Copenhagen Attractions: Museums and Sightseeing in Copenhagen Denmark

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Copenhagen by Design

Attractions

Two museums top the list of cultural must-sees. The Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek (Dantes Plads 7; 45/33-41-81-41), funded by the beer company and located near the 15-acre Tivoli Gardens amusement park, has a collection ranging from ancient Egypt to 20th-century Europe. Key pieces include Van Gogh's Pink Roses and works by Gauguin, Picasso, and Cézanne. Add to the experience by lunching on home-baked bread and cakes in the excellent café surrounded by statues and palm trees in the museum's indoor Winter Garden. For modern art, the Louisiana (Strandvej 13, 45/40-19-07-19; www.louisiana.dk) is one of the most beautiful museums in Europe. It's outside the city center but easily reached by a 36-minute train ride followed by a 10-minute walk though a pleasant residential area.

Who knows what the Louisiana would have been called if Alexander Brun, an 18th-century Dane, had married differently? As it was, he had three wives named Louise and so named his home after them. When a subsequent owner converted the property to a museum the name stuck, much to the confusion of American visitors for whom it conjures up images of New Orleans.

The Louisiana's permanent collection includes works by Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Rauschenberg, and Andy Warhol, but besides those and the great temporary exhibitions—which this year includes contemporary Chinese art—the museum is worth visiting for its glorious setting overlooking the ocean. On a summer day, you can have lunch outside, stroll the grounds, and see neighbors swimming from their jetty.

In addition to modern art, there's no shortage of modern architecture in this country. Denmark builds boldly and with the royal seal of approval, unlike its Swedish rival, Stockholm, which has a marked aversion to progressive buildings. Copenhagen's Royal Library, designed by the Danish firm of Schmidt, Hammer & Lassen and completed in 1999, is a striking black marble and glass structure known, unsurprisingly, as the Black Diamond (Soren Kirkegaards Plads; 45/33-47-47-47; www.kb.dk). It also contains one of the city's best restaurants, Søren K, named after the Danish philosopher, Søren Kierkegaard.

In 2005, the Royal Opera House opened across the harbor from the heart of the city. (Danes seem to have an affinity for opera houses by the water. In 1957, a young Dane named Jørn Utzon designed Australia's Sydney Opera House, which overlooks that city's harbor.) The exterior of the building, by Henning Larsen, met with mixed reviews. One Danish paper compared the glass and metal facade to an automobile grill. But everyone agrees that Larsen's interior, inspired by a conch shell, is a triumph. Coming next: a new playhouse for the Royal Theatre, also on the water, and slated to open in early 2008.

Another harbor-side sight is the city's official symbol and the country's most-visited landmark: the bronze statue of the Little Mermaid, Hans Christian Andersen's lovelorn character. Be warned, though, that she's a small and underwhelming little thing who suffers the indignity of being clambered upon by some tourists and endlessly photographed by others. Far more interesting is the nearby Museum of the Danish Resistance (Frihedsmusseet 86; 45/33-47-39-21; www.natmus.dk), which tells one of the most thrilling stories from World War II: In 1943, a German attaché leaked news of a plan to round up all the Jews in occupied Denmark. Word spread and, in just a few days, almost all of the country's 8,000 Jews were helped by their neighbors to escape to safety in neutral Sweden. It's a small, simple museum, which makes its story all the more poignant.