Guide Service in Aarhus and nearby

City walk from the past to the future. From the city of vikings to the modern city with Danish art and craft.

After a pleasant visit to the Museum of the vikings (open Monday-Friday only), the guide will take you downtown. Experience the merchant district with small cafees, Danish design and bikes all over.

The tour finish at the museum of modern art: ARoS. Feel free to visit the special exhibitions, have a look at the city from the roof or enjoy a meal in the restaurant. At ARoS you'll find wonderful pieces of Danish and European art from the last 300 years.

A bike ride is a fast and pleasant way to discover a bigger part of Aarhus city. On this tour you will see the highlights of Aarhus. A city that since the founding by the Vikings has been one of the richest and most important cities in Denmark.

I will show you the astonishing development of the city, from medieval merchant town to modern metropolis.

We will venture out in the street that used to be the grimmest alley in Denmark. Next stop is the oldest stone church in Scandinavia. Furthermore we will visit the impressing Cathedral of Aarhus that is located in the cosy Latin Quarter with lots of old and beautiful buildings. I will reveal to you how a real estate company ended in a cowshed.

From here we will ride round Aarhus Ø which offers a beautiful view of the bay of Aarhus. Here you will see how an old container terminal can be turned into a modern part of the city with the most daring architecture.

Next destination is the old harbour of the city from 1861. This harbour sparked an astonishing development that transformed Aarhus from a medieval town to an industrial powerhouse. The signs of this development are still around as well as the heavy industries that was formed here in the beginning of the 20th century. You will also find out how an abattoir ended up right next to modern office buildings.

We will ride through the living quarters of the first industrial workers of the city to see where and how they lived.

At the end we will see the distinct City Hall in Aarhus and the modern landmark of the city, the museum of art ARoS.

Our city walk starts by the small river of Aros, from which the city has taken it's name.

From there I'll guide you via the old Viking wall towards the cathedral square, where past and present meet. Here, side by side there are monumental buildings and modern sculptures.

We continue along the medieval streets to the monastic area with the Church of Our Lady, before we in Vestergade pass the old grocer's stores on our way to "The Old City" an open-air museum, which we look at from the outside.

From here we'll walk back to ARoS which now is the new, modern museum of art, and further on to the city hall with its distinctive tower. We then return to our starting point by strolling along the riverside with its many cafes and restaurants.  

I would like to invite you on a different tour in the west area of Aarhus.

We'll start at the City Vest shopping mall, talk about the idea behind, and explore the decor. 

Next we'll walk to the modern church "Gjellerup kirke", and talk about the history of the church. After this we walk through the new neighborhood in Brabrand, a project called "helhedsplanen" meaning the master plan. From here we'll walk to the lovely Bazar West, where you can shop fruits from most of the world.

It is possible to have a good meal at the bazar.

The tour will end at the Bazar

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.

Guidet walk in the Memorial park commemorating Danes killed in the Great War 1914-18. The Memorial Park is situated next to the palace gardens by HM the Queen's summer residence, Marselisborg Palace.

Next to the Palace grounds is the Memorial Park and monument commemorating all Danes killed in the Great War 1914-18. Although Denmark stayed neutral in the First World War a large number of merchant sailors and some fishermen died at sea in addition to Danes who volunteered for the allied armies.

By far the majority of Danish war dead were from Southern Jutland, then part of Germany after Denmark lost the war of 1864 against Prussia and Austria. Some 4,100 people from this part of Denmark were killed from 1914-18. In 1920, as a result of Germany losing the Great War, Southern Jutland once again became part of Denmark.

Disability access

Provided you bring somebody strong to push your wheelchair there is access for the disabled on this guidet walk. Please be aware that the ground can be soft and wet in some areas.