Copenhagen Card

The Copenhagen Card is the official sightseeing pass of the city, run by Wonderful Copenhagen, the tourist board, and in its DISCOVER version it bundles two things that are both expensive in Denmark: attraction tickets and public transport. With the card you get one free visit to each of more than 80 museums and attractions in Copenhagen and the surrounding region, and unlimited travel on buses, the metro, S-trains, regional trains and harbour buses throughout Greater Copenhagen for as long as the card is valid. It comes in five durations, 24, 48, 72, 96 and 120 hours, and the clock starts only when you activate it. The list of included attractions is long and strong. In the city it covers Tivoli Gardens, Rosenborg Castle, the Amalienborg Museum, Christiansborg Palace, the National Museum, the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Designmuseum Danmark, the Round Tower, the tower of the Church of Our Saviour, Copenhagen Zoo and a canal tour, among many others. Beyond the city, it includes Louisiana Museum of Modern Art on the coast, Kronborg Castle at Helsingor and Frederiksborg Castle at Hillerod, along with the train journeys to reach them, which on their own add up quickly. Not everything is covered: Den Bla Planet, the National Aquarium, is a notable exception, and some attractions, such as the tower of the Church of Our Saviour, still ask you to reserve a time slot. The card lives in an app. When you buy through Tiqets, you receive a voucher with a code that you redeem in the Copenhagen Card app, and you show the digital card at each attraction and to ticket inspectors on public transport. Activate it only when you are ready to start your first visit or journey, because the hours begin counting at activation and this cannot be reversed. Whether the card is worth buying depends on your pace. It rewards travellers who plan to see three or four paid attractions a day and use public transport, especially if a day trip to Louisiana, Kronborg or Frederiksborg is part of the plan. If you prefer to see one museum a day and walk everywhere, individual tickets will usually be cheaper.

How to make the card pay for itself: list the paid sights you actually want to see, add up their ticket prices and the cost of the transport you will need, and compare that with the price of the card for the number of days you need. The calculation almost always favours the card if your plan includes Tivoli, a castle or two and a day trip out of the city, because entry fees in Copenhagen are high and a return train ticket to Helsingor or Humlebaek is not cheap. It is much less useful on Mondays, when many museums are closed, so avoid letting a Monday fall in the middle of your card period if you can. The 72-hour card, activated on a Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday morning, is the sweet spot for most first-time visitors.

A sample three-day plan: on the first day, activate the card on the train from the airport, then see Rosenborg Castle, the Round Tower and the National Museum before an evening at Tivoli. On the second day, take the train up the coast to Louisiana in the morning and on to Kronborg at Helsingor in the afternoon. On the third day, take a canal tour, climb the spire of the Church of Our Saviour, see Christiansborg and finish at the Glyptotek. That itinerary uses several hundred kroner of tickets each day, as well as the transport, which is where the card earns its keep. Remember that each attraction can be visited only once on the card.

Practical points: buy the card before you travel, and install the Copenhagen Card app before you arrive so you can redeem the voucher on your phone. Some attractions with time-slot entry, including Rosenborg, give card holders a free ticket at the desk rather than an online booking, so arrive with a little time to spare at busy periods. Check the full list of included attractions before buying, as it changes from time to time. There is also a cheaper HOP version, built around hop-on hop-off sightseeing rather than museum entry, which suits travellers who mainly want transport and an overview of the city.