Zealand

Denmark’s largest island offers much more than the dazzle of Copenhagen. North of the city lie some of the country’s finest beaches and most impressive castles. Here you’ll find dazzlingly ornate Frederiksborg Slot in Hillerød and the hulking Kronborg Slot at Helsingør, Shakespeare's Elsinore. Helsingør also features the excellent Maritime Museum of Denmark. En route don't miss Louisiana, the superb modern/contemporary art gallery, not the US state.

West of Copenhagen awaits history-steeped Roskilde, home to a World Heritage–listed cathedral, Scandinavia’s classic rock music festival and a tremendous Viking Ship Museum. History also comes to life at nearby Sagnlandet Lejre, an engrossing, hands-on archaeology site.

Further west stands the millennia-old Trelleborg ring fortress, while Zealand’s southern assets include medieval charm in Køge and the World Heritage–listed cliff geology of Stevns Klint, plus a nearby Cold War fortress-museum.

Top attractions

These are our favorite local haunts, touristy spots, and hidden gems throughout Zealand.

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Kronborg Slot
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. The castle began life as Krogen, a formidable tollhouse built by Danish king Erik of Pomerania in the 1420s to command the 4km Øresund strait between Denmark and today's Sweden. Passing ships heading to or from the Baltic had to pay transit fees, which created enormous tax revenues that made the city very wealthy and allowed Frederik II to vastly expand the castle in 1585. A major fire in 1629 destroyed most of the interior, bar the chapel, but Kronborg came back to life under tireless builder-king Christian IV, who preserved the castle’s earlier Renaissance style while adding his own baroque touches. During the Danish-Swedish wars, the Swedes occupied the castle from 1658 to 1660, looting everything of value, including its then-famous fountain. Thereafter, Christian V bulked up Kronborg’s defences, but the Danish royals gave up trying to make the castle a home. The building was used as a barracks from 1785 until 1924, when it became a museum (the Swedish government sportingly returned some previously looted items). The site is extensive, and to do it justice you'll need a couple of hours. Around half of that will be spent wandering in areas that are open sunrise to sunset without fee, but for the payable area, note that ticket sales (and entries to the 145-step Cannon Tower) stop half an hour before official closing time. Free wi-fi and several QR-coded information points allow you to download commentaries and a Kronborg visitor app for your mobile phone. From June to August before 5pm there are interactive moments where you might encounter actors playing Hamlet characters. Tickets include optional guided tours, with English versions typically through the day, plus casemates only at 1pm and (possibly) 4pm. The accessible Royal Apartments section covers two floors of the castle with several huge spaces in which the royal ladies would promenade – going outside was too much for their delicate shoes. See the king's desk, his-and-hers royal bedrooms, and what was, in 1585, the longest ballroom in Scandinavia. Banquets held here consisted of 65 courses, with each guest equipped with their own vomiting bucket. You arrive back into the central courtyard via an extensive gift shop, behind which is an easily missed push-screen historical timeline. Don't give up yet. Across the courtyard, separate doorways lead to the Cannon Tower (great views, sweaty climb), the well-explained tapestry collection, the 1582 chapel (with original interior fully restored since 1843) and the casemates. Though essentially empty apart from nesting bats and a foreboding statue of Viking chief Holger Danske (Ogier the Dane), this very extensive series of low-ceilinged dungeons, storerooms and soldiers’ quarters stretches a surprisingly long way beneath the castle. It’s suitably dark and creepy, but just follow the dimly lit arrows and you'll emerge…eventually. One extra perk of the paid ticket is the right to walk up to the Flag Bastion for views towards Sweden.
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M/S Museet for Søfart
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. Interactive displays can have you inking a sailor's tattoo, testing your navigational skills and even running your own trade company. The museum also houses a contemporary cafe and an excellent gift shop of maritime-themed gifts.
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Karen Blixen Museet
Best known as the writer of (and Meryl Streep character in) Out of Africa, Karen Blixen grew up in a 400-year-old coaching inn at Rungsted. She returned here from Africa in 1931 bankrupt, heartbroken and suffering heavy-metal poisoning…then started to write. The house remains much as she left it, full of period furniture but also photographs, Masai spears, personal mementoes and two rooms of her remarkably impressive paintings. The visit to the main house starts every half-hour with a 10-minute introductory talk. While waiting for that, you can look around the biographical room and library of Blixen's books that sit above the ticket desk and cafe. Once inside, there's also a 12-minute video presentation, and each of the seven rooms has a bilingual descriptive info-card. The wooded grounds behind, set aside as a bird sanctuary, contain Blixen’s grave, a simple stone slab beneath a large beech tree around 350m west of the house. You'll pass it if you take the short-cut route to the Rungsted Kyst train station (route map and directions available from the museum).
