A wander round green Copenhagen

On our recent trip to Copenhagen, a lot of our time was spent wandering around the city’s green spaces. Copenhagen is blessed with a number of gardens and parks and these are places we tend to visit more and more when we go on holiday. The Danish word for garden is ‘Have’ , which naturally reminded me of the word haven, and that’s what these gardens turned out to be – lush green havens that provided some calm and welcome shade in the sweltering city heat.

I thought I would share some photos of the places we visited – Tivoli Gardens, The University of Copenhagen Botanical Garden and Assistens Cemetery.

Tivoli Gardens,  founded in 1843, is a pleasure garden and amusement park in the centre of Copenhagen. Admittedly, the entrance fee is quite expensive but we easily spent five hours here wandering around, taking in the sights and sounds of this huge space. It’s packed full of cafes, restaurants and shops as well as amusements and on a sunny Friday afternoon, it was filling up with locals and tourists alike for a concert later that evening.

After a good walk round, we collapsed on the grass at the Peacock Theatre (the oldest building in Tivoli) , happy just to people watch, enjoy a cold drink and wait for the free theatre show to start at 7pm. I wandered off for a while to take a few photographs of the flowers nearby and had a very close encounter with a  well camouflaged peahen and her chicks…as you do !

All in all, we had a lovely time here and I would definitely recommend a visit.

The Botanical Garden is situated in the city centre and is part of the Natural History Museum of Denmark.  Entrance to the garden is free, although you do need to pay to visit the Palm House.  The day we visited it was simply too hot to visit the Palm House, but we did spend a lovely few hours wandering around the grounds, the rockery and the ‘living’ beer garden.

The rockery is a maze of winding steep paths, home to a huge selection of plants and, in July at least, a beautiful display of lavender. I loved it.

There is also a lovely shop at the entrance to the garden – definitely worth a browse for some botanical inspiration. It’s clear to me the Danes really love their plants and flowers, and you will come away wanting to spruce up your own garden and fill your house with flowers !

Assistens Kirkegard (cemetery) might seem like a strange place to visit while on holiday. However, this is not an ordinary cemetery. It’s also a public park where you can jog, walk your dog and sit on the grass in the sunshine. Located in the Norrebro district, it is the final resting place of Hans Christian Anderson and other well known Danes. This is a lovely calm place to wander through and like me, you will be struck by the naturalistic planting around the graves – relaxed, informal and rather beautiful. A stark contrast to the formal and somewhat foreboding graveyards we have closer to home. To be honest, it is quite a thought provoking place.

So, that’s my round up of our wander around some of Copenhagen’s lovely green spaces. I’ve added a few links at the bottom of the post for more information, if you are thinking of visiting the city.

In the meantime, have a lovely Sunday x

Tivoli Gardens

Copenhagen Botanical Garden

Assistens Cemetery