A few days ago it was time for a little city trip. A friend of mine started her minor abroad in Aarhus so I went to visit her, with another friend. To be completely honest, I never knew of the existence of Aarhus until she told me about her studying abroad plans. However, I’m a mess when it comes to geography. For the readers who are as a geography failure as I am: Aarhus is the second largest city in Denmark and it is located at the north east coast.

The journey to get there took a very long time. Since there is nothing that flies from the Netherlands directly to Aarhus (yes they do have a airport), we had to fly from Amsterdam to Copenhagen. Arrived in Copenhagen the Flixbus was waiting for us and took us with a 5-hour long drive to the centre of Aarhus. For me it was the first time traveling by Flixbus, which I was a little bit hesitant about. But everything went great, there even were sockets in the bus, which was great because those damn batteries of our phones die so quick in the cold.

Finally arrived in Aarhus our friend picked us from the bus station and took us to her dorm where we were going to stay for the weekend. The first night we didn’t do much, since we were tired of the journey. We took the time to prepare dinner, drink some wine and of course catch up!

The second day we went to Den Gamle By. A national open air museum of urban history and culture. The open air museum takes you back to Denmark in 1700. You travel through time in the village and you end in 1970. Do not underestimate the time you spend here, like we did. We thought 2 hours would be more than enough, but it was so much fun and it was so much bigger than we thought. So we ended up spending the whole afternoon there.

After that we went for a drink in the city centre. We ended up in the Brætspilscafé. Which was an all-time favorite immediately! It’s a boardgame cafe. Sorry for the blurred picture, but this was the only picture I took of the cafe. There were two of these huge cabinets filled with boardgames.  To me, as a major boardgame fan, this was like a playground. We played some games, drank some beers and went for a Korean dinner afterwards. Which was actually my first time for Korean food. Maybe it was the dish I ordered, but I am not a fan. But I will definitely try it again some time! We drank a cocktail in a bar and went home and had a good night sleep.

The third day we went to visit ARoS, an very inspirational art museum in the centre of the city. Most of the art was modern art, which for me is harder to understand, but with the stories behind the pieces everything was really interesting. One piece in particular I thought was very beautiful.

This is the “Lighthouse” (if I’m right). To be honest, I don’t recall the of the artist. If someone can tell me, please do! What I do recall is the meaning behind the piece which I thought was very beautiful and certainly words to live by. In the house is just one lightbulb placed. And at the first sight maybe it is not really impressive, and on this picture it also is not. But if you took another step back the lightbulb caused a huge shadow which was the same house but then so much bigger. The idea behind this piece was that even though something seems so small, it can have amazing great potential.

Also very impressive was Boy by Ron Mueck. Boy has became a landmark for ARoS. This sculpture is 4.5 meters tall and weighs 500 Kg! It’s scary realistic. It took the artist 8 months to finish the sculpture.

We ended at the top of the museum, in the rainbow panorama rooftop! The perfect place for all your instagram pictures as you can see, lol. This panorama goes 360 and lets you view the city from above through all the colors of the rainbow. Sadly, it was very cold in here since the grids, which you can see on the right side, let all the cold air from the outside in.

The last day we had breakfast in the Street Food market which is directly located next to the central bus station. After our breakfast the journey back home started and we had to say goodbye. Since we were a little hangover this was a horrible journey, but we made it.

It was an amazing city, and I would definitely visit it again! There is so much we did not even had the time for to do! See you soon Aarhus!

xoxo