Dragør
Step into Dragør and be delighted by its rare sense of harmony and beauty. It was the countless fat herring in the Øresund that cemented Dragør’s role as an important herring market in the Middle Ages. Later, it became a pilot town, and in the 1700s and 1800s an important seafaring center – at one point the country’s second largest after Copenhagen – where captains built their houses close together in the cobblestoned lanes. Although the town lies just 13 kilometers from City Hall Square, it doesn’t take long, strolling through the small, intimate streets, before a distinctly provincial mood gets under your skin – light-years from the big city. Nearly all the houses are whitewashed in shades of yellow, built of brick, and topped with tile roofs. They are typically one story, though several of the larger captains’ homes have two. One of Dragør’s iconic buildings is the distinctive pilot tower at the harbor: an elegant, open, tall wooden structure with its small pilot house at the top. You can see the houses from the inside at the Dragør Museum and at the Dragør Library.
