Copenhagen for The Curious Wanderers: a Friday-to-Monday weekend
Copper roofs, bicycles, and the long northern dusk.
No theme, just the city at its best. The sights that earn their reputation, a workshop or a market, one strange place nobody told you about, and dinner where the food is the point.
Friday: The market and the tower
- Torvehallerne
Two glass halls of fishmongers, cheesemakers and Grønt the greengrocer, where the city shops on its way home.
- Rundetaarn
Christian IV's 1642 observatory, climbed by a spiral ramp with no steps, the oldest working observatory in Europe at the top; open late on Fridays.
- Kødbyens Fiskebar
A fish restaurant in the old Meatpacking District: oysters, small plates and natural wine, built around the day's catch. Put your name down early on a Friday.
Saturday: The makers' street and the surgeons
- Jægersborggade
A single street of ceramicists, Coffee Collective's roastery and Meyers Bageri, where the shops are also the workshops.
- Medicinsk Museion
The old Royal Academy of Surgeons with its anatomical theatre, apothecary jars and wax faces, and a basement of surgical iron.
- Bæst
Puglisi's pizzeria with its own dairy upstairs making mozzarella and a cellar curing salumi from Danish pigs.
Sunday: Under the hill, across the water
- Cisternerne
The 1850s drinking-water reservoir beneath the park, dripping stalactites and art installations in the dark.
- Lille Bakery
Sourdough and cardamom buns from a bakery in a shipyard shed, eaten at long tables with the people who run the workshops.
- Copenhagen Contemporary
A seven-thousand-square-metre art hall in the old welding shed, large installations you walk into; children are expected, and the harbour bus goes home.
Monday: Bikes and bread
- Værnedamsvej
The short French street of cheese shops, a butcher, and florists opening their shutters; a croissant from Granola on the way.
- Christiania Bikes
The cargo bike that carries the city's children has been built in this workshop since 1984; ask to see the frames being welded.
- Told & Snaps
Smørrebrød at the old customs house with fifty house snaps, choose the one infused with woodruff.