Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek

Carl Jacobsen made a fortune selling beer and spent it buying art — specifically sculpture, because he believed three-dimensional art came closest to the fundamental condition of being human. The son of Carlsberg founder J.C. Jacobsen, Carl donated his staggering personal collection to the Danish state in 1888 on one condition: they had to build a museum worthy of it. The Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek opened in 1897, and the name itself tells you Carl had ambitions — he borrowed it from Ludwig I's Glyptothek in Munich, tacking on "Ny" (new) because modesty was apparently not a family trait.

The collection now holds over 10,000 works spanning 6,000 years, from Egyptian sarcophagi to Impressionist masterpieces. The ancient Mediterranean collection is extraordinary: 950 Greek, Roman, and Etruscan sculptures, many procured by German archaeologist Wolfgang Helbig, who spent 25 years as Jacobsen's buying agent in Rome. The Egyptian collection contains over 1,900 pieces dating from 3000 BCE, anchored by a sarcophagus Carl purchased from the Egyptian Museum in Cairo in 1882 — his first acquisition and the seed of everything that followed.

But the building itself is half the experience. The original wing, designed by Vilhelm Dahlerup, is lavish historicism — all marble and mosaic. The 1996 extension by Danish architect Henning Larsen added a stunning modernist wing. And at the centre sits the Winter Garden, a soaring glass-domed conservatory filled with palm trees, where Copenhageners come to sit on rainy afternoons surrounded by Mediterranean plants and Roman busts. It is one of the most beautiful indoor spaces in Northern Europe.

Every Tuesday, admission is free — a tradition that would have pleased Carl Jacobsen enormously. He believed art should be accessible to everyone, not just the people who could afford to brew beer.