Travel: From Hippiedom to Legoland via 'Legoverland': Pusher Street, the Erotic Museum, Hans Christian Andersen and the biggest toy box in the world. Simon Calder experiences contrasting aspects of Denmark

'CONTINUING along Pusher Street, you pass the Common Kitchen on the right and Woodstock, a bar, on the left.' Denmark's latest tourist guidebook directs visitors around an extraordinary social experiment, a patch of idealism (or, some say, a den of indulgent hippiedom) in the middle of the Danish capital.

Christiania comes of age this summer. Twenty-one years ago, a group of squatters took over an abandoned military barracks in the Christianshavn district of Copenhagen and proclaimed it a free state. After numerous attempts to displace the settlers, the authorities reluctantly agreed to allow the establishment of a self-governing 'ecologically oriented city'.

One thousand people now live there, and call themselves Christianites; the title has nothing to do with religion, though you can worship at a converted warehouse called the Cosmic Church. The community is divided into 12 administrative areas, with such names as The Milky Way, The Dandelion and The Arc of Peace. Christiania prides itself on its abolition of law, but 'a series of bans' appears at the clapperboard entrance to the settlement: no weapons; no violence; no hard drugs.

The guidebook adds a fourth: no photography in Pusher Street. Marijuana is sold and smoked openly in Christiania, but dope dealers discourage publicity because its sale and use are officially illegal. Venturing past the bicycle racks and huddles of hairy residents communing with Tuborg lager, you smell Pusher Street before you see it. Stalls sell 10 different types of cigarette paper, an imaginative range of pipes and what the salesmen claim to be top-quality hash. Pusher Street's price of pounds 100 an ounce matches London's, but a British resident points out: 'Everything else in Denmark is twice as expensive.'

After the gauntlet of cannabis vendors comes the closest thing Christiania has to a town square. Washed in sunshine through the trees, the settlement cohabits comfortably with nature. Footpaths unravel along each bank of the canal bisecting the settlement. Waterside bungalows painted in primary colours are fringed with broken-down bicycles and extravagant flora. A ramble through the woods turns up a series of surprises, such as what appears to be the rusting hulk of a spaceship: anarchy-in-action feels like an adventure playground for grown-ups.

'At the end of Pusher Street,' the guide book advises, 'you will find Christiania's Green Grocer, selling fresh ecological/bio- dynamic produce.' You will also find an awful lot of people drinking lager. The current badge of social acceptability in Christiania is a bottle of Tuborg gripped firmly by the neck. There is no sign of remotely loutish behaviour, except in the communal Lavatory from Hell, a squalid squelch of germ-life, more heavily vandalised than any British inner-city public convenience.

Even though the citizens cannot agree on a cleaning rota, Christiania remains a brave attempt at establishing an alternative society within a big city. The community cares for those beyond its boundaries: each Christmas, 2,000 'poor and lonely' people are invited round for dinner. Christiania's music venue, Loppen, is firmly on the European rock circuit. And, after 21 years, the settlement enjoys economic equilibrium. But many Christianites see the future through the bottom of a Tuborg bottle.

The cover of Christiania's tourist guide shows the community squeezed between tower blocks labelled 'Eat]' and 'Ego]' This is unfair on the Danish capital, a low- rise city on a human scale. It is best explored on a bicycle; you can easily rent one.

Copenhagen has much more to offer besides the Tivoli amusement park (celebrating its 150th anniversary, and looking tired) and the Little Mermaid (groped smooth by countless macho tourists). Two fascinating museums should top your itinerary.

For a glimpse of the exploitation that Christiania seeks to avoid, clock in to the Workers' Museum. Nineteenth-century life for the masses is depicted in more than graphic detail, with odour dispensers to convey the squalor of street life (remarkably similar to some of the smells wafting around Christiania). The history of the proletariat is traced in exhibits that range from instructions for making matchboxes to a film about how to use supermarkets.

The Museum of Decorative Arts sounds like one of those places only the most dutiful sightseer would bother to tick off. Yet the dry-sounding title conceals a superb tribute to Danish design, housed in a converted hospital at the back of the royal palace. The relation between form and function is evenly balanced with hi-fis that look like radiators, cars that look like bullets and chairs that look uncomfortable.

You should pedal straight past Copenhagen's latest 'attraction', the Erotic Museum. This smutty little place purports to explain sexuality in a scholarly manner, but a better name for its sleazy collection of painful-looking accessories and pornography might be 'Legoverland'. The Love-Lives- of-the-Famous section ambitiously describes the sexual histories of Queen Victoria, Karl Marx and Hans Christian Andersen. Denmark's most famous son is said to have had a far-from-fairytale love life; uncertain of his sexuality, he died a virgin.

