3 Best Sights in Side Trips from Copenhagen, Denmark

Located within the peaceful Dyrehaven, Bakken is the world's oldest amusement park (since 1583!) and one of Denmark's most popular attractions. Here a mostly working-class crowd lunches on hot dogs and cotton candy. Tivoli, with its trimmed hedges, dazzling firework displays, and evening concerts, is still Copenhagen's reigning queen, but unpretentious Bakken is unabashedly about having a good time. Bakken has more than 30 rides, from quaint, rickety roller coasters (free of Disney gloss) to newer, faster rides to little-kid favorites such as Kaffekoppen, the Danish version of twirling teacups, where you sit in traditional Royal Copenhagen–style blue-and-white coffee cups.

At a former bottling plant, in the beachside town of Hellerup, more than 300 exhibitions are clustered in various "Discovery Islands," each exploring a different facet of science, technology, and natural phenomena. A dozen hands-on exhibits allow you to do things like blow giant soap bubbles, feel an earthquake, stir up magnetic goop, play ball on a jet stream, and gyrate to gyroscopes. The center also organizes interactive temporary exhibitions. Exhibit texts are in English. From downtown Copenhagen, take Bus 14 (from Rådhuspladsen) or 1A (from Kongens Nytorv or the Central Station). Alternatively, take the S-train to Svanemøllen Station, then walk north for 10 minutes.

Architect Søren Robert Lund was just 25 and still a student when he was awarded the commission for the Museum for Moderne Kunst, which is set against the flat coast southwest of Copenhagen. Arken, or "the ark," which opened in 1996, is a building with a ship's features; sail-like protrusions and narrow red corridors that evoke a submarine. The museum's massive sculpture room exhibits both modern Danish and international art. The hall is narrow in one end and wider in the other to provoke illusions of space and proximity, depending on where you stand. The café, which looks like a ship's bridge, offers nice views of Køge Bugt. S-trains C and E leave from all major Copenhagen train stations. From Copenhagen, you cross five zones. From there, take Bus 128, which lets you off in front of the museum.