Leisure activities and sightseeing

Aarhus is a lively city with many cultural attractions on offer, both for locals and guests. Almost all types of art and culture are represented here.

Cultural events

• Aarhus Festival : The most well-known cultural event and one of the most comprehensive cultural arrangements in Northern Europe. The festival takes place during the first week of September and offers more than 300 different arrangements from opera, theatre and classical music, to video art, rock music and street performances.
• Aarhus Jazz Festival : Eight days of jazz featuring both international celebrities and local stars.

Theatre and concerts

The city´s attractive Concert Hall (Musikhuset Aarhus) is the background for a great part of the larger cultural arrangements in Aarhus. This is the home of Aarhus Symphony Orchestra (website in Danish only) and the Jutland Opera Company. There are three auditoriums in the Concert Hall and the largest theatre seats 1,500 people.

Aarhus Theatre (website in Danish only) is the biggest theatre in town with several stages and a permanent troupe of actors. Many theatre groups regularly perform at the smaller theatres in town.

Jazz, folk and especially rock music can be heard in many of the city´s restaurants that feature live music, as well as in the city´s concert halls. Aarhus is also known to be an excellent environment for musicians, and many famous Danish bands and singers are, or have been, part of the music scene here.

Museums and exhibitions

There are several museums in Aarhus:

• The Museum of Prehistory, Moesgård
• The Collection of Ancient Art
• The Museum of Natural History
• The Steno Museum, the Danish Museum for the History of Science and Medicine
• The Ole Rømer Observatory
• The Tropical Greenhouses
• The Old Town, an open-air museum containing many old houses and other buildings
• Århus City Museum
• ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum (art museum)
• Kunstnernes Hus (art museum)
• Kunstbygningen (art museum)
• The Museum, Psychiatric Hospital
• Vikingemuseet
• Women´s Museum

There are also quite a few small galleries which exhibit modern art.

Cinemas

• BioCity Aarhus (website in Danish only)
• Metropol Aarhus (website in Danish only)
• Cinemaxx (website in Danish only)
• Øst for Paradis art cinema (website in Danish only)