Cities and People

Aarhus: Heaven is a place on Earth

Copenhagen is a great city. You know this because when you leave, for weeks you can only talk about it with the biggest smile on your face. The public spaces... and the buildings... and the bike lanes... and everything... and you just gush about it.

Well, Aarhus is not like that.

Aarhus operates differently.

On the first evening, you would just... look around. Even though it's 8 PM and you've been awake since 3 in the morning due to the flight, and this is now the third city after Billund and Vejle. But you just want to take a look. And then three hours later, you're still wandering around the city. But well... the charm of novelty, I guess.

The next day, you set off again and wander aimlessly. There are marked places, but you know you'll get there because the entire city center is so small that you can reach everything on foot within an hour, but usually within 30 minutes.

Evening comes and you should write an article. Alright, I'll go out then. Maybe up to the rooftop terrace, and I'll write there because I don't want to be indoors. I'll find a place, sit down, and start writing. In the evening, it's off to the street food court. Not because I want to eat, but because I want to be out in the city.

You find yourself not really understanding why, but you still want to wander. You've seen everything, but you still... you still want to stay. Out there. You're not hungry at all, but you'd still find a place to sit... you have things to do... but you'd rather attend a concert with the locals. It's already 9 p.m., you're leaving tomorrow... but another stroll sounds better. And at midnight, you're still wandering the city, and something photo-worthy still catches your eye.

A few things become apparent in three days.

The first one: I never took a bus. Not a tram either. Except for that one time when I traveled by public transport to a museum located 40 minutes away from the city. But to the seaside, the beach, the district on the other side of the city... I walked. It was never appealing to wait for any kind of vehicle. It always seemed simpler, more comfortable, and faster to just start walking.

The second one: I was never tired. Not even once did I have the feeling that I must sit down because... I was so exhausted, and I didn't get tired in the evening either. Even though I walked all day, literally.

The third one: I never got lost. Maybe I needed to make some corrections, but I never felt that sense of being lost, not knowing where I was... that never happened. Even though there were times when I walked on a forest path for an hour.  

The fourth one: I was never hungry or thirsty. Of course, this was greatly contributed by the fact that it was the perfect walking weather all along... but still, my energy level remained consistently high.

The fifth one: I noticed how much the Danes talk. A lot. They are constantly chattering with each other.

When I finally left Aarhus, I left with the knowledge that I had never been in such a great place in my entire life. But back then, on the train, I didn't know what had actually happened to me.

It took Hamburg for me to realize.

Hamburg, where I practically spent the first 4-5 hours under a cultural shock to such an extent that a strong desire arose in me to rather be at home under my couch (where my rabbits live). Hamburg is nearly unbearable - my mind kept clicking. What is this smell? What is this noise? Why do I have to pay attention to where the sidewalk is, why do I have to wait here at a street to cross? How can it be that there's no crosswalk here, we're standing with 20 people and can't cross...?! What is this crowd, why do I have to navigate around people, why do I have to navigate around construction sites? Why does a cargo van always intrude into the photo?! Why do I stumble on such poorly paved streets, and... I don't feel safe at all. I'll get run over any minute. Where do I even go here? Where am I?

To complete the cognitive dissonance, my more rational brain hemisphere kicked in: Look at those beautiful buildings! Look at those exciting canals, bays, and bridges! But this is beautiful, why can't you see it?

After about an hour, I had to sit down. I was tired. I was hungry and thirsty. I looked for a small café, in the quietest possible place, by the waterfront, and I sat there for 2 hours. I simply had to restart myself.

And then I realized that the past three days were enough for my body and mind to adapt.  

To adapt to the feeling of constantly being safe because there's nothing to fear. No crowds, no dark alleyways, no complex maze where you can get lost. No litter, no shouting. No cars or cyclists foolishly navigating in the wrong places that could hit you. No bad sidewalks where you twist your ankle.

To adapt to the silence. When there's no shouting, yelling, and especially no constant noise and clatter that needs to be drowned out. I realized: it's not that the Danes are so talkative. It's just that in Aarhus, that's the baseline noise. The sound of people.

Aarhus is a mid-sized city with a population of 360,000. It has several universities, with campus buildings being constructed one after another. It has an internationally renowned library and an internationally renowned art museum with a rooftop observatory designed by Olafur Eliasson. It has a historical and ethnographic museum (Henning Larsen) that is considered one of Denmark's top attractions, a city hall (Arne Jacobsen – Erik Moller) that represents the pinnacle of Danish modernist architecture, a high-quality open-air museum, an amusement park, a sandy beach with free access, and a smaller royal castle with a contemporary sculpture park. It has a concert center that hosts international festivals and two Michelin-starred restaurants, one of which has even been awarded two Michelin stars. And it has a new, almost fully developed contemporary district with a seaside swimming pool, and overall urban and public space quality that I haven't even seen in Copenhagen (BIG, UNStudio, Gehl... I won't list all the names working here).

And I haven't even mentioned the three-story swing-concert stage-glass balcony rooftop terrace (Henning Larsen) that extends over the pedestrian shopping street, effortlessly placed on top of the city's ugliest department store.

All of this in a city of 360,000 inhabitants.

But Aarhus is not a great place for these reasons alone.

Aarhus is a great place because it has perfected and refined the city of short distances. Because it operates in such a way that you constantly feel good there. Because it provides an environment that is beneficial to you. It's good for your body and good for your soul. It doesn't exhaust you with constant stimuli. It doesn't bombard you with advertisements. It doesn't assault your nose with all kinds of scents. It doesn't make you stumble on bad cobblestones. It doesn't make you climb steep stairs or force you onto narrow sidewalks where you have to sidestep. You don't have to constantly search for a place to sit. It doesn't constantly make noise around you. It provides just enough stimulus to make you want to be present there and not on your phone. It doesn't speed by, rush, or annoy you with everyone always hurrying everywhere, forcing you to run to cross the road. It doesn't jingle at you or honk incessantly. It's cosmopolitan yet very Danish. It's urban yet very cosy.

That's why Aarhus doesn't operate like Copenhagen.

When you leave Copenhagen, you have the widest smile on your face.

But when you leave Aarhus, you have to sit in silence for 2 hours to readjust to an average-sized bigger city. Because in reality, you feel like someone who has just been expelled from earthly paradise by a few stern cherubs.

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