DK
What to see in Copenhagen on foot
35 sights worth the detour, all walkable, all offline.
Coming soon on iOS — be first to walk Copenhagen offline.
Copenhagen is a city made for walking. This self-guided guide maps 35 of its sights worth the detour — landmarks, historic sites, viewpoints, museums and galleries, parks and gardens and public art — the places locals point to and the tour buses skip, close enough to string into a single day on foot. Download the Copenhagen pack in Voyage GO before you go and the whole route works offline: no roaming, no dead battery from a live map. Every monument, viewpoint and park you pass quietly fills your travel passport.
Landmarks12
- 1Parken StadiumA 38,000-seat national football ground with a retractable roof and a three-Michelin-star restaurant on the eighth floor.
- 2Copenhagen Opera HouseA 370-million-dollar building gifted to a nation by a single shipping dynasty — and placed with geometric precision so it faces a palace and a church across the harbor.
- 3NyhavnA canal dug by prisoners of war in 1670, once notorious for sailors and brothels, now the most photographed waterfront in Copenhagen.
- 4Grundtvig's ChurchThe west facade was designed to look like a pipe organ — 49 metres of yellow brick that ripples as it rises.
- 5NomaFive times ranked best restaurant in the world — now a food lab after regular dinner service ended in December 2024.
- 6Frederik's Church (The Marble Church)A church that sat as an open ruin in the middle of Copenhagen for nearly 150 years — and still ended up with the largest dome in Scandinavia.
- 7Church of Our SaviourClimb the outside of a baroque spire that spirals anticlockwise — and the architect died in his bed seven years later, perfectly satisfied.
- 8Copenhagen City HallFive of Copenhagen's city halls are gone — most burned. This sixth one, completed in 1905, finally stuck.
- 9StrøgetA 1.1 km car-free corridor so controversial at its 1962 opening that the planning mayor needed police protection from assassination threats.
- 10UngdomshusetThe city demolished it in two days. Activists spent 16 months winning a replacement.
- 11Kongens NytorvIn 1670, Christian V decided Copenhagen's muddy medieval marketplace wasn't fit for a capital — so he built this, the city's largest square, from scratch.
- 12Amager Bakke (Copenhill)A working trash incinerator you can ski down — that is the building.
Historic Sites12
- 13AmalienborgFour matching palaces share one octagonal courtyard — and the Danish king actually lives in one.
- 14Christiansborg PalaceThe only building on Earth where parliament, prime minister, and supreme court share one address — and the king still drops by.
- 15Rosenborg CastleA 1606 royal summerhouse that ended up storing the crown jewels and standing in as emergency palace twice.
- 16BørsenThe four dragon-tail spire that defined Copenhagen's skyline for four centuries came down in a fire on 16 April 2024.
- 17Charlottenlund PalaceA royal summer residence that spent 82 years as a fisheries research lab before becoming a concert hall.
- 18Church of Our Lady (Vor Frue Kirke)Archbishop Absalon planted a church on this high ground in 1187; fire and Reformation erased it twice before C.F. Hansen's Neoclassical rebuild opened in 1829.
- 19Royal CopenhagenThree wavy lines on the base of every piece — each one a Danish waterway: Storebælt, Lillebælt, Øresund.
- 20B&W HallsTwo halls built to assemble ships — one of them held 11,000 people for Eurovision 2014.
- 21Frederiksberg PalaceFrederick IV married his mistress here in 1721 — the same halls where he had welcomed Peter the Great five years earlier.
- 22Assistens CemeteryA paupers' overflow graveyard that became Denmark's most distinguished address — Andersen, Kierkegaard, and Niels Bohr all ended up here.
- 23KastelletA pentagon of turf ramparts from 1626 that the Danish army still actually uses — and you can walk straight through it.
- 24Copenhagen Castle RuinsA queen repelled the Hanseatic fleet from this island in 1428 — the castle she defended now lies under Christiansborg's floor.
Viewpoints1
- 25Rundetaarn (Round Tower)No steps — a 7.5-turn helical ramp carries you 34.8 metres up to open-air views over central Copenhagen.
Museums & Galleries4
- 26National Museum of DenmarkFourteen thousand years of human life — reindeer hunters to twentieth-century Danes — compressed into one building a short walk from Strøget.
- 27Statens Museum for Kunst (SMK)Denmark's entire art history under one roof — from Rembrandt to Matisse, with the Golden Age painters in between.
- 28Ny Carlsberg GlyptotekEvery bronze Degas ever cast, plus the most important Rodin collection outside France — all from one brewer's obsession.
- 29Thorvaldsen MuseumA sculptor who spent 42 years in Rome is buried in his own museum's courtyard, surrounded by painted crocodiles and date palms.
Parks & Gardens4
- 30Tivoli GardensOpen since 1843 on a royal permit granted because, as the founder told the king, people busy having fun don't think about politics.
- 31Copenhagen ZooTwo giant pandas live inside a 4,000 m² yin-and-yang building designed by Bjarke Ingels — and the polar bears have an underwater viewing tunnel.
- 32Dyrehavsbakken (Bakken)The world's oldest operating amusement park grew from a crowd chasing a spring with rumored healing powers — in 1583.
- 33Copenhagen Botanical GardenGlasshouses from 1874 still stand over a garden that has been growing medicinal plants for Copenhagen since 1600.
Public Art2
- 34The Little MermaidAt 1.25 metres tall, she is smaller than almost every visitor expects — and that gap between legend and reality is the whole experience.
- 35Gefion FountainA Norse goddess drives four bronze oxen — her own sons, transformed — through the moment that ripped Zealand out of Sweden and made Copenhagen possible.
