The Port of Aalborg is centrally placed – only a few minutes walk from the heart of the city and its extensive network of pedestrian streets. Supermarkets and department stores are found side by side with a wealth of fascinating specialty shops. The redeveloped waterfront affords the city some great new public spaces where also the new architecture and design museum, the Utzon Center, is aesthetically placed. The Utzon Center is designed by Jørn Utzon - who has also designed the Sydney Opera House - and his son Kim Utzon.
With its population of 197,000, Aalborg is the fourth largest city in Denmark and constitutes the natural centre of North Jutland – the most attractive tourist area in Denmark. The city was founded by the Vikings, at this point where the Lim Fjord is narrowest. At Lindholm Høje, the largest Viking burial place in Scandinavia with more than 700 graves and a new Viking museum, a breath of history can be experienced. Over the years, the city developed into one of the busiest trading centres in the country. Activity and wealth set its mark on the city and many of the old buildings have been preserved as a natural part of the street scene.
Aalborg has a whole series of interesting sights. One of the largest zoos in Scandinavia is in Aalborg. There is also a Maritime Museum with indoor and outdoor displays on life at sea and in the Port of Aalborg. The Historical Museum displays the Aalborg Room from 1602 and Kunsten (Museum of Modern Art Aalborg), designed by the Finnish architect Alvar Aalto, contains an extensive collection of 20th century world art as well as changing exhibitions. The people of Aalborg are known to be cheerful and merry, fond of receiving visitors and helping them to have a good time. This characteristic attracts many visitors who, together with the citizens of Aalborg, contribute to the busy, festive life of the city. With more than 300 restaurants and bars, there is something for all tastes and pockets. Aalborg has Denmark’s longest continuous street of cafés, restaurants and pubs. Here there is life almost twenty-four hours a day. In the surroundings of Aalborg you will find broad, white sandy beaches of the North Sea, Denmark’s largest area of woodland – the Forest of Rold – the heather covered slopes of the hills of Rebild and the very tip of North Jutland at Skagen, where the works of the famous Skagen school of painters can be seen.
