COPENHAGEN · DENMARK
The painted harbour, and the city behind it.
Nyhavn canal trips and the city by bike. Smorrebrod and pastry walks, beer crawls and hygge after dark. The royal castles to the north, and Sweden a bridge away. Every good day in Copenhagen, reviewed and ready to book.
Only in Copenhagen
Three things you can only do here.
Canal trips and old towns turn up in every European city. A giant hidden in the woods, a second country a bridge away, and a word for cosy you have to feel to understand do not.
Six hidden giants
The Forgotten Giants
The artist Thomas Dambo built six enormous trolls from scrap timber and hid them in the woods and meadows that ring the city. There is no signpost to any of them. You follow a rhyming treasure map out past the suburbs, and a friendly wooden giant the size of a house is waiting in the trees. It exists nowhere else on Earth.
- 1 The Forest Tower and Forgotten Giants-A day tour from Copenhagen
- 2 Copenhagen: The Six Forgotten Giants Hunt and Nature Walk
- 3 Copenhagen: The Forest Tower & Forgotten Giants Trolls Trip
Two countries, one day
Across to Sweden
The Oresund Bridge runs straight off the edge of the island, and thirty-five minutes later you step out in Sweden. Malmo for the twisting Turning Torso and the old square, medieval Lund for the cathedral and the university town. Breakfast in Denmark, lunch in another country, home for dinner.
- 1 From Copenhagen: Lund and Malmö 2-Country Tour
- 2 Hamlet and Sweden Tour – Two Countries in one day !
- 3 Copenhagen: Tour Across the Øresund Bridge to Lund and Malmö
The Danish art of cosy
Hygge, Done Properly
Hygge does not really translate, which is why you have to feel it rather than read about it. Candlelit cafes on a grey afternoon, a harbour swim followed by a sauna, pastry and coffee with no plan to leave. These walks hand you the city at the unhurried pace the Danes actually live it.
- 1 Copenhagen: Hygge and Happiness Culture Walking Tour
- 2 Good Morning, Copenhagen: Feel The Danish Hygge & Happiness
- 3 Copenhagen Walking Tour: Highlights and Hygge w/Lunch
The one everyone books
Copenhagen's most popular day out.
More people book this than anything else on the site. If you only lock in one thing before you land, make it this.
The classics
Copenhagen's Most Popular Tours & Tickets
Canal cruises, bike tours, food walks and the big attraction passes. The experiences most visitors book first.
Where to begin
The guides a Copenhagen trip starts with.
Canal boats and bike rides, food and pastry, the old town on foot, the royal castles and the hunt for the hidden giants. The handful of guides most trips are planned around, and the best of each.
The first decision
How do you want to see the city?
Compact, flat and laced with water, Copenhagen rewards however you choose to take it in. From the canals, from a bike saddle or on foot, here is what each one gives you, and what it leaves out.
Nyhavn & the canals
The city is best read from the water.
Copenhagen grew up around its harbour, and the old quay at Nyhavn, with its row of red, ochre and blue gabled houses leaning over the wooden boats, is still the picture everyone comes for. A low canal cruiser threads under the bridges to the glassy opera house, the Black Diamond library and the Little Mermaid on her rock, and you see in one hour how the whole city fits together.
Read the guide: canal & harbour tours →The cycling capital
A city that runs on bikes.
There are more bikes than people here, and locals clock more miles a year on two wheels than anywhere outside the Netherlands. Flat streets, kerb-protected lanes and bridges built for cyclists make it the easy, obvious way to get around, and a guided ride links the harbour, the parks and the design district at exactly the pace the city was built for.
See the bike & cycling tours →An hour north
Castles fit for a Danish prince.
Up the coast at Helsingor stands Kronborg, the moated fortress Shakespeare borrowed for Hamlet, staring across the narrow sound at Sweden. Inland, Frederiksborg rises straight out of its lake, a renaissance palace of copper spires and gilded halls. Together they make the easiest, grandest day trip Copenhagen has, and the trains run from the central station.
Browse the castle day trips →The Danish table
Smorrebrod, pastry and new Nordic.
This is the city that gave the world New Nordic cooking and a fistful of the planet's best restaurants, but the everyday food is just as good. Open-faced smorrebrod stacked with herring and dill, a flaky cardamom-scented snail of real Danish pastry, and the buzzing street-food halls along the harbour. A guided tasting walk is the quickest way to eat your way through all three.
- 1 The Copenhagen Culinary Experience Food Tour
- 2 Copenhagen Culinary Food Tour with 6+ Tastings of Danish Classics
- 3 Copenhagen’s oldest and original food tour (Est. 2011).
Copenhagen after dark
The city has a serious thirst.
Denmark more or less invented modern craft beer, and Copenhagen drinks like it. Microbreweries tucked under old meatpacking arches, candlelit basement bars, and the long summer evenings when the whole city decamps to the canal banks with a bottle. A guided crawl hands you the good rooms and skips the tourist traps, with a local doing the ordering.
See all 8 beer & pub crawls →Pick a corner
Districts to wander, day trips to take.
Christianshavn for the houseboats and the free town. Kronborg and Frederiksborg for the castles. Malmo for a quick hop into Sweden, Mons Klint for the chalk cliffs, the harbour for Nyhavn, and Carlsberg for the brewery that built half the city.
By activity
Pick how to spend the day.
A canal boat if you want the postcard. A bike if you want to keep up with the locals. Your own two feet for the old town. Plus food and pastry walks, beer crawls, the hop-on bus, e-scooters and a hygge-paced afternoon.
Plan it
Three perfect days.
First time in Copenhagen? A long weekend that pairs the canals and the old town with the bikes, the food and the country just beyond the city.
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