Nyhavn

This guide to Nyhavn in Copenhagen opens in a tattoo parlor cellar at number seventeen, run for over a century by an artist known as Tattoo Ole. It traces the canal back to its digging in the early 1670s by Swedish prisoners of war, the taverns and rowdy reputation that followed, and the years Hans Christian Andersen spent writing within sight of the waterfront. Look for the oldest of the gabled townhouses, standing since 1681, as you walk the quay.