Top Places to Visit in Copenhagen

We’re very sorry for being MIA recently, but the house has been taking up lots of time, and it’s baby boom month, meaning us Newborn Photographers have been super busy photographing and editing lots of tiny little new people! (You can see some sneak peeks of the shoots on our Facebook Page). But amongst all the craziness we managed to get away for a little mini break to Copenhagen, so that is where we spent last week.

It’s a lovely city with so much to see and do, so here are our Top Picks for places to visit in Copenhagen, especially if you only have a few days there and want to get the most out of your visit.  These are in no particular order, so lets get started!

1. Christiansborg Palace  Christiansborg Palace is the Danish equivalent of our Buckingham Palace. A magnificent ‘castle’ which is at the centre of Copenhagen city. It is at the disposal of the royal family and many functions and parties are held there. It also houses the Prime Ministers Office and the Supreme Court. When visiting the tower, reception rooms, ruins, chapel, stables and parliament buildings are open to the public. We only visited the tower, ruins and reception rooms, but they were all great, the reception rooms in particular are very interesting and beautiful. There is a fee for the reception rooms, ruins and stables of around £11 for all 3 (or get a Copenhagen Card!) but it is totally worth it.

2. The Blue Planet Aquarium I personally love a good aquarium, and the Blue Planet Aquarium is certainly a good one! The aquarium is situated outside the city so you will need to take the metro there, but it is in an awesome modern curved silver building right by the sea. It isn’t that big but it has plenty to offer. There are 2 large tanks, many smaller ones, a small rainforest area and even a pair of sea otters, which were very playful coming up to the glass and diving into their tank. It was pretty busy when we were there, due to the kids being off school, but we didn’t have to queue at all to get in. There is lots going on throughout the day, including feeding sessions, touch pool sessions and lessons on different species. Tickets are around £15 but again totally worth it (also on Copenhagen Card!)

3. Tivoli Gardens When I was researching places to visit I read Tivoli Gardens and thought it was just that, a gardens, luckily I used trip advisor to check the place out, and to my surprise found it was actually a theme park! And a freaking awesome one at that! I love theme parks and rides, although Jon isn’t as keen, but this was definitely one of the highlights of our trip, so would be at the top of our places to visit in Copenhagen list.

It is slightly weird that the park is right in the centre of the city, and you can see some of the rides from some of the other attractions (such as the Rundetaarn and Christiansborg Palace Tower), but it is really brilliant! We decided to go there in the evening one night as it is open till 11pm at the moment, and it is all set up for Halloween, so we made sure to go and see the Zombie Dance show that was on! Each ride has a separate price, like a fair ground, but if you plan to go on a few or spend a while there you can just buy a multi-ride ticket. It is £10 to get in and £20 for multi-ride passes (although entry is free with Copenhagen Card). There are tonnes of fair ground type games and loads of places to eat and drink too. Its just a really great place to spend a few hours. Sadly it started pouring while we were there but we still got in quite a few rides, which were empty due to the rain!! Check out their website before you go to find out what is on when your there, as they seem to really go to town on the seasonal stuff! I would love to go at Christmas time!!

4. Danish Pastries Ok so that isn’t technically a place to visit, but we thought we should just make the point that while you are in Denmark you should really partake in some danish pastries as they are AMAZING! This is the bakery that was near our hotel, and the breakfast danishes were so good, very indulgent and no doubt calorific, but we didn’t care. So I would champion them if you can find one, I believe they are a chain as we saw 2 or 3 of them, it was called Lagkagehuset. We decided not to add breakfast to your hotel as I had read that there were so many good bakeries for breakfast near by, and I would agree. Food and drink is very expensive in Denmark though, and the pastries were around £1.50-£3 each, breakfast at our hotel was £8, so it worked out a little cheaper for us to do this.

5. Rundetaarn This is essentially a big tower, with an observatory at the top (which sadly isn’t open to the public often) but what is cool about the Rundetaarn is the inside is actually a ramp spiralling round the building 7 times to get you to the top! It’s very unusual! And the view from the top is pretty spectacular as you can see right over the entire city. There is also a gallery space and shop half way up, the exhibition while we were there was a textile art piece which was pretty cool. Entry is only £2.50 so totally worth it, even if just for the view from the top (free on Copenhagen Card)

6. The Botanical Gardens This is a beautiful place to go for an afternoon stroll or somewhere to have a relaxing picnic. The grounds of the gardens are simply beautiful and although half the greenhouse was closed for renovation when we were there, we still got to see a small selection of the nature they had on offer. The Botanical Gardens are free to wander too, so even better! The greenhouse itself is also an amazing building, as you can see above.

7. The Copenhagen Food Market Now this is another one that is at the top of our places to visit in Copenhagen list, it only opened in April of this year and it is still growing and evolving. The Copenhagen Street Food Market (now closed, but I think Reffen is its new base) is based in an old warehouse which originally housed a paper mill (hence the island it is on being called Paper Island), and it is a new restaurant/eating concept. The warehouse currently houses 25 different food vendors serving world cuisine (they have room for 40 in total)   and is open wed-sun, 12-till late. You can book a table in the Greenhouse (which we did, just in case it was busy) or you can simply find a table in one of the open areas. Each vendor brings in their own ‘restaurant/kitchen’ be it a food van, garden shed or converted caravan, and people can simply roam and buy whatever food they like, just like a food market. Jon had a burger and gourmet hot dog, and I had some of the best risotto I have ever tasted (wild mushroom, pumpkin seed and apple spelt risotto!), then we ended the night with ice cream and a cup of tea. It was such a lovely night and if there was a similar idea over here I think we would spend a lot of time there. In the evenings on the weekend there is also live bands. Oh and the best thing, that I forgot to mention, none of the food is meant to be more than 75DKK which is around £7.50 at the moment, most dishes range from 50-75DKK, which is really good value in Denmark as it is very expensive.

8. Nyhavn Now we didn’t actually spend very long in Nyhavn, but we did take a walk down the opposite side of the river so we could see all the pretty buildings and the ships that were moored there. I can imagine this place is a hive of activity during the summer months and in the warm evenings as all the bars and restaurants spill out on to the river bank. It was pretty busy when we were there, even though the weather was pretty cold! Its worth a wander just to say you have been there really.

So thats it! These are our top places to visit in Copenhagen if you are only there for a mini break. There are plenty of other sights to see but these were the important ones we managed to fit in in the few days we were there. Keep an eye out for our post on our Tips for Visiting Copenhagen which will include our biggest tip…The Copenhagen Card!

Have you visited Copenhagen? What would be your top places to see?