Aarhus - 2nd best City of Denmark

When you think of Denmark, Copenhagen first comes to mind as the place to be. During my search for other great cities and things to do with kids in Denmark, I came across a Dutch article  inspiring me to find a place to stay via AirBnB near Aarhus (European Capital of Culture 2017) and close to Legoland.

We ended up at a spacious house near Silkeborg, another lovely Danish City located near the beautiful Silkeborg Lakes. Just a 5-minute walk to the lakes and the owners allowed us to use everything at their place, even their canoes and bicycles. As the owners have kids of approximately the same age, our girls had lots of toys to play with.

​From there, we went to Aarhus for 1 day and started at Den Gamle By. A truly amazing and authentic open air museum where you travel back in time and experience how people lived between the 1600-1975. Fully furnished houses, old bakeries with Danish delicacies, people dressed in style, a little boutique with clothing and hats from the 50’s/60’s and the kids enjoying the antique fairground, to name a couple of fun things to do and see there. Also, the girls fancied a horse-drawn carriage ride, and so we did. Not worth it by the way, even the girls were disappointed (a 3-minute ride for 18 euros/ 170DK…!).

​Even though it was quite busy, it didn’t feel like an ‘amusement’ park at all. After spending a couple of hours, we took the back door and the girls played for a bit at a playground. Then we climbed up the hill and a huge wind mill and ‘dome’ emerged.

Væksthusene i Botanisk consists of tropical houses where numerous plant collections are presented in 4 different climate zones. Our girls loved every bit of it. The butterflies, the largest water lilies ‘Victoria’ (tropical South American), the beautiful flowers and the big tree house from which you can overlook the entire tropical house. Outside the dome you could see the botanical gardens and the girls climbed a tree right in front of it. 

​The ARoS museum was next on our itinerary. Unfortunately, the museum closed at 5pm and we only had 45 minutes left. We wanted to see ‘Your panorama rainbow’ on the top of the building, but they didn't sell separate tickets. Hopefully, we can make it another day and explore this wonderful museum and exhibitions as well.

As we took both of the kids’ stand up scooters the girls didn’t have to walk all the way. It was a great way to explore Aarhus City Centre, the Harbor and the district Latinerkvarteret (‘The Latin Quarter’) where we had a lovely dinner at Olinoco.

​Locals were standing in line to pick up Moules frites (mussels with fries) or fish ‘n chips, so we figured it must be a good place to stay for dinner. We had some fish ‘n chips and I had a lovely menu with figs and cerrano ham as a starter and a ‘kebab’ style main dish which was very tasty. And surprisingly very affordable too as quite a few people warned us about how expensive Denmark would be (only € 45, drinks included!). 

On our way back to the car, we had some delicious ice cream at the organic café/ restaurant ‘Suppestegogis’. After all, a great day, packed with lovely things to do in a very child-friendly city!

​I only wish we had some more time to spent to see for example the ‘Dome of Visions’, to shop till you drop at ‘Magasin’ and to stroll along ‘Molestin’…We’ll be back someday!