In June 2022, my husband and I flew from San Francisco to Copenhagen to spend our summer living in Denmark. I had no idea what to expect but ended our summer in Copenhagen absolutely in love with the city. It now feels like a second home.
While I do have plans to come back in the winter one year to experience the famous Danish hygge, I firmly believe that Copenhagen in the summer months is the best time to visit. (In fact, I have another trip planned for spring & summer 2024 to check out nearby Eurovison.)
In this post I’m sharing all my favorite things to do in Copenhagen summer so you can plan the best trip possible to my favorite Scandinavian city. Let’s go!
Copenhagen In Summer Weather
When researching places in Europe to spend a summer, I knew that I wanted to find a place that didn’t have crazy heat waves (a lot of places in Europe don’t have A/C and Robin, my husband, really really hates being too hot. No idea how that boy survived growing up in humid Wisconsin summers.)
That’s a big reason we picked this city. Denmark in the summer is pretty mild. During our visit, we had one week in which temperatures were in the 80s which was uncomfortable without AC, but otherwise, the days were high 60’s or 70’s and nights were cool so our apartment never got too hot.
It just made everything easier and more enjoyable. Call me crazy but I prefer to not sweat through my clothes and complain of heat all day on a trip.
Quick Travel Tips For Copenhagen
- Take public transport: Seriously, the train system in Copenhagen is AMAZING. One of our favorites in the world. It’s fast, clean and cheap.
- Walk or rent a bike: The city is flat and extremely walkable. Biking culture is also huge. You can use the app DonkeyBike to rent bikes to get around the city. Locals cart their kids around via bike, too!
- Credit cards are the norm: I never once needed to have cash in Denmark so plan on bringing your credit card.
- English is spoken widly: In fact, I think the Danes might just speak English better than some Americans. Danish is a notoriously hard language to learn and speak. The few times I did try to communicate in Danish with locals, they couldn’t understand me so don’t feel pressure to spend hours on Doulingo before you go.
- Borg and Slot = castle or fortress. You’ll see this a lot tagged to the end of building names.
- Food to look for: Come summertime, the Danes love rhubarb, elderflower anything, and tons of Aperol spritzes on patios.
- Get the Copenhagen City Card to save a ton of money on sights! We used this while visiting and loved the value. It also includes public transportation.
We love this city pass. It includes tons of amazing museums and sights PLUS transportation (and the trains in CPH are so so good, you'll want to take them!) You'll save a few hundred dollars with this pass.
- Includes Public Transport
- Most major sights
- Great value for money!
21 Best Things To Do In Copenhagen In Summer
PS – I have a huge Copenhagen itinerary guide to help you plan an amazing trip to my favorite European city with even more tips you should check out after this! Also these are my favorite Copenhagen hotels to book, too.
1. Swimming In The Many Harbour Baths
Copenhagen’s canal waters are so incredibly clean that they are very safe to swim in, and the city has built tons of harbor baths all around different neighborhoods that are totally open to the public to swim in!
This was my FAVORITE unique thing about Copenhagen and I found myself quickly hunting down all the best harbour swim spots. Copenhagen in July, while mild compared to places like Paris or Portugal, can still get in the 70’s or low 80’s.
A refreshing dip in the harbor to cool off before heading to a nearby bakery for a little snack was my favorite routine.
On your trip, I recommend you check out Islands Brygge harbor bath, it’s one of the biggest ones and has a very nice closed-off area just for swimmers. Another cool spot to swim is The Snail (aka Kastrup Sea Bath) right by the beach.
This unique structure looks like a snail, has diving platforms, is right by a sandy beach and you can even see the shores of Sweden from it! How cool is that?! So, bring a swimsuit.
2. Go Troll Hunting
Denmark is home to the famous artist Thomas Dambo. He used recycled materials to build beautiful, large trolls and then puts them all over the world. Of course, since he is Danish, there’s tons of these giant trolls hidden all around Copenhagen and Denmark.
You may have seen the Dambo troll in Breckenridge, Colorado (he was the first one I visited IRL) but it’s so worth it to set aside some time in Copenhagen to visit some of the city’s trolls.
I have a whole guide on where to find Dambo trolls in Copenhagen to check out! Rent a bike and see some hidden gems! They’re so dang cute.
