The Danes are the happiest people in the world, apparently. Visit Copenhagen in summer, when the days are long and warm, and you will feel pretty pleased with your lot, too. It’s a relaxed city, with great architecture, shopping and restaurants. Do it like a Dane and walk or hire a bike, and head off to the districts of Vesterbro and Nørrebro, or the café-filled streets around Strøget, the main pedestrian artery.

Hot hotels

The Front (00 45 3313 3400, www.front.dk) is a 131-room design-led hotel on the regenerated waterfront, a short stroll from the cafés of Nyhavn and Strøget. Best rooms face the harbour but all have a cosy feel, free minibars and bathrooms with heated pebble floors. Rooms from £132. Another design favourite is Skt Petri (3345 9100, www.hotelsktpetri.com). It also houses a popular nightclub (so don’t plan an early night). Rooms from £162.

Budget rooms

CabInn (www.cabinn.com) has three hotels in Copenhagen, all with rooms like ship’s cabins. Rates start at £47 for a single with a bunkbed. All rooms have TV, phone, wi-fi and kettle.

Best food

The top spot, with two Michelin stars, is Noma, in a warehouse beside the harbour in Christianshavn. Chef René Redzepi combines off-the-wall Nordic ingredients. Dishes include musk ox and milk skin, asparagus and ashes (3296 3297, www.noma.dk).

Three-course set menus start at £27 for lunch. For more conventional Franco-Danish cooking try Gendarmen (3393 6655, www.gendarmen.dk), where chef Knud Rusz offers a three-course set menu using local produce for £27.

Snack attack

For a postshopping carb injection, head for the tea salon La Glace (3314 4646) on a side street off Strøget and order a generous slice of the house speciality, Sports Kage, a fabulous confection of nougat, caramel and cream. With a cup of coffee it costs £7.30. And don’t miss a pølse (a hotdog) from one of the stands dotted around the city. They cost about £1.60.

Best beers

Nørrebro Bryghus (3520 0530, www.noerrebrobryghus.dk ) makes its own Belgian white beer, dark New York lager and Bombay Pale Ale, among others. Or, while you’re in Tivoli, stop off at Faergekroen (3375 0680, www.faerge kroen.dk) in a lovely lakeside location, for its blond or amber lagers, £5.32 a half-litre.

Night owl

Amy Winehouse is among those who will play this year at Vega (3325 7011, www.vega.dk), a restored 1950s union building in Vesterbro. It has a concert hall, nightclub, lounge and cocktail bar.

Culture vulture

Get a grip on Copenhagen’s history with a boat tour along its canals. The best is with Netto-Badene (3254 4102, www.netto-baadene.dk) from Nyhavn, which lasts an hour, costs £2.70 and takes you past the Little Mermaid. And you must see Tivoli (3315 1001, www.tivoli.dk) at night, when the park and its lake, rides and bars are bathed in the glow of more than a million lightbulbs. Entrance is £6.80, rides extra.

Julia Brookes travelled with Scandinavian Airlines (0870 6072 7727, www.flysas.co.uk) which flies daily to Copenhagen from six UK airports from £108 return. Information: Visit Denmark (www.visit denmark.com); Wonderful Copenhagen (00 45 3325 7400, www.visit copenhagen.com).

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