It’s this ethos that attracted German-born Posthus to Christiania. “I like the community here. When I was in hospital after our son was born prematurely, one of our neighbours came in every day to light a fire so we didn’t have to come home to a frozen house. Others would bring food. I don’t think you’d get that anywhere else.”

Smed, who teaches engineering students at Aalborg University, took up residence in Christiania after working in the free town as a blacksmith for five years, applying to move into a simple trailer wagon when it became available. She now lives in a charming 60-square-metre house. “I built this,” she says proudly, showing me around her two-bedroom home, which at one point housed Smed, her partner, her son and his partner. “It was a building site when I took over the plot. The walls were here and the roof but I put everything in, from the insulation to the panels, and built the kitchen and bathroom.”

Despite the sheer investment and elbow grease Smed has expended on the house she’s lived in for much of her life, it doesn’t belong to her – all of the property here belongs to Christiania. Rather than home ownership, residents effectively rent the properties, paying the community 27 Danish krone (DKK) per square metre per month, and an additional 1,200 DKK each month for every person aged 18 and over, she says. “You don’t own anything here,” says Smed. “When I move out, I won’t get any money for my house, and I can’t decide who is having it after me.” Smed explains that the 40 million DKK collected in rent every year is pumped back into the community, with outgoings including electricity, water, taxes and renovation.

In Christiania, a busy calendar of meetings to discuss everything from the upkeep of community buildings to the local economy keeps the neighbourhood ticking.

“I had a strong sense of duty when I first moved here,” says Posthus, who came to the town four years ago after working in the local post office for eight years. “I probably attended too many meetings. It’s a consensus democracy but it somehow works. Everyone has an input here. Anyone can call a meeting.”

But, of course, constant interaction and the need to reach an agreement can be difficult. “When you’ve been living anywhere where you have neighbours, you have to do things together,” says Smed. “It’s tough, hard and horrible and you make enemies because you’re so close to each other.”

And with around one million tourists visiting every year, many locals feel as if they’re living in a zoo.