Fun fact, in 1948 the Danish parliament passed a law requiring all "aa"'s to be changed to the Danish letter "Å". Because Aarhus is all about being progressive, they went along with this and became Århus for about 60 years, and then in 2010 they decided to change their name back to the traditional Aarhus (according to Wikipedia, their mayor said it was so that it would be easier to find the city in a Google search).
The name change has given Aarhus just the right amount of obscurity to justify it being awarded the European Capital of Culture for 2017.
The notion of the "Capital of Culture" is a bit strange to me. For starters, there hasn't been just one Cultural Capital since 2006 (when it was Patras), so the prestige associated with the title is always divided by two, although special mention goes to 2007 when the "Greater Region" - an area encompassing Saarland, Lorraine, Luxembourg, Rhineland-Palatinate, Wallonia, the French Community of Belgium and the German-speaking Community of Belgium, and to 2000 when there were 9 separate Capitals of Culture). As it stands, Aarhus will be sharing its turn as Capital with Paphos in Cyprus.
The name change has given Aarhus just the right amount of obscurity to justify it being awarded the European Capital of Culture for 2017.
The notion of the "Capital of Culture" is a bit strange to me. For starters, there hasn't been just one Cultural Capital since 2006 (when it was Patras), so the prestige associated with the title is always divided by two, although special mention goes to 2007 when the "Greater Region" - an area encompassing Saarland, Lorraine, Luxembourg, Rhineland-Palatinate, Wallonia, the French Community of Belgium and the German-speaking Community of Belgium, and to 2000 when there were 9 separate Capitals of Culture). As it stands, Aarhus will be sharing its turn as Capital with Paphos in Cyprus.
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| Nothing says "We appreciate culture" louder than destroying musical instruments and a large pile of wooden crates. |
Aarhus is located pretty much in the centre of Denmark (if you draw a circle around all of the islands etc) and is the country's second largest city. One thing that is really strange though, is that walking around Aarhus felt a lot like Copenhagen. There is a Stroget. An Aboulevard. A Bispetorvet. A Vesterbrogade. It turns out, with the help of Google Maps, every city in Denmark has the same main street names.
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| Looking down the canal from Arhus-Stroget. Pronounced "Stroh-uuuuuhhhllllllllll". Because Danes just get tired if you expect them to pronounce more than 3 letters at once, and just kind-of groan to finish off words. |
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| Aarhus Cathedral |
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| The Aarhus Theatre |
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| We went to this adorable cafe before going into the ARoS Gallery - this was my white hot chocolate. Complete with a generous dollop of chocolate at the bottom. |
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| I'm not 100% sure if this is art, or just a testament to the hardiness of weeds. |
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| But I am fairly certain this is art. |
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| ohohoh! This was the coolest. It was actually on fire. |
... until I got to the top level!
Entitled "Your Rainbow Panorama", it is 150m worth of cool.
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