Danish rain can last the whole day, and kids still need somewhere to climb, splash and poke at things. These are the indoor spots we'd pick when the forecast turns gray: science you can touch, sharks behind glass, play houses built for climbing and a pool warm enough for toddlers. Here's what we checked, from the giant bubbles at Experimentarium to the spiral slide at the Danish Architecture Center.
Experimentarium is a hands-on science center spread over three indoor floors and a rooftop. Kids make soap bubbles of every size in the Bubblearium, splash with water at The Beach, navigate a ship simulator in The Port and see their own body through a thermal camera in Under Your Skin.
The exhibits are built for play, so kids need no Danish or English to join in.
Den Blå Planet holds around 50 aquariums in three sections, from a rainforest with giant arapaima to the Ocean aquarium, the largest tank, where hammerhead sharks and stingrays glide past. Kids can watch four sea otters crack shellfish on their bellies and spot a giant Pacific octopus.
Outside, a water playground has an Archimedes screw, pumps and sluices, next to a playground with climbing frames and a slide.
Denmark's national history museum fills the Prince's Palace with 42,000 objects on display, from a longbow made around 7,000 BCE to the Bronze Age Sun Chariot. Kids can lift a real gold bar, meet a mummy and the Egtved Girl, see the Gundestrup Cauldron that inspired the Asterix and Obelix artist, and find astronaut Andreas Mogensen's spacesuit.
KU.BE is a four-story culture and movement house by the architects MVRDV and ADEPT, where the building doubles as play equipment. Kids scale climbing hills, crawl through wall mazes, cross a hanging climbing net with a view and ride the silver slide.
Toddlers get their own tumble area upstairs, and the garden outside adds a basketball court and a playground for small kids.
A culture house built only for kids, designed by Dorte Mandrup from ideas that local children drew up in workshops. Inside are a big climbing wall, a ball pit for under-6s, a dance hall, a workshop, and crooked nooks and dens sized for children.
Kids come for after-school art, music and dance classes, Saturday workshops, family concerts and holiday festivals. Families can eat packed lunches in the café.
ENIGMA covers communication history, from the Danish postal service of 1624 to the internet.
Kids can crawl, slide and type through Teleportalen, a play area that turns the digital world into a physical one, and design their own stamps. The basement arcade has Atari, Nintendo, C64 and Amiga games to play. Older kids can crack Enigma machine messages and head underground into a Cold War bunker.
Arbejdermuseet tells the story of Danish working-class life inside an 1879 building with steep staircases, small apartments and a grand Banquet Hall.
The Children's Workers Museum is the draw for kids: they deliver groceries, sort bottles at a brewery, dress up and play in a 1930s apartment, then take a hidden staircase from the blue kitchen down to a recreated backyard with laundry lines.
The city's largest public library sits in the old town, facing the Round Tower. For families, the reason to come is LÆS, a 1,000-square-meter children's floor designed around how kids learn language and reading. Its 10 zones include reading caves, the Ordbjerget play area for letters and movement, a drawing station with board games, and a shelf of books in English and five other languages.
Vandkulturhuset is the swimming hall inside DGI Byen, close to Central Station. It has five pools: a sports pool up to 1.8 m deep, Ellipsen, a ring of water around it, the 3.8 m-deep Fjeldsøen, and two warm pools, Indsøen at 32°C (from 0.2 m deep, with a spa) and Gryden at 34°C. There is a lifeguard station, a separate sauna house, and swim lessons from babies to age 12.
The planetarium's big dome screen shows space films, some in English and some in Danish, and every ticket includes one. The exhibitions hold the largest moon rock outside the United States, on loan from NASA, plus astronaut tests, two humanoid robots and Tomás Saraceno's 25-meter-high Cosmic Threads installation. Weekends and school holidays add science shows and a LEGO space workshop.
Cirkusmuseet tells the story of circus life through costumes, props and films, set in the old Avedørelejren army barracks. Kids can follow a treasure hunt through the exhibition, then dress up, draw and juggle in the play area.
On Sundays, a professional circus artist runs Circus Fun in the big Fægtesalen hall, where kids and parents try juggling, tightrope walking and trapeze.
The Danish Architecture Center is Denmark's national center for architecture, inside the BLOX building on the harbor front. Kids ride the DAC Slide, a 40-meter spiral by Carsten Höller that drops four floors, and build, draw and peek through the Wonder Wall in the Educatorium children's space. Exhibitions trace Danish architecture from the Viking Age to today, with child-friendly storytelling built in. The café's rooftop terrace overlooks the harbor.