3. Have Brunch At The Lakes
Not to be confused with The Lakes mentioned in Taylor Swift’s song, The Lake in Copenhagen are a series of square man-made lakes in the middle of the city. They attract plenty of birds and have great, flat walking trails around the water edge.
My favorite place to have brunch in the entire city on a nice day is Cafe Livingstone, which is located right on the water. Make sure to get a reservation to sit outside and ask for a little Denmark flag for your table!
Their brunch is all about tapas and shared plates. This was so much fun since we got to order a ton of different menu items and try so many local flavors. All with a fantastic view of the water.
4. Happy Hour At A Beer Garden
Denmark summer is made for nights at the beer gardens – hey, the sun does set at like, 11pm after all!
Rafen is a very cool street food market with seating, bars, art and it’s right by the water so you get treated to an awesome sunset view. Everything is all sort of hodge-podged together. It’s very colorful, vibrant and unique. Come hungry and try a lot of food from different stalls!
Another neat place to have dinner and drinks is the Broens Gadekøkken food court / beer garden. This is literally across the canal from Nyhavn, so very easy to walk to. They have beer, cocktails, wine, and a handful of very tasty food stalls.
5. Take A Boat Canel Tour
You can’t take trips to Copenhagen without doing a canal tour! Amsterdam gets all the credit for being a city of canals, but Copenhagen is very much a water city as well.
On your first day I highly recommend doing a water canal tour like this one. They are about $10-20 per person (sometimes as low as $5, the prices vary based on time of year!)
It starts and ends in the famous Nyhavn and takes you all around the city by boat. You’ll spot the Little Mermaid from the water, naval bases, the palace, charming house boats and more. It’s a fantastic way to get the lay of the land and scope out places you may want to return to later on foot.
I loved this so much we went twice while living in Copenhagen! If you’re jetlagged on your first day, book this for the morning so all you have to do is sit down and look at things.
6. Attend A Summer Solstice Festival
Denmark in summer means the sun around the summer solstice doesn’t set until around 11pm. I remember coming home from a train station at 11pm once and there was still a wee bit of the last daylight in the sky. WILD.
Summer Solstice is my favorite Copenhagen summer festival. Copenhagen in June is warm and feels like the perfect summer day weather.
All over the city you can find big midsummer events happening, but the best one to attend is the party at Raffen (that cool food stall market by the water!) They make a MASSIVE bonfire to represent burning witches (ironic to do on a pagan holiday, I know) and everyone brings drinks and food to watch it.
Midsummer is the best of the Copenhagen summer events – don’t miss it!
7. Explore Blooming Gardens For Free
All the parks around the city will be blooming with flowers this time of year. Wandering around lush Copenhagen gardens is truly a lovely way to spend the afternoon.
There’s the Botanical Gardens, with a palm house dating back to 1874. A beautiful garden is the rose garden outside Rosenborg Castle. While the castle is ticketed, the gardens are totally free to visit and there’s just something about this beautiful rose garden with the backdrop of a castle that makes me feel like a princess.
There’s also the Kastellet park, which is shaped like a star and on one end has the famous Little Mermaid statue.
8. Spend An Afternoon At Frederiksberg Gardens
Perhaps the best one, though, is the Frederiksberg Gardens. This is a HUGE park with so many gardens, forested trails, ponds, snack stands and a castle sitting in the middle of it.
It’s kind of like the Copenhagen version of Golden Gate Park, or Central Park. There’s even a zoo! You can enter at any point, just wander around and see all the sights. Make sure to keep an eye out for a popsicle stand for a little summer treat.
You can also do a public tour of the Frederiksberg Slot on the last Saturday of the month (just not in July or December).
9. Go Kayaking For Free Around The Canals
Back home in San Francisco, I love kayaking around Sausalito so when I saw people kayaking the Copenhagen canals I immediately looked up kayaking places.
Turns out, there’s a company that lets you kayak for FREE, all you have to do is pick up trash along the way. I did it one afternoon and had a blast picking up trash, I made it like a game and found so much things, even a soccer ball!
Make your reservation at Green Kayak online first. I loved the depot out of the Kayak Bar by Børsen (the building with the green tower and dragon tail). This bar itself is a nice spot for a drink, so grab your kayak and then a beer after you return it.
