This was first published in 2011 – so some things may have changed since then!

Copenhagen was recently chosen as the third most liveable city in the world after Helsinki and Zurich by Monocle magazine. That might have been based on principles that benefit the inhabitants more than visitors, but eagle-eyed tourists will spot what makes Copenhagen such a success as a city. Most obvious is the prevalence of bicycles: imagine the number ridden in Cambridge quadrupled and you’ll still be far off the total here. As a short break destination, Copenhagen has a lot going for it. The city aims to be carbon-neutral by 2025. There is a passion for good quality food: a ‘fat tax’ was recently introduced on ingredients like butter, but there are bargains to be had when eating or drinking. It is an attractive city with a wonderful waterfront location. Public transport runs like a dream – even if it is costly – and the whole city seems to cater for people, rather than being as stressful and unyielding as London can be. Danish design is another reason to visit, with beautiful design stores in abundance, such as Royal Copenhagen’s ceramics.

The city centre is handsome, and no visit to Copenhagen would be complete without a visit to Nyhavn, the 17th century canal and street lined with boats and brightly painted buildings. the street itself doesn’t have any unmissable sights on it, but it is immensely pleasurable to stroll its length.

For these clearly positive sides to Copenhagen there are also oddities. For example, smoking is permitted in bars of less than 40 square metres, but it seems the law is left unchallenged in larger bars. This approach is presumably part of a liberal agenda where people are free to do as they wish, but it also seems quite regressive when many other countries have passed successful anti-smoking laws that attempt to accommodate everyone. We saw one man unzip and urinate wildly on the escalators of a busy metro station. It was unexpected and disappointing to see this in the middle of the city centre.

This pales into insignificance next to Christiana, where archaic ideas such as smoking bans and drugs laws don’t apply. Christiana is a commune that the Danish Government has allowed to flourish intermittently over the past 40 years. The Social Democrats allowed the old defence ministry land to be slowly taken over by people who have transformed the area into an enormous autonomous ‘city’ as part of a social experiment. As Governments and priorities have changed, Christiana has found itself to be both a mark of a liberal country and a pain for residents who have to put up with the drugs trade in the area known as Pusher Street. The previous centre-right Government was close to tearing Christiana down and forcing massive construction on the area, but over the summer of 2011 this plan fell apart. Now the residents of Christiana are to buy the place from the Government cheaply to be given a high degree of autonomy from the state. If you needed something to make you realise the difference between Denmark and Britain, this is it. Christiana is worth a visit to experience it but you might just see what we did: namely, people sitting around listlessly drinking and smoking weed. And some militant chaps who definitely don’t want you taking photos. Somehow, I missed the many signs and got told off.

The only photo I managed to take of Christiania!

Of course, Denmark is visibly wealthy and happy. Forbes recently calculated that Denmark is the second-happiest nation on earth, thanks to low business start-up costs, excellent education and a lot of freedom. Education – even at PhD level – is free and the welfare state is very generous. People say the Danish tax rates are high, and they progressively climb to 51.5 per cent. They are designed to operate in such a way that earnings are equal in the nation, meaning a banker won’t expect the massive bonuses people get in Britain, and a teacher won’t feel much worse off.

On the waterfront

The Vesterbro area mixes hipsters with drug dealers and prostitutes, giving it a distinctive feel. It is undergoing the predictable wave of renovation and gentrification that moves the original inhabitants on, but there is a still a real feeling of industry here that defines the area. In the middle of this is Le Le, the very popular Vietnamese restaurant that has a 20 per cent booking and 80 per cent walk-in policy: if you want a good chance at eating there you should book. When we went it was almost entirely full, although there are plenty of small bars in the vicinity if you do end up waiting for a seat. The food is delicious and reasonably priced, with Vietnamese staple pho bò at around £13 and wonderful cocktails around the £8-10 mark.

There is a word in Danish for being cosy, comfortable and content. That word is ‘hygge’, and relates in some way to the long winters. Hygge is apparent in cafes across the city with blankets on chairs outside and candles everywhere inside. Lonely Planet offers a guide to getting cosy in Copenhagen, but my tip would be to add Paludan to the list. Paludan is a bookshop and café where the walls are lined with beautiful old books and there are cosy seats everywhere. The food and drink menu is great and you could easily spend a happy few hours here enjoying the atmosphere. A city centre café that is reminiscent of a grand café you might find in Brussels is Café Norden, which comes with stuffed deer heads on the walls and a menu that offers coffee and cake in the day or heavier stuff in the evening.

A very handsome man! Oh, it’s me!