HANS Christian Andersen, or at least a model of him made from thousands of plastic bricks, greets visitors to the ultimate plastic tourist attraction. Welcome to the sanitised society, a theme park of conformity built from 42 million small pieces of moulded plastic. In the middle of the dreary plain that constitutes mainland Denmark, the world is reduced to replicas of sights such as the Statue of Liberty and the Parthenon.

During the Depression, a carpenter named Ole Kirk Christiansen started making toys. He chose the name Lego from the Danish phrase leg godt, meaning 'play well', unaware of the serendipity that, in Latin, lego means 'I put together'. In 1954, his son, Godtfred, developed the Lego System, and 25 years ago - slightly ahead of Christiania - Legoland opened next door to the toy factory in the town of Billund.

Last Sunday was one of the busiest days of the year, with 15,000 visitors, but the maximum wait for any attraction was 15 minutes. The longest queue is for the raft ride, but the switchback (also scoring nine out of 10 on the thrill scale) requires only a five-minute wait. Children who tire of the rides can play with unlimited supplies of Lego, beyond their wildest dreams and parents' budgets.

Adults, too, can do battle with Colin the Crawling Caterpillar. Lego Technic (for those too old to know) is the marriage of plastic bricks and hi-tech: gears and motors that really work, once you get the hang of them. Judging by the surprisingly extensive range of expletives from youthful mouths, I was not the only one having trouble finding the red bit that goes in the corner. After half an hour, I pressed the button. Colin crawled into life, and off the edge of the table.

Christiania was never this much fun, but it felt closer to the real world. Legoland's own airport is a three-minute walk away, so air travellers need never know what lies beyond the theme park fence.

The tourist literature promotes Lego's hometown thus: 'Whether it's for some new tennis balls or a postcard for friends back home, you'll enjoy shopping in Billund.' Not on a Sunday, you won't. The centre was spookily empty and neat; the rectangular town seems to be made from outsized Lego. Not a single sports shop was open, but neither was there a single dope dealer was in sight.

FACT FILE

Getting There: All air fares subject to pounds 7 Danish tax. I bought a triangular ticket (Gatwick, Copenhagen, Billund, Gatwick) on Maersk Air (071-333 0066). Apex fare (book a week in advance, stay a Saturday night) for international sectors is pounds 145, but the half-hour hop within Denmark is a preposterous pounds 70 - and you have to pay for the sandwiches. Two people can upgrade to business class for hardly any extra. The 'spouse fare' costs pounds 223, but the airline does not check marital status closely.

Birmingham and Manchester are linked with Billund by Newair (061-489 2800): pounds 212 from either airport for Apex return. Cheapest flight to Copenhagen is pounds 130 return from London on the Brazilian airline Varig, Fridays and Sundays only, available through Hamilton Travel (071- 439 3199).

Scandinavian Seaways (0255 241234) has sailings from Harwich and Newcastle to Esjberg, about 100 miles from Legoland. Car, two adults and two children cost pounds 474 return from either port.

Christiania: The street entrance to Christiania is on Prinsessegade, close to corner of Annaegade. Tourist guide is available free from Nitten, Christiania, 1407 Copenhagen K. Guided tours can be booked minimum of two weeks in advance on 31 57 96 70 (dialling code for Denmark from the UK is 010 45).

Copenhagen: Staff of the city's accommodation service (33 12 28 80) advised me not to book a room until I arrived. They were right: up to midnight, heavily discounted rates are available to walk-in customers. Single or double room at the comfortable Hotel Cosmopole, three minutes' walk from station, costs pounds 42 per night, single or double, with an industrial-sized breakfast (official rate is pounds 82). For accommodation from pounds 10 per night, contact the Use It youth information centre

(33 15 65 18).

Things to see: Erotic Museum, Vesterbrogade (31 31 40 90), open 10am-9pm daily, admission pounds 5; Museum of Decorative Arts, Bredgade 68 (33 14 94 52), open 10am-4pm Tues-Sat, 1-4pm Sun, admission pounds 3; Workers' Museum, Romersgade 22 (33 93 33 88), open 10am-3pm Mon-Fri, 11am-4pm at weekends, admission pounds 2.50.

Legoland: Park (75 33 13 33) opens 10am-7pm daily, 1 May to 19 September. Adult admission, including all rides, pounds 10 for one day or pounds 17 for two; children, pounds 8 and pounds 13 respectively. Hotel Legoland (75 33 12 44), attached to the theme park, charges pounds 60 single/ pounds 75 double, including breakfast and cut-price admission to Legoland. A cheaper alternative is the adjacent campsite.

Scandinavian Seaways (0255 241234) offers Legoland packages, Harwich via Esjberg, pounds 135 ( pounds 100 per child); first and third nights on the boat, middle night in Hotel Legoland.

Britain's own Legoland, at Windsor Safari Park, is to open on 1 May 1996.

Further Information: Danish Tourist Board, PO Box 2LT, London W1A 2LT (071-734 2637; fax 071-494 2170).

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