The rain falls. The wind blows. The daylight has faded to a crepuscular gloom. Desolate woodlands give way to an array of unlit basements, disused factories and pitch-black alleyways. A murderer may or may not be lurking with a gun and a menacing stare.
Yet, despite its almost total absence of textbook tourist charm, the Copenhagen portrayed in BBC4's hit series The Killing appears to have a powerful allure for Britons. The number of nights spent by UK visitors in the Danish capital has risen by 50,000 this year – an increase of 16% – and industry experts believe it is at least in part down to the huge success of the television drama, which first aired here in January.
"The first two episodes nothing happened. And then suddenly everyone was saying 'what is that? It's something different, something new, something fresh'," said Henrik Kahn, director of VisitDenmark UK. "People watched it even though it was in Danish with subtitles. It became a mad thing; everyone wanted to know more."
He believes that the popularity of the thriller – the second series of which comes to a dramatic finale on Saturday night – is the latest and arguably biggest factor that has turned the UK on to the Danish aesthetic over the past two years. Britain is now the biggest non-Scandinavian market for visits to Copenhagen, and across the whole of Denmark tourists from the UK are expected to have booked 13% more overnight stays in 2011 than in the previous year.
"There are different things happening," said Kahn. "The fuss about Denmark, or Copenhagen especially, started [in the] spring of 2010, when Noma was named the world's best restaurant. That created a lot of buzz about Danish food suddenly – that it wasn't just herring."
The wave of Scandinavian crime fiction, which began with the Swedish detective series Wallander and continued with the Stieg Larsson novels, also played a part, he said. "And then suddenly The Killing comes on."
To make the most of the craze for the Bafta-winning drama, savvy Copenhagen inhabitants have laid on activities that would satisfy even the most obsessive fans of Sarah Lund, the main character in The Killing. Lise-Lotte Frederiksen, of Peter and Ping walking tours, organised her first "In the footsteps of Sarah Lund" event six weeks ago and has taken 25 people – all of them British – for a two-hour amble around some of the main locations of the show.
"My first tour was actually in rain, it was very cold, but I thought that's just the right weather. And I thought people would phone and cancel, but they didn't – they turned up and they were four young guys from London," she said.
The tour takes in Copenhagen's city hall, the police headquarters – which Frederiksen hopes one day to be allowed inside with a group – and Kødbyen, the meat-packing district where Lund is attacked in season two. She once even made it inside the school where much of season one was filmed. "I was so lucky … some pupils were there sleeping over from a party so I actually got into the basement," she said. "I think [the tourists] really liked that."
Visitors looking to immerse themselves in the show's gritty ambience may be disappointed, however: Kahn says Copenhagen is simply too nice. "It's not a spooky city. It's not a dangerous city. That's not what we're known for. We're known for relaxing," he said.
Even worse, the weather might be clement. "That's the worst thing about this series: it's raining all the time. It's irritating to see they haven't seen the sun yet," Kahn said. "You have rain in November. But less rain than [Britain], that's for sure."
