Guide Service in Aarhus and nearby

The Old Town Museum in Aarhus is the world's first open-air museum for the culture and history of market towns, and first opened its doors in 1909.

Today the museum is visited by more than 350,000 guests a year, and has been rewarded the maximum 3 stars by the world-famous Guide Michelin.

The museum houses 75 houses from different areas in Denmark, and walking around the Old Town Museum is like jumping into the time machine and experiencing life as it was in a typical Danish city from the 16th to the 20th century, complete with shops, horse drawn carriages and people dressed as they would have at the time of Hans Christian Andersen the famous Danish fairytale writer.

I invite you inside many of the historic buildings, including the building that used to be opposite Hans Christian Andersen's childhood home in Odense, which was where he was first introduced to the wonderful world of books. I shall also show you the 17th-century pharmacy packed with mysterious medicines and the associated Baroque pharmacy gardens with about 100 different herbs.

Are you more interested in recent history and do you remember Bob Dylan, the hippies and your first television? Then you can also experience the year 1974 which is now part of the Old Town Museum. In this part of the museum I can walk you down the avenue of memories, where we stop at the sausage trolley, flatten our noses at window at Poul's Radio or visit the collective.

Whether you are fascinated by old or recent history it is also a good idea to set aside time to enjoy some traditional Danish cakes from The Old Town Bakery as well as a cup of tea or coffee after the tour.

Experience the harbour of Aarhus and see the largest public library in the Nordics.

We start at Dokk1, a very special building that houses a library and many other functions. From the balcony we have a view of the harbor and some special old and new buildings for example Aarhus Ø. The guide will tell about the Vikings' simple landing place and how the harbour has later developed.

On a tour of the harbour we will see old buildings that have been given new functions, but also listed silos that are still in use.

We will see Jens Galschiøt's new sculpture group that illustrates the conditions of the old dock workers. The guide will explain how the handling of goods has developed from manual work to container transport.

Join me on a guided walk along Aarhus city's top attractions and let the anecdotes flow into your ears. 

• Would you like to hear the stories about formidable Vikings – the founders of Aarhus?
• Would you like to find out what is the secret ingredient to the famous Danish concept of happiness?
• How about the newest gossip from the Danish Royal Court?
• And finally: should I be worried that the complete strangers keep on smiling at me in the streets? Well, relax, you are in Aarhus, also known as the City of Smiles!

The tour covers the city's top attractions: Aarhus Cathedral – the biggest church in Denmark, the Latin Quarter – Aarhus city's oldest yet most vibrant district, the harbor – once purely industrial, today reborn as a home to the modern Danish architecture, the Church of Our Lady with a hidden treasure under its fundaments – the oldest still standing stone church in Scandinavia, ARoS – the modern art museum crowned with the greatest landmark of the city "Your rainbow panorama", the Viking Museum and many more. 

Please note: The Viking Museum is closed on weekends. The Church of Our Lady can be closed on some occasions due to the religious events.

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.

Guided tour through the outdoor art scene in Aarhus, where you will see both old and new artpieces come to life through scupltures and street art.

The city that is full of culture and life, reveals its street art on walls and in the streets. On this guided tour, you will get to know much more about Aarhus' impressive collection of street art and public art in general, and the stories behind the art works. 

This guided tour is also a great opportunity to explore the many neighbourhoods that the city consists of.

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.