Århus Things to Do

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Den Gamle By is a must see at Arhus and in my whole Europe tour, this is definitely the best experience. I have never spent so much time out of my hectic travel schedule at one spot, as I did here. I was here for almost a whole day. But so said, Den Gamle By is also not a tourist spot. It is a huge area, a whole village. So much to see, so many museums, each interesting in its own right and each a whole new experience.

One can definitely have a glimpse of the Deb Gamle By from outside the boundary wall and save the heavy price one has to pay for entrance. But believe me, a glimpse of this village is not even a fraction as impressive as it is when visited from inside.

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Den Gamle By or the Old Town is an open-air village museum in Arhus consisting of 75 historical buildings gathered together in the spot from around 20 towns across Denmark. It was opened in 1914, making it the world's first open-air museum of the kind. Till date it remains one of the few museums of this kind and has millions of visitors every year. The buildings collected have been placed here in an organized manner so as to form into a small village of Denmark from the period between the 16th century and the early 19th century. Half-timbered houses originally built in different parts of the country but brought and stored here, and all the ponds, roads, windmills, wells, groceries, post office, schools, etc. make the village look like one from the pages of the fairy tales of hans Christian Andersen. The village itself is a great attraction but an added attraction is the fact that each building here is a separate museum in itself. So one can see a clock museum, a medicine museum, a lifestyle museum, a coppersmith's house as a museum, toy museums, etc. All these are open for visitors and there are special exhibitions in some buildings occasionally which also attract tourists.

Here are some pictures of the village streets and in my next few tips I will detail separately each museum that I visited in Den Gamle By.

Århus University has consistently ranked within the first 100 universities of the world amongst 17000 universities during the past few years. It has been said that half of the population in the city are those of students and this university is the reason behind it. It was established in 1928 and is the sceond largest university in Denmark.

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Kvindemuseet i Danmark or the Women's Museum in Denmark is a museum of feminist culture and history in Aarhus situated close to the Cathedral. The building where it is situated is the former Town hall of Arhus that was built during the 19th century close to the Århus Domkirke. There were many things inside the museum, but I was in a hurry as it was about time for the closure and so there were many things that I did not understand. I quickly took some photos to come home and have a look at them in leisure but till today I could not really understand. Chairs and tables hanging from the ceiling and clouds on the floor!!!

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Århus Rådhus is the new townhall in Arhus. It is in the city centre close to the Railway station. It became the new city hall from 1941. The earlier one was situated close to the Domkirke (Cathedral) and houses the women's museum now. The city hall building is very beautiful and looks specially very attractive at night when it is well lit up. The tower of the city hall is 60 meters tall and the clock there has a diameter of 7 meters.

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The Church of Our Lady is close to the city centre in Arhus and the railway station and is one of the largest churches in Arhus. It is quite old as well, dating back to the early 13th century when it was known as St. Nicholai's church. Heavy expansion work was done between 1250 and 1500 and it was during this time that the high tower was also added to it. In the 1950s, during renovation works, a crypt-church was discovered beneath the church. It was found to be the oldest stone church in Scandinavia, built around 1060. It is situated under the main building of the Church of Our Lady and is open for visit.

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The Aarhus Cathedral is dedicated to the patron saint of sailors, St Clement, the Bishop of Rome who was martyred by tying an anchor to his neck and drowned in the Black Sea. The construction of the Cathedral continued between 1190 - 1300. However, like in most european cities in the early middle ages, barely 30 years later the cathedral burnt down with the rest of the city. It was rebuilt around 1500 AD. In 1642 again much of the cathedral including some historic bells were destroyed by a lightning. However, the interiors suffered less. The present form of the cathedral was given to it in 1931. It's tower measuring 96 meters is the tallest in Denmark. I had read much about the beautiful interiors of the cathedral before visiting the city but unfortunately, for some reason during my visit, I could not go in on the several attempts I made to. There are many fresco paintings from the 15th and 16th centuries and they are the most popular across the whole country.

Silkeborg Museum is located in the municipality of Silkeborg which is a town in central Jutland. The Museum itself is housed in a lovely yellow building which was formerly known as "Silkeborg Manor," built around 1767 and is the oldest building in the town.

Our tour stopped at this museum for a special reason. The Silkeborg Museum is famous for being the home of "Tollund Man" and "Elling Woman" which you will read more about in a following tip. This exhibit is really amazing and in and of itself reason enough to stop at this museum. However, the museum also has an excellent collection of "Iron Age" artifacts from Northern Europe and we were able to take in about one room of these. This isn't my favorite period of history so I didn't devote too much time to the "Iron Age"!!

Silkeborg Museum also displays a large painting collection of a Silkeborg native, the artist Asger Jorn. If I saw any of his work, I'm sorry to say I don't remember it.

What I would have enjoyed more was to see the "Workers' Museum" at Chr. 8 Vej No 52--a branch of the Silkeborg Museum. This museum exhibits a typical "worker's home" circa 1910 with the purpose of typifying what life was like for the working class of that era. I think this sounds interesting because I like to see how people lived around that time when basically you were either very rich or very poor. I'm sorry we missed this tiny museum.

The Museum has a small gift shop with books, pottery, postcards, jewelry, etc. (I was glad I bought a small book about Tollund Man to study later.) There is also a nice, bright and airy cafe on the premises for drinks, light lunches and snacks.

Admission to Silkeborg Museum is 45 DKK for adults and children under 18 yrs. are free.

Open May to late October daily: 10am to 5 pm
End of October to end of April, open Saturdays & Sundays noon to 6pm
Check for admission hours & days for Easter Holidays.