Byvandringer i Aarhus

Vestergade, West Street, is one of the oldest streets in the city of Aarhus. It dates back to the Viking Age around 900 AD.

The street was then outside of the city walls and the city within the walls was mainly a royal fortification, naval base and a port for shipping goods to far away ports. Presumably the oldest building in Aarhus, Vor Frue Kirke, The Church of Our Lady, with its crypt dates back to around 1,000 AD and it is located in Vestergade. During the middle ages it became part of a Dominican convent, or a Black Friar convent, as it was also called. It became the hospital for the leppers of the city in the middle ages.

Between the 16th and the 19th centuries Vestergade became the centre for trade in Aarhus with a total of 17 merchant houses in Vestergade alone, the highest concentration of merchant houses in any street in Aarhus at the time. Some of these half-timpered buildings are preserved to this day and on this walk we will go into their hidden and picturesque back yards, where you can still see traces of their original purposes and of the uses of later times, where there were artisan shops and factories in the back yards of the inner cities. 

The walk takes 1-2 hours according to your preferences and shorter tours of Vestergade is also available.

Book a guided tour of the palace gardens of her majesty Queen Margrethe's summer residence, which are open to the public, when the Royal family is not in residence.

The gardens were landscaped in English style while the palace was being built in 1902. A lot has happened since, and the gardens have been extended and modified several times.

Queen Alexandrine (1879-1952) contributed to designing the gardens, as botany and landscaping were her special interests. Her granddaughter, our queen Margrethe II, took over the palace in 1967 and has put her artistic touch to the gardens. For this reason the park today contains a large number of sculptures including some by HRH Prince Henrik, the prince consort.

Let me introduce you to the history, the garden and the residents of Marselisborg Palace over the years, and see the garden's many works of arts including some of the latest additions, like the sculpture "3 Lions And 9 Hearts", which was the 70th birthday present to HM the Queen by the city of Aarhus. I will also show you the Rose Garden, which holds a number of old Danish roses.

The history of Aarhus based on the great men and women buried at Nordre Kirkegaard, the Northern Cemetery.

Nordre Kirkegaard was founded in 1876 in order to relieve the pressure of too many burials at the then existing Søndre Kirkegaard, the Southern Cemetery which was situated where Raadhusparken, the City Hall Park now is.

Nordre Kirkegaard soon became a much prefered place of burial for the citizens of Aarhus because of the environment and rural landscape just north of the city. Today the entire area is part of the city. Today the cemetery takes up an area of 14,8 hectars.

Buried at Nordre Kirkegaard are a number of former mayors of Aarhus, including perhaps the most popular mayor ever in the city's history Bernhardt Jensen alongside various Aarhus celebrities.

On this guided tour I reveal the history of Aarhus by means of the various celebrities buried at Aarhus Nordre Kirkegaard which also give a good hint of how Aarhus grew and developed from the middle of the 19th century to the present day.

We start at the sculpture by Bernhard Jensen (across the river at Magasin) and walk through the Latin Quarter, whose ground plan dates back to the Viking Age and the Middle Ages. We continue through the Øgade Quarter, which was developed from the 1860s, and end in the University Park.

Several places have been threatened by "development and modernization", which would have disfigured the city, but fortunately in many cases it has been possible to avoid the accidents.

Along the way you will hear stories about the background to the development. For example, about the Øgade Quarter, where many townhouses have been modernized and saved from condemnation, and where active residents are behind Børnenes Jord and Beboerhuset.

On the way to the University Park we pass Galgebakken. The University Park was built in 1933 and, despite many new buildings, is still a beautiful park, which is a recreational area, with grass areas, beautiful trees and two lakes. The park functions partly as a natural connection to the university's many buildings, and partly as a recreational area, which is used by many.

It is possible to combine the tour with a visit to the Viking Museum, the Natural History Museum, the Steno Museum or the Antique Museum. The latter three are located in the University Park.