and write, and made her first attempts at sharpening her written words like diamonds.
When Karen Blixen returned to Denmark after her stay in Kenya in Africa, Rungstedlund became her permanent residence. With Karen Blixen back in Rungstedlund, the house also became the meeting place for the most remarkable thinkers, artists and learned personalities of the time, who all journeyed there to converse with the Baroness. Today the house remains pretty much as Karen Blixen left it. Several pieces of furniture are from her farm in Africa.

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Georg Carstensen’s party planning was such a successful venture, he made enough money to swap his room in Laksegade out for a luxury flat on Gammel Strand 40. Here he lived on the first floor. He turned the office into a maid’s chamber, and hired a coachman to take care of the horse and carriage he had bought. Today, a plaque hangs over the gate to the garden, commemorating the founder of the Tivoli Gardens.

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In this big, beautiful house – opposite Christiansborg and the sculptor Thorvaldsen’s museum – Niels Bohr was born on October 7, 1885, and he lived here for the first few months of his life. On the side of the house there is a plaque which reads: “Quantum physicist Niels Bohr was born in this house 7.10.1885.”

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Although Søren Kierkegaard wasn’t on good terms with the priests who gave their sermons in Our Lady’s Church, he still came here to listen to them. Søren Kierkegaard’s funeral was held in Our Lady’s Church on November 18, 1855.

Close to the church, on Our Lady’s Square, is the University of Copenhagen, where Søren Kierkegaard studied and worked from 1831-1841. In 1841 he defended his thesis – over 800 hand-written pages on the topic of irony.

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