Every design for Dragør

The name says it plainly: Dragør is the sandy, gravelly shore where boats were dragged out of the water, and in the Hanseatic era that shore drew crowds of merchants for the herring trade. The fishing village that followed grew into a seafaring town on the southeastern coast of Amager, and it still feels apart from Copenhagen, even though the capital is a short trip away. The harbour is in daily use by leisure boats, small fishing boats and the pilot boats that carry on the town's long tradition of piloting.

Dragør Gamle By is where the day slows down: cobbled alleys, yellow-painted houses and red roofs, most of them built when the town's ships were at sea. Dragør Museum on the harbour tells the seafaring story, and Mølsteds Museum, in the studio of the seascape painter Christian Mølsted, sits right in the old streets. Inland, the village of Store Magleby keeps the memory of the Dutch farmers who settled there, and a gentle rivalry with the fishermen's town on the coast lingers.

Grow up here and the alleys become a map you carry without trying. This one simply puts it on paper.