10. Explore Kastellet Park & Have Lunch
Kastellet Park is the star-shaped park that’s famous for many reasons, but mostly because of the Little Mermaid statue that’s on one end of it. (Aka, the Den Lille Havfrue).
She’s always crowded, and worth a visit of course, but the park itself is rich in history and stunning nature trails. There’s Kastellet, a 17 century fortress with a museum. The bright red buildings are stark against the greenery of the trees and incredibly beautiful.
Make sure to swing by the giant red windmill (aka Kastelsmøllen) since the Dutch aren’t the only ones to have stunning windmills! After your walk, head to the Little Mermaid but grab an ice cream or popsicle at a nearby stand on the way for a little treat.
After viewing her, wander over to Seaside Toldboden, a darling little seafood bar right on the water. Grab a table for lunch, or if you are on the go, stop at the wine and food market next door for a little snack.
11. Happy Hour On A Floating Bar
Set aside a happy hour at the Christianshavn boat rental & Café. It’s right along one of the major canals and floats on the water!
Grab a seat literally at the water’s edge to watch all the ducks and boats float on by. They have a great drink and food menu, though I’m always partial to an Aperol Spritz in the summer.
12. Visit Castles & Palaces
One of the best things to do in Copenhagen is visit all the castles and palaces the royal family lives in!! In America you can throw a stone and hit 3 Starbucks, in Europe you can do the same thing but hit 3 castles.
Within the Copenhagen city, the three top palaces to visit are:
1. Christiansborg Palace: this is over 800 years old and used to be where the royal family lives, but now is where Parliament serves. They have fantastic tours where you can view all the beautiful halls, libraries, kitchens, dungeons and even the horse stables!! Note: the horses go out to pasture in the summer but you can still see the stables.
Despite the Danes being known for wearing all black and neutral colors, Christiansborg is very colorful on the inside.
2. Rosenborg: Built in 1606, this palace was originally built as a summerhouse, but now is a museum and home to the crown jewels and other royal treasures. It’s right in the middle of the city, surrounded by those beautiful gardens we talked about before. The interior feels like you are stepping back in time, I loved our visit here.
3. Amalienborg Palace: Today, when the royal family is in Copenhagen, they reside at Amalienborg. You can’t miss this palace, it’s right by the water and nearby Nyhavn. It’s a sprawling complex, with many buildings, each building houses a different royal member (former Queen, current King and Queen, etc etc). You can tell when they are there since they fly their flags, but they bounce around a lot so aren’t always home.
You can tour one of the buildings, which used to be private residents but is now a museum. We had the pleasure of viewing Queen Margrethe’s crown jewels while we lived in Copenhagen. She abdicated in 2024 so now her son, Frederik X, is King.
Even if you don’t go inside the museum, you should still catch the changing of the guard, daily at Noon.
13. Day Trip To Kronborg and Helsingør
There’s a lot of reasons to visit Copenhagen and one of them is leaving the city (hear me out.) Kronborg is an easy train ride away from Copenhagen and is the famous castle that Hamlet was inspired by!
It sits right on the water, with a view of Sweden from the shores. This fortress is incredibly big and grand, and their tour is done so well. They pack in a lot of history, along with facts about Hamlet.
Krongborg is in the charming AF town of Helsingør – it seriously looks like something out of a Disney movie, all the houses and streets are colorful and full of flowers.
When you visit Kronborg, I recommend you have lunch at Værftets Madmarked after, it’s a very neat food market hall!
14. Snack On Ice Cream At Nyhavn
And, the nice thing about Copenhagen summer temperature is that it’s ice cream weather! And, since it’s not boiling hot your cone won’t melt in .2 seconds.
Head to Vaffelbageren Nyhavn, right along the famous Navhn row. They bake fresh waffle cones daily, and do interesting rotating flavors. Grab a cone and go sit along the water.
15. Visit Copenhagen’s Museums
The city has tons of beautiful museums to wander around! Robin’s favorite was The National Museum since during our visit there was a big Viking exhibit on, and he loves learning about Nordic history and Viking lore.
- The The National Museum (a MUST!)
- SMK – The National Gallery of Denmark
- Danish Architecture Center (this one is very unique!)
