Zealand

One of Denmark's most impressive buildings, this gigantic, Dutch Renaissance–styled fortress-palace rises proudly out of photogenic moat-lake Slotsø. Access is free to the impressive central courtyards and huge, beautifully tended park with baroque gardens. To visit the interiors (ticket required) you'll need around three hours to do justice to the 80-plus rooms overloaded with beautiful furniture, tapestries, endless portraiture and gilded decor of astonishingly pompous grandiosity. Copious info-cards, along with free audio guides in nine languages, add plentiful context.

For kitesurfing, stick to Hornbæk’s eastern beach, easily accessed from behind Fiskehuset at the marina.

Best known as the Elsinore Castle of Shakespeare's Hamlet, this Unesco World Heritage Site is a vast Renaissance masterpiece topped by baroque green-copper spires. It's ringed by moats, fortifications and powerful Vaubanesque star bastions that you can discover without a ticket. But it's well worth the entry fee to explore the inner palace's rooms, tapestries, ceiling paintings and viewpoints and, best of all, to delve into the spooky maze of casemates – subterranean dungeon passages barely lit by flickering paraffin lamps.

Ingeniously built into a dry dock beside Kronborg Slot, this subterranean museum merits a visit as much for its design as for its informative multimedia galleries. These explore Denmark's maritime history and culture in dynamic, contemporary ways. Alongside nautical instruments, sea charts and wartime objects, exhibitions explore themes including the representation of sailors in popular culture, trade and exploitation in Denmark's overseas colonies, and the globe-crossing journeys of modern shipping containers.

In this fascinating experimental archaeology centre, enthusiastic re-enactors use ancient technology to test out various theories: how many people does it take to build a dolmen? What plants might have been used to dye clothing? And how do you stop the goats eating your reed roof?

Within a startling architectural statement of a building, this spirit-lifting, highly interactive museum delivers a multisensory, experiential and often humorous journey through the evolution of rock music and youth culture from the 1950s to the present. Walls of headphones let you listen to music time capsules, and spin-to-hear turntables explain about gramophones. Play with interactive musical lights, learn why toilets were integral to Danish music production and practise various dance steps on the hot-spot stage beside the 'world's biggest mirror ball'.

If you want to go alfresco on the main square, your choice is a V-themed play-off between vibrant cafes Vivaldi and Vanilla. However, tiny Kaffekælderen wins hands down for quaint historical atmosphere and for its cute river terrace, while Hugos Kælder fills its medieval cellar with a truly world-class beer selection.

One of Zealand's most important Viking Age sites, this large ring fortress dates to AD 980. It is essentially a perfectly circular raised earthwork, 300m beyond a museum that explains the context, though if you arrive outside the museum's opening hours, you can still visit the main site. Between the two you'll pass a very atmospheric, full-sized Viking wooden longhouse reconstruction.