Refshaleøen, Reffen Street Food, CopenHill and Harbour Baths

Nothing captures twenty-first-century Copenhagen better than the transformation of its industrial port. After municipal engineers modernised the city's storm-water overflow system at the turn of the millennium, the main harbour channel became clean enough to swim in every day, turning kilometres of former shipyards and coal docks into wooden bathing decks, saunas and creative waterfront hubs.

Swimming at Islands Brygge, Kalvebod Bølge and La Banchina

Just south of Langebro bridge on the Amager bank sits Havnebadet Islands Brygge, the landmark timber harbour bath co-designed by Bjarke Ingels (BIG) and Julien De Smedt in 2003. Open for free with lifeguards during summer, its floating wooden platform holds five open-water pools (including two shallow children's basins, 50-metre lap lanes and a boat-shaped five-metre diving tower) backed by a grassy park where hundreds of locals picnic at sunset. Directly across the channel in front of the glass Marriott and BLOX curves the undulating wooden boardwalk of Kalvebod Bølge, while year-round cold-water dippers head to the tiny wooden pier and wood-fired sauna at La Banchina on Refshaleøen or the circular timber bridge baths at Kastrup Søbad (The Snail) near the airport.

Refshaleøen, Reffen Street Food and Copenhagen Contemporary

Take yellow Harbour Bus 991/992 to its northern terminus or cycle fifteen minutes past Holmen to Refshaleøen, the former B&W shipyard island that built giant container ships for over a century. Today its towering steel welding halls and quaysides house:

• Reffen (Copenhagen Street Food): Scandinavia's largest open-air street food market (open spring through autumn), where more than forty repurposed shipping containers serve organic dishes from around the globe beside deckchairs and bonfires looking directly west across the harbour for sunset.
• Copenhagen Contemporary (CC): housed inside the cavernous 7,000-square-metre former B&W welding hall, exhibiting monumental immersive light, sound and installation works by world-celebrated contemporary artists.

Climbing the ski slope on top of CopenHill (Amager Bakke)

Ten minutes' walk east of Reffen rises CopenHill (Amager Bakke), a clean waste-to-energy power plant capped with an 85-metre sloping roof park. Even if you are not skiing down its green synthetic slope or climbing its world-record 85-metre outdoor climbing wall, anyone can take the glass lift (or hike the lush rooftop mountain trail planted with 7,000 bushes and pine trees) for free during opening hours to the rooftop café for a panoramic view across the Øresund to Sweden.