Odense, Denmark

Funen's sole industrial centre and one of the oldest settlements in the country, ODENSE – named after Odin, chief of the Norse gods – gained prominence in the early nineteenth century when the opening of the Odense canal linked the city to the sea and made it the major transit point for the produce of the island's farms. Nowadays it's a pleasant provincial university town of museums and decent shopping, with a large manufacturing sector hugging the canal bank on the northern side of the city, well out of sight of the compact old centre. The oldtown houses some fine museums and – thanks to the resident students – a surprisingly vigorous nightlife. Odense is also known, throughout Denmark at least, as the birthplace of Hans Christian Andersen, and although it's all done quite discreetly, the fact is celebrated with souvenir shops and hotels catering for travellers lured by the prospect of a romantic Andersen experience – something they (almost inevitably) won't find. To the north and south of town, however, there are a few attractions of a rather different nature, from the reconstructed nineteenth-century buildings of Funen Village to the noel approach to the preshistoric era at the Iron Age Village.