Another Copenhagen gem is Cofoco – Copenhagen Food Consultancy – which allows you to eat great three-course meals at reasonable prices. We booked for Public House and ate the duck rillette, the main course of chicken and shallots in a paprika sauce, and the chocolate cake with raspberry sorbet. The menu changes frequently but there are three or four options for the meals, and at £28, it won’t break the bank. We had this with a Kir Royale and two glasses of wine each and the bill still came in at under £50 each.

Copenhagen offers a decent-sized gay scene: on our trip we only tried Can Can and Centralhjørnet, both in the city centre. They were both friendly and unpretentious, and Centralhjørnet excelled in playing three Abba megamixes and four Kylie tracks in a 90-minute period. Don’t say cheers when you can say skaal!

For an excellent art fix, Arken currently has three world-class exhibitions that all offer something really different. There is a Damien Hirst exhibition running until September 2012, showing eight pieces of his most important works including his biggest dot painting to date – made especially for the exhibition – and his cow in formaldehyde. There is also an impressive Warhol and Basquiat exhibition, the first time their collaborations have been shown in Denmark, on until January 2012. The most exciting piece is by Olafur Eliasson, a local artist who has had major exhibitions all around the world, including the giant sun of The Weather Project in the Tate Modern Turbine Hall. His work is often focused around the elements, and this installation, Din Blinde Passager, sends the visitor into a long plywood tunnel, immersing you in a thick fog. As you go through the tunnel, the light changes, at one point plunging you into almost total darkness. It’s a genuinely exciting piece of work that plays on our fears of being unable to find our way around but it also professes to discuss the idea of utopia.

Copenhagen is an undeniably enjoyable destination, but it has a fight on its hands to claim the crown for most exciting Scandinavian capital. Oslo, Helsinki and Stockholm all rank at the top of the league tables of best cities in which to live, in countries that all figure highly among rankings of the happiest people. If you long to visit this part of Europe for a short break, Copenhagen cannot disappoint: it is wonderfully multicultural, tolerant and cheap to get to. However, for longer trips, Stockholm has the stunning archipelago, Oslo has access to the fjords and Helsinki offers a tempting high-speed train link to St Petersburg. Indeed, you might enjoy this slice of Scandinavian life so much that it will be impossible not to explore more of this fantastic region.

Photos from my visit are here.

My landing to Stockholm’s distant Skavsta airport was accompanied with necessary drama by John Grant’s Black Blizzard playing on Spotify. Through the clouds came a countryside aflame with the colours of Autumn, with additional synthesiser fanfare. Minutes later, a walloping wind buffeting the plane’s descent had Grant howling about eternal winters to soundtrack my terror. Bumpy landings and I don’t get on, but Sweden and I get on just fine. My third visit to Stockholm, once in the depths of winter, one in the middle of summer and now in Autumn confirms its standing as one of the most beautifully sighted cities. It is built on fourteen islands, so access to water and woodland is as easy as finding a cinnamon bun. Stockholm’s jewel in the crown is the spectacular archipelago of 25,000 islands heading east into the Baltic sea, where 50,000 holiday cottages dot the landscape. If you ever have the chance, board a ferry to one of the islands. You won’t regret it.

Stockholm is a perfectly proportioned capital, its size making it a haven for walkers if you don’t want to use the excellent public transport system. It’s less pretentious than London yet the occasional glimpse makes itself apparent whenever you see the sign saying “Stockholm: The capital of Scandinavia” which is hardly going to get the neighbours cheering you on. And come to think of it, all the coffee shops are as obsessed with damned filament lightbulbs and deconstructed brickwork as everywhere else. And the hair – so fussed over…but enough.

The old town, Gamla Stan, is where I head to first to meet my friend who recently secured a job in the city. We eat at a decent Thai restaurant where a meal of chicken satay, rice and salad and a coke comes to about £12. Sated on satay, exploring Gamla Stan and the more historic parts of Stockholm is a joy. Even under a gun metal sky, it lifts the spirits, but in Autumn sunshine, it is spectacular. The terracotta buildings of Gamla Stan are deeply atmospheric and the mixture of government and Royal buildings mixed with smaller residential buildings in a warren of streets makes for a great opportunity to wander aimlessly. I walked from the cosy cafe Fabrique on Lilla Nygatan towards the Royal Palace, all austere and somewhat clinical as all palaces seem to be. Some streets would lead you to believe that Stockholm’s main economy is tourist tat but it’s easy to find a quiet street to cut through if you can live without reindeer toys and t-shirts declaring your love for Swedes.

