Denmark
worth exploring; a dancing fountain is full of squealing children and the striking Dokk1 building houses the city’s main library and civic centre. It’s also surrounded by imaginative play areas: we walk towards what we think is a statue, only to realise it’s actually a giant wooden bear-shaped slide; around the corner, there’s a fi eld of ‘bamboo’ to hide in, further on a giant eagle and an exciting wooden playframe. A short bus journey just south
of Aarhus took us to Moesgaard Museum, dedicated to archeology and ethnography, with innovative interactive displays using projection, sound and even virtual reality. The cleverly designed building also has a grassed sloping roof that you can climb to the top of for fantastic views over to the sea. Back in the city, the headline cultural star is ARoS Aarhus Art Museum, which houses an excellent collection of paintings, sculptures (including Ron Mueck’s enormous Boy) and installations. On top of the building, and visible from much of the city, is Olafur Eliasson’s Your Rainbow Panorama, a 150-metre- long circular walkway with glass walls in all the colours of the spectrum, giving the impression of Aarhus being bathed in colour as you wander around. “I didn’t know you could walk in a rainbow,” was the small one’s impressed conclusion. We followed lunch at the super-
trendy Aarhus Street Food Market with a step back in time at Den Gamle By (The Old Town); opened in 1914 as the world’s fi rst open-air museum of urban history and culture, it’s made up of a large collection of Danish buildings transferred here and rebuilt. You can wander around in the days of Hans Christian Andersen, check out the eff ects of industrialisation in the 1927 quarter or stroll down a 1970s shopping street, all authentically recreated — we even bought cookies in a bakery (though we gave the gynaecology clinic a miss). Best of all, the very friendly volunteers in period dress encouraged our lit le girl to play in an old-fashioned fairground, to make ‘dinner’ from the ingredients in the fridge of the 70s apartment of a Copenhagen headteacher and to generally poke around and explore. Aarhus is a terrifi c family destination that works perfectly in tandem with a trip to Legoland.
Clockwise from left: Legoland; Den Gamle By; Aarhus Street Food Market; Boy, ARoS
countrybycountry.com | ABTA Magazine
51
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76