- Glyptoteket
- Designmuseum Danmark (this Modern Art Museum is very unique)
I love to use museums as fillers in between activities, or when the weather isn’t favorable (raining, too humid, etc).
16. Get Lost In The Royal Library
The National Library is one of the largest libraries in the world, and it’s stunning. You can’t miss this black building from the water, but the inside is just as unique. It merges modern design with the old, historic library to bring you a one of a kind library space.
It’s open to the public. Head to the top floor to view the old part, and look down on the stairs of the new part from above, it’s very neat.
17. Get Your Thrills On During Tivoli Gardens Events
Arguably one of the most popular Copenhagen summer activities is exploring the historic Tivoli Gardens. Denmark is home to the two oldest amusement parks in the world (random but love that for them.)
The oldest is Bakken, about 45 minutes outside of Copenhagen. The second oldest is Tivoli, which is smack in the middle of central Copenhagen and a favorite spot for tourists and locals alike.
It has rollercoasters, rides, shops, tons of restaurants and always a cool event happening in the summer- from concerts to shows and, while we were living there, the opening party for Tour de France 2022.
It’s best to buy your tickets online ahead of time to make sure you can get in. It’s also included in the Copenhagen City Card!
We love this city pass. It includes tons of amazing museums and sights PLUS transportation (and the trains in CPH are so so good, you'll want to take them!) You'll save a few hundred dollars with this pass.
- Includes Public Transport
- Most major sights
- Great value for money!
18. Explore Freetown Christiania
Aka Christianshavn, this corner of the city sorta kinda operates with their own rules and government (I saw sorta kinda since it IS still within Denmark’s governing land, so don’t go committing crime thinking you can’t get caught here.)
It’s a really neat place, though. The people who live here decided they don’t like the normal constructs of society and built Christiania instead. It’s full of plants, art, shops, stores, homes and even a public library. It’s a little ecosystem of its own, and it’s actually pretty big but most tourists just look at the area around Green George (a Dambo Troll!)
You can walk around it, make a stop on a bike tour around the city, or take a formal guided paid tour (the latter meets near the entrance to freetown.)
When you visit, remember this place operates differently. Respect the people who live here.
19. Climb The Church of Our Saviour Spire
Look, this tour made me feel like the Hunchback of Notre Dame. The Church of Our Saviour is that massive brown and gold spire you can see from all points of Copenhagen.
It’s an active, operating church but they have frequent self guides tours of the Spire. Get ready to climb a LOT of stairs but the view from the top is amazing… if you’re brave enough.
I could only make it through the interior stairs and halfway around the exterior gold steps before I got to scared to climb the rest.
20. Climb The Round Tower
Aka, the Rundetårn. This cool building used to be an observatory circa the 17th century. Now, it’s a museum and open to the public to tour!
It requires walking up, but most of the path there isn’t steps, but rather a sloped in a spiral ramp, so it’s not as hard to walk up. There are some steps at the very top, and hot diggity, the views are amazing from the top.
There’s also some museum exhibits and a library to learn more about the history, but I love this spot for the good views.
21. Rent A GoBoat For A Romantic Evening
Summer in Denmark means long days and my all time favorite evening activity was renting a GoBoat for sunset.
These are special. These boats are small, perfect for a couple or a small group. You can bring on wine and snacks and drive it around the canals yourself. This is a great afternoon activity, too, but I loved sunset with my friends since it was 100% more beautiful.
Truly one of the highlights of our summer living in Copenhagen, so make sure you try these out!!
Copenhagen Summer Style
Copenhagen weather in summer, as we chatted about, is much cooler and more mild than other places in Europe, such as Paris or Italy. All the summer Copenhagen clothing I packed was all about layers.
I had lighter layers for the hot days, but also denim overalls, cardigans, and a few sweaters for cool evenings. Plus, comfy shoes since we did a LOT of walking.
During our time there, we had about 1 week of a “heat wave” (aka in the 80’s), a couple days of humid rain but otherwise it was sunny, in the 70’s and perfect.
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I hope this helps you figure out what to do in Copenhagen in summer! It’s one of my favorite cities in the entire world and I can’t wait to head back this summer to explore more of the city! I’m going to see Eurovison in Malmo and I can’t wait!!
