So closely associated is Denmark with its capital, Copenhagen, that most visitors unknowingly overlook the country’s second-largest city. Aarhus is another Viking-founded seaside port, this one 98 miles across the Kattegat on the eastern coast of the Jutland peninsula — a town whose modest size (327,000 people) can give it the feel of an overgrown village, complete with cobbled streets and 18th-century facades.

And yet over the past decade, as Copenhagen has reached hygge-seeker saturation point, Aarhus has emerged on its own terms as a design destination. Consider Isbjerget, the ambitious 2013 architectural collaboration that consists of four faceted residential buildings meant to resemble floating icebergs, or 2015’s equally avant-garde Dokk1, Scandinavia’s largest public library. Then there’s the Michelin-starred restaurant scene, which takes full advantage of the surrounding countryside and waters’ bounty. Happily, however, new development hasn’t detracted from the coziness that still distinguishes the city: Here, visitors can actually participate in everyday life, whether that means hunting for perfect peonies at Ingerslevs Boulevard farmer’s market, stopping for coffee on one of the narrow, medieval streets of the Latin Quarter, home to many of Aarhus University’s politically active students, or biking through Marselisborg forest, south of the city and dense with elms, oaks and wildflowers.