Hop on hop off tourist buses have been rerouted out of Middelalderbyen, Copenhagen’s medieval city centre. For years, the large red double deckers ran straight through some of the district’s narrowest streets, down Nørregade, across Nytorv, through the vaulted gateway by the Courthouse, and on into Slutterigade and Lavendelstræde. That route is now history.
Years of resident pressure pay off
According to Stræderne og Strøgets Beboerforening, a residents’ association representing the old side streets south of Strøget, tour operator Stromma has changed its route. The buses now stick to the ring roads around the old city core, Nørre Voldgade, Vester Voldgade and H.C. Andersens Boulevard, and no longer venture into the heart of the city. Stromma has not announced the change itself, but the company’s current list of stops no longer includes any of the old streets in Middelalderbyen.
The rerouting follows years of sustained pressure from local residents, who have long argued that a double decker bus carrying more than 70 passengers has no place on streets originally built for horse drawn carriages. In Lavendelstræde specifically, the roadway is so narrow that cyclists and a bus cannot use it at the same time, according to the association. A single delivery van blocking the way was enough to cause a queue, along with what the association itself has described as honking and shouting.
The buses also run on diesel, and in the narrow streets, cyclists and pedestrians alongside them have often had little choice but to breathe in diesel exhaust if they wanted to keep moving at all.
A permit that wasn’t renewed
Permits for scheduled bus routes of this type are not issued by the City of Copenhagen but by the national Danish Road Traffic Authority (Færdselsstyrelsen). The previous permit, which allowed the route through the city centre, expired in the spring, and the residents’ association argued it should not be renewed, partly because the public bus routes that once ran through Middelalderbyen were removed when the metro’s City Ring opened.
The association’s reasoning was straightforward: if the metro’s arrival in 2019 was reason enough to remove public buses from the area, there was no longer any service based argument for allowing tourist buses to run similar routes. Their case gained further momentum when Indre By Lokaludvalg, the local district council, gave its then chairperson a mandate in March 2025 to contact Stromma directly. Combined with the association’s own pressure on the city council and the Road Traffic Authority, the effort has now paid off.
Not quite a full victory
The change is not total. The bus and canal tour office on Ved Stranden is still used as a pick up and drop off point, meaning a small corner of Middelalderbyen technically remains on the route, though Stromma says fewer buses now stop there than before.
The old bus stop signs in Nørregade and Slutterigade are also still standing. The residents’ association has asked the municipality to remove them, so the last visible traces of diesel buses running through Middelalderbyen can disappear too.
Wider pressure on tourist buses in Copenhagen
Pressure on tourist bus traffic is spreading beyond this one route. Last autumn, the City of Copenhagen adopted an action plan with 22 initiatives aimed at tackling tourist bus congestion, including an investigation into a dedicated no go zone covering Middelalderbyen and Frederiksstaden, and a possible shared tourist bus terminal on Nørre Voldgade. Whether that terminal ever materialises will depend on future negotiations at the city council.
