Guide to Greenland
Must See Greenland
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Nuuk's real attraction lies in its proximity to any number of excellent day hikes into the hinterland and the fabulous views from the tops of the nearby mountains. Organised tours, boat trips and the rental of equipment is also easier from the capital.
Kolonihavnen is a pleasant exception to the Nuuk's somewhat harsh, apartment-dense, Lego-city look: it's a picturesque 18th-century fishing village in the heart of Nuuk and gives some idea of what the town looked like before the industrial harbour was built.
Nuuk was founded by the unfailingly optimistic Hans Egede - the Danish missionary with soul-conversions on his mind - who named the settlement Good Hope (Godthåb). The naming turned out to be more of a Hail Mary than a prophecy: first the native Inuit moved out of a neighbourhood that, to their way of thinking, had become too congested, and later smallpox and tuberculosis epidemics ripped through the settlement. Even today Nuuk is small by modern standards, with a total population of only 14,000. Despite a wealth of land and a paucity of people, Nuuk has insisted on housing the population in immense apartment blocks and the urban sprawl is now spreading out along the road to the airport.