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.

Follow the Vikings, see the Danish gift for bringing history to life

When he’s feeling particularly proud of his Danish half, my husband likes to argue that but for a few quirks of history, the Danes … rather than the English … would have expanded a maritime empire to world domination.

This isn’t that preposterous an argument. If you tip your world view up a bit and start with the North and Baltic Seas as the centre, Denmark suddenly becomes the spider at the centre of a critical trading web. It once counted England, Norway, Sweden and the American Virgin Islands as part of its domain. In the early Middle Ages, you could find Danish influence as far afield as Russia, Constantinople, Sicily and Normandy. The early grasp for world domination, of course, all started with the Vikings.

You don't have to leave Copenhagen to get a taste of Viking culture, of course ... the National Museum has an amazing collection (see the story here). Heading for Jutland, however, will take you deeper into the Viking heartland, while the Vikings offer a great historic theme to bind your wanderings together. The following three stops will also show off how, whether using the latest tech or hands-on experimental archeology, the Danes do an amazing job of making the distant past vivid and exciting.

Jelling

Today, it's a small village off any main route. In the 10th century, Jelling was the seat of King Gorm and his son Harald Bluetooth, the Viking monarchs who unified Denmark, used the country's name for the first time and introduced Christianity.  For both its artistic and historical significance, Jelling is a UNESCO world heritage site.

Gorm and Harald built an enormous wooden palisade here ... now marked out with towering metal posts like a vast modern sculpture ... around their great hall, two earthen mounds and a buried stone ship. The ancient burial traditions that show plenty of pagan influence sat side by side with the new religion. The most significant artefacts left to see are two monumental stones carved with runic writing and symbols. They're still in their original places between the mounds, but now enclosed in glass boxes to limit exposure to the weather. King Gorm set up the smaller to honour his wife, "Denmark's adornment", while the larger is their son's statement. It's the more impressive, with runes claiming the Christian conversion on one side, a dragon-like creature on another and a crucifiction on the third.

The colours that once decorated the stones are gone. Without stretching your imagination, the site might not be that exciting. It's the museum here that brings it to life. The experience centre is the single best example I've encountered of using technology and storytelling to bring the past to life. It's magnificently designed, and equal fun for both children and adults. It's also free.

The first room sets the stage. You enter a dimly-lit Viking great hall with an empty throne at the far end, seats along the sides and fires playing down the centre on video screens. Pause to listen to the disembodied bard's voice tell stories of conquest in English and Danish. While exploring the Viking world you'll encounter hands-on exhibits like a body fallen in battle, pierced with axe, sword and spear. Grasp a weapon's handle and the display will tell you about the injuries inflicted and how long the victim took to die. Kids loved it. In "the burial chamber", clever three-dimensional video projections take small fragments found in the mound excavations and build upon them, restoring them to their completed former glory and then pulling out to show how they would have fit into clothing or the accessories of life.

 In one particularly spooky and effective room you can journey to Valhalla. A camera reflects your image into a screen at the far end of the room. As you walk towards it your body is struck down in battle, burns in a funeral pyre, then crosses the rainbow bridge into the warriors' afterlife. In another room, hanging screens shaped like the roots of a tree and shadowy projections on the walls, constantly rotating in dim coloured lights, conjure an image that you're cradled in the roots of the tree of life, Yggdrasil. Grab a dangling listening device to hear tales of gods and heroes. Eventually you make it to the roof terrace, with spectacular views of the whole site. Don't miss the binoculars, where rolling the focus button super-imposes images of what the site would have looked like at various periods from the 10th century onwards.

The experience centre operates on standard attraction admission hours (check their web site for seasonal fluctuations), but the monuments outdoors are accessible 24/7 and the stones are lit at night. The contrast of night lighting accentuates the carvings and brings them to their best. Now that I've visited once, I realise the ideal would have been to spend an afternoon in the centre, stay at the neighbouring Jelling Kro and explore the monuments after dark. Next time.

Moesgaard

This is one of the highlights of any visit to Aarhus. Though its collection has been around for generations ... sort of a Danish version of the British Museum ... the 3-year-old main building is an architectural jaw dropper. Dominating a sylvan woodside a few miles from town, a vast triangle of concrete and glass sleeps under a sloping grass roof; it's as if Thor's lightening bolts had embedded and fossilised with a view of the fjord. The collections come to life in a magnificent mash-up of design, storytelling and technology. Galleries feel like entering atmospheric movie sets. Experts blink, shift or sigh on life-sized video screens, like portraits in Harry Potter's world, "waiting" to be asked questions. (They'll answer in Danish or English.) Throughout, there are chances to interact with the exhibits to learn more: put on 3-D goggles to see how a pre-historic village developed; stick your head inside a vast caldron to see funerary items; take the rudder of a Viking ship to sail the world. With huge kid appeal and deep content for adults, you could easily spend a day here, breaking your time up with lunch purchased from the restaurant and consumed on the grassy slopes of the roof.

