Odense

People have lived here for over four thousand years, though the name is not written down until 988, and by 1070 this was already a thriving city. Canute IV, generally reckoned the last Viking king, was murdered by peasants in St Alban’s Priory on 10 July 1086. Fire took the city in 1249 and it recovered to become a medieval trading centre; eighteenth-century plans rebuilt Odense Palace and cut a canal to the port. Hans Christian Andersen was born here in 1805 and grew up in the town, which has been inseparable from his name ever since.