Wide Urban Spaces

In October 2008, Copenhagen was named the Cycle City of the Year 2008 by the Danish Cyclists Federation; for a good reason.

Every day, one third of the 1.7m citizens in Copenhagen ride 715,000 miles (1.15m km) on the 242 miles (389 km) bikeways, lanes and the so-called green routes.

Riding a bike is a necessity in Copenhagen. During the rush hour the traffic is so dense that you easily overtake cars and buses. You get around much faster on two wheels than behind one.

Copenhageners have their own bikes. Tourists can either rent one or use one of the 2,000 free city bikes for a deposit of DKK 20.

The city is literally filled with bikes. Especially around the train stations bicycles fill the racks, and when the city runs out of racks, the bikes take up walls and sidewalks.

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Like many other big cities around the world, Copenhagen also has a triumphal arch.

The arch is placed on Halmtorvet in the Vesterbro quarter.

Take a closer look at the photo. It’s really a gable painting from 1991 called ‘The Triumphal Arch’ by Danish artist Peter Abelin, painted with the so-called trompe l’oeil technique.

The painting is very naturalistic and from a distance, it looks like a real structure.

The building once housed a healthcare wholesaler, and when it was renovated and turned into an apartment building in 1991, Peter Abelin was hired to create the extraordinary gable painting.

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Tycho Brahe Planetarium is an exciting building in the center of Copenhagen.

Despite its name, it’s not a real planetarium. It’s a public center for astronomy and natural science and an IMAX theater, named after the great Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe (1546-1601).

The exhibition inside the planetarium features models of the solar system and the planets orbiting the sun. The IMAX theater mostly shows films about nature, and after each viewing the current night sky is explained to the audience.

The building also houses a gift shop which sells a variety of gadgets, posters and magazines about astronomy.

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