Aarhus: Europe's 2017 capital of culture deserves plenty of time

Like so many of the destinations in our recent trip to Denmark, I left Aarhus feeling I wanted more time there. Our two-day introduction was enticing, but we really needed three.

This busy port on the east coast of Jutland has been thriving since Viking times. It's now the second largest city in Denmark and home to Scandinavia's biggest university. But size is relative. Even with all those students, population for the whole metropolitan area is less than 400,000. These factors combine to give Aarhus the creative buzz, prosperity and ethnic diversity of a big city, with the cozy dimensions and laid-back style of a small town.

As you'd expect from a bustling port town, Aarhus has more modern architecture and less immediate visual charm than other towns in Jutland. Though the town's status as 2017 European City of Culture triggered a lot of restoration work, there's only so much you can do to make an industrial harbour attractive. Any lack of physical charm where the city centre meets the waterfront, however, is amply compensated for in a city park holding one of Aarhus' biggest attractions: Den Gamle By (the old town).

History preserved
This open-air architectural museum essentially re-creates a town from 75 buildings brought here from all over Denmark. Its origins go back to the early 20th century, when Aarhus' renaissance-era mayor's house was scheduled for demolition to make way for modern buildings. A local teacher, Peter Holm, saved it and arranged for it to be re-assembled as a cultural attraction. A large merchant's mansion from Aalborg followed, and by the inter-war years this became the default way to save endangered buildings from across Denmark. It became the first, and biggest, museum of its kind.

Today you can wander through three eras of history. The largest, original part of town is a picture-postcard collection of buildings from the 16th - 19th centuries. Most are furnished and open for you to explore, allowing you to poke into the lives of the craftspeople and merchants (almost all of the stories shared are from real people) who lived and worked in these spaces. All of society is here, from the humble widows living a genteel existence to the rising affluence of the tailor and the clock maker to the gracious gentility of the mayor's house. There are historic gardens, a handful of historic shops (the bakery being the best, of course), several restaurants and employees wandering around in period costume. There's a smaller section from the 1920s and a few streets ... still under construction ... from the '70s. The bakery and the little grocery store in this most modern section transported my husband back to his childhood in Copenhagen; it was great to share that with him. The 1970s TV and electronics shop made us both feel very, very old.

You could easily spend a full day here. We limited ourselves five hours, in line with the free parking you get on the neighbouring streets. (You could probably walk here from most city centre hotels.) Resist the logical temptation to visit in historic order and head immediately for the 1920s. Turns out there's a film and several exhibits on Aarhus' history that put everything in context. Sadly, we were at the end of our time and energy when we discovered this feature.

So much more
I'd expected the sprawling Den Gamle By to be well outside the city centre, but it's sandwiched hard between modern glass towers and the city's botanical gardens on the other side. The Moesgaard Museum, which tourist literature had led me to believe was in the city centre, was a good 15-minute drive beyond in a large park of rolling woodland. This was my other must see, and another place worthy of a full day. I wrote more about it here.

That left us with so much more we would have liked to have explored. The arrow-shaped plaza in

front of Aarhus cathedral was sparkling and tidy like a freshly-cleaned house, lined with dignified 18th and 19th century buildings housing upscale shops and restaurants. Tables spilled onto the pavement; an attempt at a Mediterranean feel, assisted by the blankets provided for every table. Surrounding streets had been pedestrianised to form impressively broad shopping avenues. The town has a strong reputation for music, especially jazz; there are lots of music clubs here and a well-known annual jazz festival. There's a river walk lined with more restaurants, a well-regarded Viking museum and an art museum topped by a striking example of installation art.

The "rainbow walk" tops the ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum like a multi-coloured crown, its shades fading from one to the other through the sequence of the rainbow. It's both fun and a striking sight: though we didn't get a chance to get inside, it provides a lovely sight from many parts of town ... and has a valid cultural link as well as just being beautiful. In Viking mythology, the rainbow bridge linked the land of humans with that of the gods. In two days of variable weather, I also discovered that it actually looks better against grey skies than bright blue, which I suspect is a useful design feature in this part of the world.

The Aarhusians are even making a stab at foodie stardom with their much promoted new Central Food Market. I was hoping for a Scandi version of Barcelona's Bouqueria. Sadly, the Aarhus market is merely a food court with a bar in the middle. Most nights it's only open until 8pm (Thursday - Saturday they stretch to 10pm) so not a reliable option for relaxed, lingering dinner. Booths presented an unremarkable global collection of Chinese, Italian, Sushi and bbq options, with a few Danish traditions like pastries, hot dogs and open-faced sandwiches. The most memorable discovery was cocktails on tap ... specifically a gin concoction with carrot and apple juice ... recently invented by a Dane. Look out for them at a bar near you.

Aarhus deserves foodie fame on another front, however: its Michelin-starred restaurants. Read about our exceptional experience in the next story.

Where to stay?
Aarhus has some interesting inter-war architecture, most notably its striking 1941 city hall. Just across the street is the Ritz Hotel, part of a whole complex of art deco buildings put up following a new train station in the 1920s designed in what was then the cutting edge style. The Ritz had also been a meeting point for the Danish resistance in WWII (a special interest of my husband). It transitioned from being part of an international chain to positioning itself as an independent with a boutique focus in 2014, and as part of that had undergone a top-to-toe renovation. Exactly the kind of points that tick the Bencard hotel wish list.

Alas, reality was not as charming as the description. The lobby is small and quite humble, with few places to lounge. Given that Danish hotel rooms tend to be sparse and practical, comfortable lobbies are important. I was hoping that a historic hotel would provide larger rooms with more charm. Sadly not. Other than some styling in bathroom tiles and fittings, nothing in the room shouted "art deco" and the limited space was the functional set up I've come to expect of Danish hotels: two twin beds pushed together; separate, excellent quality duvets atop each; square pillows; one functional but not particularly comfortable chair with a bit of desk space. More unfortunately, our room was on the first floor at the back of the hotel, overlooking a massive inner courtyard providing parking and services for all the big buildings around a large city block. Which meant that each of our two mornings we were woken early by delivery vans, rubbish bin collection, workers arriving for their jobs, screaming children in a school's courtyard and ... most bizarrely ... a flock of shrieking seagulls who I assume spotted breakfast in the moving rubbish. The traffic noise at the front of the hotel would have been more soothing.

Given my realisation that, whatever your price range, most Danish hotel rooms are likely to have the same identikit functionality, in city centres I'm now more likely to go for location than anything else. In Aarhus I suspect we should have chosen the Cabinn instead. Modern, completely charmless, cheaper, but sitting at the corner of the gorgeous cathedral square.