Den Gamle By — The Old Town — is an open-air museum of more than 75 historic buildings gathered from across Denmark and reconstructed on a large site at the western edge of Aarhus city centre. The collection spans from a seventeenth-century merchant's house through nineteenth-century craftsmen's cottages, a chemist's shop, a post office, and a grocer's — all furnished and staffed by costumed interpreters who do actual work in the buildings. In summer the site feels genuinely alive.
The museum is organised into three distinct "towns": the original seventeenth and eighteenth century quarter; a 1927 district showing Denmark's interwar period; and a 1974 section covering mid-century Danish life. The contrast between the periods is one of the museum's strengths — you can walk from a half-timbered sixteenth-century yard to a 1950s Danish kitchen in twenty minutes. Budget at least three hours; half a day is better.