Copenhagen

We did not eat at Noma. In Copenhagen it hardly matters: a few restaurants here came out of its kitchen, and we ate at two. The first was 108, Noma's sister restaurant, at number 108 Strandgade in Christianshavn: mostly vegetables, right on the water, by the steps everybody sits on. It has since closed. The second was Hija de Sanchez, where Rosio Sánchez, who used to be Noma's pastry chef, makes the best tacos we have ever eaten. It is not what anyone comes this far north expecting.

We went for two nights at the end of June, and summer is the time to go. In June and July the sun is up by about half past four and does not set until after half past nine, and the city spends all that light outdoors, on bikes and beside a harbour clean enough to swim in.

Copenhagen is flat, and more than 60 per cent of Copenhageners cycle to work or school, on nearly 400 kilometres of cycle paths, so a visitor on a hired bike is simply part of the traffic. The harbour and the canals are for a self-drive boat, which goes out from moorings in the centre and needs no licence, only nerve. Everything else is close enough to walk, Freetown Christiania above all: the self-governing hippie enclave of painted houses and murals across the harbour, which we would tell anyone to see. Go in the afternoon, when it is livelier, and on foot; a commune that governs itself is not somewhere to be shown round. Designmuseum Danmark holds the Arne Jacobsen and Finn Juhl furniture that gave Scandinavian design its name, and the drinks are at the original Mikkeller, on Viktoriagade in Vesterbro.

Indre By, the old centre, is the obvious first stay, with Nyhavn a walk from Torvehallerne, the covered market where Rosio Sánchez started with a taco stall. Christianshavn is quieter and greener, all canal houses and narrow bridges. Families should look at Østerbro, leafy and residential around Fælledparken, the city's largest park, which has the playgrounds. Tivoli Gardens, back in the centre, is one of the oldest amusement parks in the world, a distinction that will matter more to the parents. Vesterbro and Nørrebro are for anyone planning to be out after dark, which in June takes some planning.

We have not been in winter. December and January sit close to freezing, with six or seven hours of daylight and the sun down by mid-afternoon. Take a hat.