Danish rain can last the whole day, and kids still need somewhere to climb, splash and poke at things. These are the indoor spots we'd pick when the forecast turns gray: science you can touch, sharks behind glass, play houses built for climbing and a pool warm enough for toddlers. Here's what we checked, from the giant bubbles at Experimentarium to the spiral slide at the Danish Architecture Center.
Experimentarium is a hands-on science center spread over three indoor floors and a rooftop. Kids make soap bubbles of every size in the Bubblearium, splash with water at The Beach, navigate a ship simulator in The Port and see their own body through a thermal camera in Under Your Skin.
The exhibits are built for play, so kids need no Danish or English to join in.
Den Blå Planet holds around 50 aquariums in three sections, from a rainforest with giant arapaima to the Ocean aquarium, the largest tank, where hammerhead sharks and stingrays glide past. Kids can watch four sea otters crack shellfish on their bellies and spot a giant Pacific octopus.
Outside, a water playground has an Archimedes screw, pumps and sluices, next to a playground with climbing frames and a slide.
Denmark's national history museum fills the Prince's Palace with 42,000 objects on display, from a longbow made around 7,000 BCE to the Bronze Age Sun Chariot. Kids can lift a real gold bar, meet a mummy and the Egtved Girl, see the Gundestrup Cauldron that inspired the Asterix and Obelix artist, and find astronaut Andreas Mogensen's spacesuit.
KU.BE is a four-story culture and movement house by the architects MVRDV and ADEPT, where the building doubles as play equipment. Kids scale climbing hills, crawl through wall mazes, cross a hanging climbing net with a view and ride the silver slide.
Toddlers get their own tumble area upstairs, and the garden outside adds a basketball court and a playground for small kids.
A culture house built only for kids, designed by Dorte Mandrup from ideas that local children drew up in workshops. Inside are a big climbing wall, a ball pit for under-6s, a dance hall, a workshop, and crooked nooks and dens sized for children.
Kids come for after-school art, music and dance classes, Saturday workshops, family concerts and holiday festivals. Families can eat packed lunches in the café.
ENIGMA covers communication history, from the Danish postal service of 1624 to the internet.
Kids can crawl, slide and type through Teleportalen, a play area that turns the digital world into a physical one, and design their own stamps. The basement arcade has Atari, Nintendo, C64 and Amiga games to play. Older kids can crack Enigma machine messages and head underground into a Cold War bunker.
Arbejdermuseet tells the story of Danish working-class life inside an 1879 building with steep staircases, small apartments and a grand Banquet Hall.
The Children's Workers Museum is the draw for kids: they deliver groceries, sort bottles at a brewery, dress up and play in a 1930s apartment, then take a hidden staircase from the blue kitchen down to a recreated backyard with laundry lines.
The city's largest public library sits in the old town, facing the Round Tower. For families, the reason to come is LÆS, a 1,000-square-meter children's floor designed around how kids learn language and reading. Its 10 zones include reading caves, the Ordbjerget play area for letters and movement, a drawing station with board games, and a shelf of books in English and five other languages.
Vandkulturhuset is the swimming hall inside DGI Byen, close to Central Station. It has five pools: a sports pool up to 1.8 m deep, Ellipsen, a ring of water around it, the 3.8 m-deep Fjeldsøen, and two warm pools, Indsøen at 32°C (from 0.2 m deep, with a spa) and Gryden at 34°C. There is a lifeguard station, a separate sauna house, and swim lessons from babies to age 12.
The planetarium's big dome screen shows space films, some in English and some in Danish, and every ticket includes one. The exhibitions hold the largest moon rock outside the United States, on loan from NASA, plus astronaut tests, two humanoid robots and Tomás Saraceno's 25-meter-high Cosmic Threads installation. Weekends and school holidays add science shows and a LEGO space workshop.
Cirkusmuseet tells the story of circus life through costumes, props and films, set in the old Avedørelejren army barracks. Kids can follow a treasure hunt through the exhibition, then dress up, draw and juggle in the play area.
On Sundays, a professional circus artist runs Circus Fun in the big Fægtesalen hall, where kids and parents try juggling, tightrope walking and trapeze.
The Danish Architecture Center is Denmark's national center for architecture, inside the BLOX building on the harbor front. Kids ride the DAC Slide, a 40-meter spiral by Carsten Höller that drops four floors, and build, draw and peek through the Wonder Wall in the Educatorium children's space. Exhibitions trace Danish architecture from the Viking Age to today, with child-friendly storytelling built in. The café's rooftop terrace overlooks the harbor.
