The Maritime Heritage of Dragør Old Town and Harbo

Dragør is a quaint town around 10km south of copenhagen in the island of Amager (which locals pronounce ama). it's actually just a few km away from the airport, so even from the harbour you can still hear the constant air traffic. The reasoning denmark has put forward for inscription basically boils down to preservation. the state argues that there are few towns which showcase the advent of globalisation in the 18th century as well as dragør. Denmark was for a long time a maritime power and it only stopped being so in the 19th century when their fleet was sunk in the war against britain, so hypothetically it would be one of the places to look for this suposedly missing link. The truth however is that dragør is nothing to write home about. even the danish inscription feels unconvinced by its own arguments aiming for as many criteria as posible with very little variation in their arguments. their central stand is the town layout, which they affirm is very particular. I'm not convinced that having a regular grid pattern with dozens of remarkably similar whitewashed yellow houses is "very particular", let alone grants inscription. the town itself feels more like an overly comodified former fishing town than the open air museum the report seems to suggest.

while walking through the maze the town is i couldn't help think of burela, a thriving fishing town I vsisted in the north of spain. its in particular renowned for its multicultural …

Getting out from the bus at Dragør on a beautiful summer day, the first thing I felt was the scent of marine breeze. It was already very different from Copenhagen, 15km away.

I visited this village as an afternoon trip from the capital at the beginning of August 2021, taking the bus (theres's substantially one line with medium frequency; get out at Skole/Vestgrønningen) directly from Copenhagen's central station to the stop in Dragør near library and school, at the entrance to the old town from the "main streets" Strandgade and Von Ostensgade. It takes more or less 40 minutes, and the bus first traverses extensive suburbs on the island of Amager (just Ama, for the locals), formally another municipality but more and more cannibalised by the expansion of the big city and the airport, then reaches the shore with more rural views and finally turns for Dragør. The block of the old town is a well defined yellow square of small pedestrian alleyways lined with typical decorative plant shrubs. It surely stands out from the newer parts of the settlements, and in this sense it has an authentic feeling. Going straight through the village, you'll reach the old harbour with the visitor centre and the museum, the explanatory heart of this nomination. They all occupy old buildings that once served to the professions and needs of a traditional port; now it all works as a marina and they are no longer used.

The museum (50DKK~6,7€, a …

I based myself this summer 2021 for ten days in Copenhagen. Of those ten days I spent about half the time in the City with some great museums and the other half I travelled around the capital region including of course Rosilde and Helsingor, a day trip to Sweden and a evening in Dragor. The latter is a pretty small town south of Copenhagen but the old town is more like a village with a harbor. This area is well preserved with yellow simple houses and cobble lanes. The harbour is quite big filled with leisure boats. It was nice to stroll around the lanes for half an hour and I had a simple dinner at the harbor. There is not much to see of the former ship industry but a few small buildings in the harbor area. I don't think there is much to see of the "tall ships" and their production and I cannot imagine that the village is unique even for Denmark.