Outdoor swimming is big in Copenhagen – no matter the season | Canada Voices

What should you wear on a trip to Copenhagen? Not much, perhaps. In Denmark’s canal-wrapped, harbour-hugging capital, outdoor swimming is a year-round pastime – a boon for travellers who really pack light.

“In Copenhagen we love to swim,” said resident Andreas Borges, who spent a recent afternoon steering me and a travel companion through the city in an electric skiff from GoBoat. Patchy, unpredictable-looking clouds scudded above us; Borges wore sensible shorts and a polo shirt. Yet bronzed bodies lined the shoreline where we met at GoBoat headquarters, by the city’s biggest canal and the floating swim platforms of Islands Brygge Harbour Bath.

“We always go to the water. Especially in summer, but the rest of the year, too,” Borges said, explaining that the nearby “bath” was one of a dozen-plus, free-to-use bathing areas across the city. Its wooden decks enclosed five saltwater pools filled with canal water, including two shallow children’s swim areas. Nearby, teens hurled themselves from a diving platform resembling the prow of a ship.

Boat tours have long been a popular way to explore Copenhagen, where landmarks like the Hans Christian Andersen-inspired Little Mermaid statue crowd the water’s edge. But I’d asked Borges to choose a route highlighting bathing spots instead of classic tourist landmarks, because I was keen to explore the city’s love for year-round outdoor swimming, a practice that was once deemed so risky, it was banned altogether.

How Copenhagen saved its harbour and found connection

“It was forbidden from 1954 to 2002 to swim in the harbour because the water was too polluted,” explained Helen Welling, an architectural historian and author of a book on Copenhagen’s bathing history.

Starting in the 1990s, the city undertook a massive, years-long cleanup, culminating in the 2002 unveiling of the harbour bath at Islands Brygge. It was swiftly followed by a series of other new outdoor bathing spots – like the seasonal Fisketorvet Harbour Bath and beautifully sculpted Kastrup Sea Bath – featuring pools and basins for swimming and jumping.

Copenhagen’s success in reopening swimming followed in the wake of Switzerland’s work to clean up urban rivers in cities like Bern and Basel, where swimming is now a beloved pastime. The Danish capital has become a model, in turn, for the Swimmable Cities movement, which advocates for clean waterways and urban swimming access worldwide. They’re racking up global milestones – this year saw the reopening of public swimming on the Seine, in Paris, and Swimmable Cities’ 2024 charter includes signatories in 27 countries, including Canada.

Welling’s work focuses on Copenhagen bathing culture in the 18th and 19th centuries, but her interest is more than academic. She is also a member of one of Copenhagen’s many cold-water swimming groups; her club meets at 6:15 a.m., no matter the weather. (Though most swim clubs require registration, some, like the Copenhagen Dip Club, run by a local swimwear brand, welcome visitors.)

“These swimming groups meet and socialize. It’s very good for you, and I think it’s also good mentally,” she said, noting that she sees social distinctions blur in the water. “It’s more difficult to see the differences,” she said. “That’s an advantage of being naked, because you are more equal, in a way.”

‘It’s the magic of Copenhagen’

As we cruised by the crowded dock at Sandkaj Harbour Bath, in the stylish Nordhavn quarter, I noted with interest (and a hint of disappointment) that most bathers were modestly clad in swimsuits. As our boat neared Paper Island, a former warehouse zone, we saw residents sunning themselves at the canal’s edge.

Swathed in scaffolding nearby were the sand-hued pyramidal blocks of the Water Culture House, which will become the latest, and grandest, shrine to Copenhagen bathing when it opens in the spring of 2026. Featuring hyper-modern indoor and outdoor pools designed by Japanese architects Kengo Kuma & Associates, it will host cultural events linked to swimming and the water.

“The magic of Copenhagen bathing is that they continue to reinvent,” said Chris Romer-Lee, an architect, co-founder of Swimmable Cities, and author of the book Sea Pools: 66 Salt Water Sanctuaries from Around the World. “Each bath offers something different, which is such a big gesture from the city.”

Borges dropped us just down the canal, on the island of Refshaleøen, within walking distance of the small Sondre Refshalebassin harbour bath. Standing on its floating dock, I watched a man with a Viking’s fierce beard breaststroke smoothly along the buoys marking the edge of the swimming area. Diving in, I swam my own loops through the subtle current.

Even in summer, the water left me chilled. At the edge of the dock was a wooden sauna, its sculptural chic recalling expensive Scandinavian coffee tables, but it was locked. Like many harbour-side saunas in Copenhagen, I would later learn, it was available only to members, who generally reserve their spots in advance. It was rapidly becoming clear that Copenhagen is a city of avid joiners.

Happily for visitors, there are ample workarounds: Just down the pier from Sondre Refshalebassin is sauna club Glaecier, which welcomes visitors at Tuesday night guided sauna sessions. On the same stretch of waterfront is hip waterfront restaurant La Banchina, where a chic crowd gathers at sunset for natural wines and seafood during warm months. Anyone can book sessions in their barrel sauna abutting floating docks and an inviting swimming area.

We walked across the compact island instead, padding in our wet bathing suits and cover-ups to the wood-fired saunas and hot tubs of outdoor spa CopenHot, in the city’s old industrial shipyard.

I found a seat in their shared sauna, where the heat from the nearby wood stove took my breath away, then, after a few sweaty minutes, sent me fleeing once more toward the nearby cold plunge.

The water closed over my head, salty and clear. It tasted clean where it seeped between my lips – after all, it came right from the harbour.

If you go

Swimming is a year-round reason to visit Copenhagen, if you don’t mind the cold. In any season, sign up for one of the city’s bike rental schemes to reach favourites like Islands Brygge Harbour Bath, Kalvebod Bolge, and the beautiful Kastrup Sea Bath. In cooler weather, you might pick a swim spot with easy sauna access. Tuesdays are Glaecier’s community night; La Banchina even has an open-to-all soup and sauna club that meets from mid-October through the end of March.

There are other opportunities to join a group swimming experience, too. Canal-side hotel Kanalhuset hosts a “morning dip and sing” each Wednesday, with a bracing swim followed by coffee and a round of singing. The Copenhagen Dip Club posts group swims on Instagram at @pondcph.

Exploring by boat is a great way to get your bearings. You can rent your own GoBoat, take a harbour tour, or opt for a private outing with a captain. Only the latter lets you stop and swim. Or you can borrow a boat from the NGO GreenKayak, which are free to use and furnished with pincers and a waste bucket. The idea is that you scour the canals for trash, collect it, deliver it back to home base, and post a social media pic to spread the word about keeping waterways clean.

And if you can’t decide between a sauna visit and a boat trip through the canals, you can book a winter outing with Platform, a sauna built atop a canal boat. With swim stops, of course.

Some of the writer’s experiences were covered by Wonderful Copenhagen. The tourism board did not review or approve the story before publication.