With approximately 300.000 inhabitants, Aarhus is the second largest city in Denmark. It was founded by the Viking in the 8th century, and is located in a natural bay along a small river and surrounded by forest. The tourist sites sometimes refers to Aarhus as the “youngest and brightest city in Denmark” because of its large student population – almost 1/5 of the residents are students. The young population and the fact that the city is the unofficial “capital of west Denmark” (and thus strives to match what Copenhagen has to offer) means that Aarhus has a large concentration of attractions, shopping and city (and night!) life. Since the city center is quite compact, most of the attractions are easy reachable by foot or city bus.
The website VisitAarhus provides lots of information about Aarhus. Tourist guides and maps will also be part of the participant’s registration package. Therefore, we will here just give a few highlights and tips.
The main tourist attraction in Aarhus (in fact, one of the main attractions in Denmark) is “Den Gamle By” (The Old Town). The town is an open air museum consisting of houses that have been moved to Aarhus from all over Denmark, showing how it was like to live and work in a Danish marked town in the old days.
Other famous (and interesting) museums in Aarhus are the Moesgård Muesum and Aros. Moesgård museum is located in an old manor house in the woods of the southern part of Aarhus. It contains some nice archaeological and ethnographic collections – including the two thousand year old bog body “The Grauballe Man”. Aros is a new and very nice art museum right next to the town hall and music house. The architecture of Aros is an experience in itself and from the roof there is a nice view of the city. There are many other museums in Aarhus. Actually the Natural History Museum and the Steno Museum on the history of science and medicine are located right next to the conference site.
Other main architectural sites in Aarhus include the (already mentioned) modernisticCity Hallbuild by famous Danish Architect Arne Jacobsen and the Music House, situated in center of the city close to two of the conference hotels (Plaza and Radisson), as well as Århus Cathedral from the 12th Century also in the center of the city but close to the third hotel (CABINN).
If the weather behaves (which we hope it will), Aarhus also has a lot of outdoor attractions/activities. They obviously include strolling the harbor(s), forests and beaches on both the north and south side of the city. For example, on the south side of the city close to the Queens summer residence Marselisborg (with change of the guards at noon when the queen is in residence – which she usually is in the summer) there is the nice Marselisborg Habor featuring a few restaurants and the Marselisborg forest extending along the ocean and beaches. Marselisborg forest also contains a nice small deer park. Close by one can also find the “Friheden” amusement park. Another favorite activity of the Danes and tourist alike is having a few drinks at the many cafes along the river or in the Latin Quarter (close to the CABINN hotel). Most of these cafes turn into regular bars towards midnight – and for those that feel like continuing the drinking (or dancing) into the wee hours there are several clubs downtown.
Around Aarhus
There are plenty of nice places and attractions around Aarhus that can easily be visited during a day or half-day trip. These include the very nice lake district forty kilometers vest of Aarhus around the city of Silkeborg, where one can take a boat tour on “Hjejlen” - the oldest operating paddle steamer in the world – and also visit one of the highest points in Denmark “Himmelbjerget” (the sky mountain), all of 147 meters tall. Forty kilometers north of Aarhus one can visit the tropical rain forest zoo “Randers Regnskov” and fifty kilometers east (past the airport) the city of Ebeltoft with its old buildings, glass museum and many glass blowers workshops, and with the 1857 wooden frigate “Fregatten Jylland”. Another city 50 kilometers to the east called Grenå houses the aquarium “Kattegatcentret”, which among other things features sharks. Silkeborg and Randers can be reached by train, and Grenå and Ebeltoft by bus. The area “Djursland” with the airport, Grenå and Ebeltoft also has a the very nice and hilly natural park area “Mols Bjerge” and several nice safari zoos.
Further away
The website VistDenmark provides lots of information about other tourist attractions in Denmark. The main attraction (even though we don’t like to admit it) is probably Copenhagensome 300 kilometers away with e.g. the little mermaid, the queens castle and Tivoli, but there are also nice attractions closer by, including the dunes and long nice beaches of the west coast, the picturesque city Skagen on top of Jutland and Legoland next to Billund airport.
MADALGO - Center for Massive Data Algorithmics, a Center of the Danish National Research Foundation / Department of Computer Science / Aarhus University
