Idyllic Dragør with its cobbled streets, lilacs in bloom and pretty houses, is just 15 km from Copenhagen City Hall. However, the town’s history includes a royal affair, birth of shipping magnate A. P. Møller and the ferrying of Jews across Øresund to Sweden.
At one time there were 92 sailing ships based here and the Age of Skippers between the 18th and 20th Century is classed as Dragør’s golden age, even if the fleet suffered during wars with Britain.
Dragør harbor was, however, not geared to large ships so when steamships emerged in the mid 19th Century, Dragør stuck resolutely to its sailing ship fleet. So resolutely, that successful native son and founder of the Danish global shipping group Mærsk, A.P. Møller started his steamship companies in Svendborg instead of his home town at the beginning of the 20th Century.
The forward march of steamships caused Dragør to lose ground and influence. But the harbor later came to play an important role in October 1943, when local fishing boats smuggled Danish Jews across Øresund to Sweden. One of these cutters, Elisabeth, can still be seen in the harbor, now working as a tourist ship.
Tourism started to take off in Dragør in the 1890s, when rich city folk began holidaying here as landlubbers.
Several new images in the “town”, “flower” and “harbour” categories has been added to the webshop.
Here are some of the newly added images to the webshop.
Nöstler Photography 