Copenhagen and Ærø: Travel Details
This is a quick and handy source for details on the sights, hotels, tour guides and restaurants featured in the "Copenhagen and Ærø" show. For much more (and updates), see this year's edition of Rick Steves' Scandinavia guidebook.
Jazz Festival
The Copenhagen Jazz Festival — 10 days starting the first Friday in July (July 1-10 in 2005)— puts the town in a rollicking slide-trombone mood. The Danes are Europe's jazz enthusiasts, and this music festival fills the town with happiness. The TI prints up an extensive listing of each year's festival events, or get the latest at www.jazzfestival.dk. There's also an autumn jazz festival the first week of November.
Fight for Freedom Museum
The compelling story of Denmark's heroic Nazi-resistance struggle (1940-1945) is well explained in English, from Himmler's eyepatch to fascinating tricks of creative sabotage (40 kr, free on Wed, open May-mid-Sept Tue-Sat 10:00-16:00, Sun 10:00-17:00, off-season Tue-Sat 10:00-15:00, Sun 10:00-16:00, closed Mon; guided tours at 14:00 Tue, Thu, and Sun in the summer; on Churchillparken between Amalienborg Palace and The Little Mermaid, bus #26 from Langelinie or bus #1, #6, #19, or #29 from farther away, tel. 33 13 77 14).
Tivoli Gardens
The world's grand old amusement park — since 1843 — is 20 acres, 110,000 lanterns, and countless ice-cream cones of fun. You pay one admission price and find yourself lost in a Hans Christian Andersen wonderland of rides, restaurants, games, marching bands, roulette wheels, and funny mirrors. Tivoli doesn't try to be Disney. It's wonderfully and happily Danish.
Cost, Hours, Location: The park is open every day — but only from about April 10 to September 20 (daily 11:00-23:00, later on Fri, Sat, and in summer, 65 kr gets you in, tel. 33 15 10 01, www.tivoli.dk). Rides range in price from 15 to 70 kr (195 kr for all-day pass). All children's amusements are in full swing by 12:00; the rest of the amusements open by 16:30. Tivoli is across from the train station. If you're catching an overnight train, this is the place to spend your last Copenhagen hours. Tivoli also opens for a Christmas Market (mid-Nov-Christmas daily 11:00-22:00 — with ice skating on Tivoli Lake).
Pension Vestergade
Pension Vestergade is your best home away from home in Ærøskøbing. It's lovingly run by Susanna Greve and her daughters, Henrietta and Celia, who speak the Queen's English. Susanna is a wealth of knowledge about the town's history and takes good care of her guests. Built in 1784 for a sea captain's daughter, this eight-room place — with each room named for its particular color scheme — is on the main street in the town center. Reserve well in advance (S-450 kr, D-680 kr, 2 nights minimum, cuddly hot-water bottles, no smoking, Vestergade 44, tel. & fax 62 52 22 98, www.pension-vestergade44.dk). Picnic in the back garden.