Across the Strömbron bridge and onto Södra Blasieholmshamnen leads you towards Skeppsholmen, home of the modern art museum, worth a visit just for the gallery shop. Galleries always have the best shops, and this one has a particularly good selection of posters of past exhibitions. The view from the Skeppsholmbron (Skeppsholmen bridge) is a delight. Standing in the centre of the bridge you will enjoy 360 degree views of the city and the water around you where I took a moment to just enjoy the view and relax. To be in a city centre, hearing horns blare and knowing hundreds of thousands of people are around you and yet feel completely alone is rather surreal.

The next day, in search of a cinnamon bun I could tell the grandkids about, I headed to Kafé Esaias on Drottninggatan. Heading north from Sergels Torg, the street is dreary at best and plain grimy for a long stretch until the central shopping district thins out. It is a reminder that city planners can really balls things up. Finally, I reach Kafe Esaias and feel that this cinnamon bun is well earned after all that urban decay. Good news – it’s one of the best cinnamon buns I have ever had. My grandkids will definitely be hearing about this cafe, and if I have to hire grandkids to tell my story, so be it. I sat in the cafe for a long while, enjoying the atmosphere and the coffee before working out what to do next. Then I sat a while longer and came to the realisation that I have a great aptitude for just sitting.

Forcing myself back into the city, I settled on a walk to the Vasa Museet – a museum dedicated to a ship that capsized and sunk on its maiden voyage in 1628. The walk takes you down Strandvägen, a picturesque boulevard that is part harbour and part esplanade. In the beautiful light of Autumn, Stockholm was ravishing and Strandvägen banished all thoughts of Drottninggatan from earlier in the day. Stockholm uses its waterfront exceedingly well and boats of all sizes are present, but the closer I got to the Vasa Museet the more it became clearer that only the mast of the boat was visible with the rest of it encased within a large building. It really is a fascinating museum, and I now get why people say it’s worth setting aside half a day for. Entry costs SEK130 (£11) but you get a seriously comprehensive museum which explains why the boat fell over as soon as it launched from Stockholm harbour, in slightly inclement weather. It’s a classic tale of pride, greed and ego overtaking common sense. Common sense would be making sure your boat has enough ballast to keep it on an even keel in a storm. Common sense would be to say to the King that the boat wasn’t ready, though King’s of old were never known for their gentle temperament. The boat had beautiful sculptures on it, all to add to its sense of greatness and when the cannons weren’t visible, you’d have mascarons of fierce lions staring you out. Seeing this up close is very special; time has been kind to the boat and the sculptures are remarkably detailed to this day.

Everything about the Vasa was about power and superiority, but this is also a story of human ingenuity. When the Vasa was rediscovered in the 1950s, they decided to lift it (apparently the filling it with ping pong balls or freezing it in a block of ice weren’t very practical) by spending two years digging tunnels underneath the hull and then slowly moving it to shallower waters using two pontoons. The museum has excellent visualisations of this, to show just how incredible the raising of the Vasa was. The reason that there’s anything resembling a ship left is because the Baltic is brackish and in these waters, a shipworm that would usually feast on the wood was not present. What’s left is sensational; indeed, I read that over 95% of the boat is original and the visitor is left with an intriguing point that this boat was one of a kind and had it successfully set sail, we wouldn’t be left with this incredible wreck to marvel at.

If the Vasa museet is Stockholm’s must see attraction, there are plenty of other museums and galleries still worth some of your time. I found the photography gallery, Fotografiska, to be a diverting spot for a couple of hours – of course it had a great shop attached and a brilliant location near the socialist utopia/concrete hell that is Slussen. Many people find the gallery by following the road that clearly leads to it, whereas I clambered over road works and found myself trapped by a cliff on one side and a metal barrier to the other, so don’t take that route. With a rotating selection of exhibitions, you’ll find the majority of the space taken up by a major exhibition with smaller displays on the upper levels. At SEK 120 (£10) it can’t possibly match up to Vasa museet, but the gallery does hold some impressive events to make a visit worthwhile.

My journey back to the airport included a last stroll from Sodermalm to Riddarholmen, with the wonderful Riddarholm Church as its focal point. Yet again, it is mildly surreal to be in the centre of a city that feels so quiet and close to nature. Despite some fairly calamitous attempts to turn the city into a concrete mess, it stills feels manageable in scale and somewhere ideal for fans of walking. In fact, there’s a Swedish phrase “Lagom är bäst”, which is translated as “the right amount is best”. Perhaps this is a good way to sum up the reason that Stockholm is such an attractive proposition.

With its waterfront and islands, Stockholm easily offers up one of Europe’s most beautiful capitals and with the added bonus of the archipelago, the question isn’t are you going to visit, but when are you going to visit?

This is worth the flight alone.