Five literary cities: book your trip
Novels, travelogues, poems and philosophy can bring a destination to life.Chris Moss picks his favourite literary towns
"Wonderful, wonderful Copenhagen!" If that annoying song from the 1952 Danny Kaye musical about the life of Hans Christian Andersen pops into your head whenever you think of the Danish capital, then there might be salvation in the writings of the city's other literary superstar. Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) is credited with being the first existential philosopher - Sartre and other philosophers took lots of key ideas from his writing - as well as a brilliantly original theologian. He was also an amazingly gloomy person, cancelling his engagement to local girl Regine Olsen so he could concentrate on his main passions: God, the "sickness" of despair, boredom, anxiety, repetition, recollection and possibility. His grave is at the Assistens Cemetery and there's a statue by the Royal Library, but he walked the streets of Copenhagen most days and the best homage is to stroll down Ostergade, Hojbro Plads, Slotsholmen, Kongens Nytorv, Amaliegade, Nyboder, Kongens Have and down the Amagertorv stretch of the long Stroget (which he called "the hub of the universe"). "Above all, do not lose your desire to walk," he wrote. "Every day, I walk myself into a state of well-being and walk away from every illness. I have walked myself into my best thoughts." Kierkegaard would have been 200 this year and from May Copenhagen is hosting hundreds of events and related exhibitions. See sk2013.ku.dk
The Sickness Unto Death, one of his more accessible books. Its main theme is despair.
"The crucial thing is to find a truth which is truth for me, to find the idea for which I am willing to live and die."
Ibsens hotel - arty, paint-dabbed, textile-strewn, bookish hotel on trendy Nansensgade. B&B HK$3,307 per room. ibsenshotel.dk