Church of Our Saviour

The external spiral staircase winding around the spire of this Baroque church is one of the most vertiginous experiences in Northern Europe. Four hundred steps take you from ground level to the gilded globe at the top, with the final 150 steps clinging to the outside of the spire as it narrows to a point 90 metres above the Christianshavn canal. The staircase winds counterclockwise four times around the spire, and as you climb higher, the steps get narrower and the railing gets lower. It is not for the faint of heart, and roughly 60,000 visitors attempt it every year.

The church itself was completed in 1696 and is one of the finest Baroque churches in Denmark, with an interior featuring a massive three-storey altar carved in marble and gilded wood by Nicodemus Tessin the Younger, the same architect who designed the Royal Palace in Stockholm. The elephant-supported organ from 1700 is one of the largest Baroque organs in Scandinavia. But it is the spire that draws the crowds, and it was added much later — designed by architect Lauritz de Thurah and completed in 1752, over fifty years after the church opened.

De Thurah took his inspiration from the spiral lantern of Borromini's Sant'Ivo alla Sapienza in Rome, which winds in the same counterclockwise direction. Legend says that de Thurah climbed his spire after completion, realised it spiralled the wrong way compared to other towers, and threw himself from the top in despair. This is entirely false — he died peacefully in 1759 — but it is the kind of story Copenhageners love to tell tourists on the way up.

From the top, you get an unmatched panorama: the Copenhagen skyline to the west, Christiania's green rooftops to the south, and the Øresund strait stretching to Sweden on a clear day. The gilded globe and four-metre Christ figure crowning the spire can be seen from almost anywhere in the city.