The interior is like a roofed mountainside, with a vast staircase linking four stories. (There are lifts, too.) Wander down it to come face-to-face with incredibly life-like models of our pre-human ancestors. The star exhibits are on the lowest floor, as those ancestors become fully recognisable as people like us. The Viking section is the most modern down here, and invites you to follow various individual stories by grabbing a model of an artefact associated with him or her. Place it on screens throughout, and you'll hear explanations of what you're looking at from the perspective of "your" guide. This means you could actually come back multiple times and have a different experience. Though the storytelling is great, the artefacts themselves don't comprise that impressive a collection of Viking stuff. Spend time with the Viking ancestors for the best experience.

In the Bronze Age galleries you'll see exquisite artefacts (jewellery, weapons, armour, etc.) that show how the patterns and designs we think of as Viking came down in a straight line from the sophisticated people who lived here between 1700 bc and 500 bc. You'll enter a streamlined take on a burial mound to come face-to-face with some of the best preserved mummies in the world. Move on to the Iron Age (500 BC to 800 AD) where the objects get even more beautiful and there's another ancestor to meet. The Moesgaard's bog man makes the one at the British Museum ... tucked in a corner in his dusty old case ... look a very poor relation. This one,  in an even more astonishing state of preservation, forms the centre-point of a two-story gallery, surrounding him with objects and tales from the world where he lived and was probably a human sacrifice to the gods. Upstairs, as you approach an opening from which you can look down on him, the flooring changes to spongy stuff with a bit of spring, to echo the peat bog in which he was found. This is the kind of thoughtful design you find throughout the place.

In the gallery next door, you're thrust into the middle of the massive battle of Illerup Adal, in 205 AD. History has left no trace of who the warriors were, or what they were fighting for. Thanks, however, to a tradition of sacrificing the defeated enemies' armour ... in this case, throwing it into a lake ... you can wander amongst a dazzling array of swords, spears, axes, and armour for humans and horses.

Ribe
Founded at the very beginning of the 8th century, Ribe is the oldest continuously occupied town in Denmark. It was a major port throughout the Viking Age and was the first Danish town to have a cathedral as the country became Christian. By the 17th century the port had silted up. Business and government moved elsewhere. Today, only about 8,000 people live in this ridiculously quaint little town centred on a gorgeous square surrounding a rare romanesque cathedral. It's a place caught in time, much like Bruges, Venice or Mont St. Michel. Though it's like those places in its reliance on tourism, visitor numbers are much smaller (and mostly German ... it's a short jaunt over the border), meaning you can still wander quiet streets and revel in a sense of discovery.

There are two significant Viking attractions here. If you're serious about the topic, it's worth your time to do both.

Start at the Museet Ribes Vikinger, an old-style museum a few minute's walk from the cathedral. After Jelling and the Moesgaard, the collection of artefacts in glass cases with explanations on labels is a bit of a shock to the system ... especially when only the headline information is translated into English ... but it's worth ploughing on. There are some beautiful artefacts here, my favourites found in case that holds a mask of Odin and an early Christian communion cup. Contrasting religions duelling via silversmith. I was well aware of Viking craftsmanship with metal; the finds displayed here show off an impressive skill in glass, as well. Though you're likely to come here for the Vikings, there's an equally interesting section of the museum on the Middle Ages/Early Renaissance, thanks to a great fire in 1580 that trapped evidence of that period in ashes. There's also a great gift shop here with a particularly good selection of Viking-inspired jewellery.

Once you've gotten the more academic grounding at the museum, it's a short drive across the flat coastal plains around town to the Ribe Viking Centre.

There are no artefacts here. Instead, you'll find a Viking village re-created and lived in by properly costumed historical re-enactors. (Ironically, when we went, many of them were German on back-in-time summer holidays.) There are a couple of classic long hall houses, divided with sections for animals, work and living, all under an elegantly curving roof crafted like the hull of an upturned Viking ship. Explore a farm stocked with historic breeds. Wander through thatched houses stocked with the tools of the craftspeople who worked there; at many, they'll be practicing their trade. Watch the craftsmen building a Viking ship, or others working on the new Christian church. There was a marketplace with the tented encampments of visiting re-enactors, some of them selling hand-crafted wares like knives or pottery in the Viking tradition. Children can head off to an arena to train as Viking warriors.

The Viking Centre is probably a bit more intriguing for kids than adults, since all the activities are geared towards them. I was expecting the re-enactors to be employees tasked with delivering a rounded experience. Discovering that they were volunteers explained why most of them quietly went about their work, only speaking when you prodded them with questions and often not having the answers we were after. Given that entry was DK120 (about £10) and that the Center is probably the most widely-advertised Viking-themed attraction in Danish tourism, I don't think it was too demanding to expect a bit more for our money.