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Koldkrigsmuseum Stevnsfort
This fascinating museum was a secret subterranean fortress used in the 20th-century Cold War era, when nuclear war was a feared possibility in the bellicose stand-off between NATO and the USSR. Visits are by 90-minute guided tours (in Danish, but with a few audio guides available in English and German). You don't need to join a guided tour to explore the above-ground area, which displays a selection of rocket launchers, mobile radar stations and container-box control rooms. For 75kr you can drive a model tank (get a token from the visitor centre). If doing the full 1.7km Stevnsfort tour, it's worth bringing warm clothes as you'll be 18m underground, where the temperature hovers around 10°C. Booking ahead is wise as groups are limited to 30 people and some days there are only one or two departures (most commonly 11am, 1pm and/or 3pm). Click KØB BILLET on the website to see a calendar of available tour times. The site is 3km south of Stevns Klint, halfway between Højerup and Rødvig, and a pleasant coastal walk from Gamle Kirke.
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Vallø Slot
Red-brick Vallø Slot ticks all the ‘proper castle’ boxes, with pointed metal-capped turrets and a moat filled with lily pads and croaking frogs. The building has retained its original 16th-century style, although much of it was rebuilt following a fire in 1893. While the castle itself is not open to the public, visitors are free to amble into the central courtyard area and right through the beautiful woods and gardens that extend all the way to the sea. On her birthday in 1737 Queen Sophie Magdalene, who owned the estate, established a foundation that turned the castle into a home for ‘spinsters of noble birth’. Unmarried daughters of Danish royalty unable to live in their own castles were allowed to live at Vallø, supported by the foundation and government social programs. The last new residents arrived in the 1970s with the castle-estate's remit broadened since 1976 to one of a more general public charity. But a handful of ageing blue-blooded stiftsdamer women remain in residence.
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Køge Museum
Occupying a half-timbered 17th-century abode, the revamped Køge Museum uses state-of-the-art technology to bring to life its local-history artefacts. One exhibition examines the ill-fated 17th-century battleship Dannebroge, while another explores the 4000 BC Strøby Egede multiple-grave site. The museum is also home to Denmark’s biggest coin hoard, a 32kg pile of 17th-century silver unearthed in the courtyard at Brogade 17 by two electricians in 1987. In Hans Christian Andersen’s day, a local inn was supposed to have had the words ‘God, Oh God in Kjøge’ scratched onto a windowpane. Failing to find the inscription, Andersen vandalised a window himself, writing smugly in his diary about how he had created an inscription for future generations. The museum has that glass on show.
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Sankt Nicolai Kirke
Honouring the patron saint of mariners, this powerful brick church features a 14th-century tower. In 1450 a little window-like brick projection (called Lygten) was added to the tower's upper eastern end to hang a burning lantern for guiding ships into harbour. It was from the top of this tower that Christian IV kept watch on his naval fleet as it successfully defended the town from Swedish invaders during the Battle of Køge Bay. In July and early August visitors can climb the tower for similar, hopefully battle-free, views. Within the church other notable features include the ornately gilded 17th-century altar and multistage pulpit, plus the crest-emblazoned wooden gallery that raised Køge’s nobility above the hoi polloi.
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Helsingør Bymuseum
One block north of the cathedral, Helsingør Bymuseum occupies a former sailors’ hospital, built in 1516 by the monks of the adjacent monastery. It contains a hotchpotch of exhibits, from old chemists’ bottles and medieval pottery, to a few hundred dolls. Most interesting is the detailed model of 19th-century Helsingør, and an interesting 15-minute recording about the town’s history (in Danish, Swedish, German and English). The ticket also allows same-day entrance to two other museums: the memorable Skibsklarerergaarden and the out-of-town fishing-and-farming museum Flynderupgård (accessible by convoluted bus 802).
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Danmarks Borgcenter
Set within the grass ruins of Valdemar's castle, this high-tech museum examines the site's history, as well as that of medieval Danish power, politics and castle life. Using interactive iPads, visitors can explore themes such as the tactics used by kings to gain and retain power, as well as learn about the museum's historical artefacts. The iPad tour goes well beyond the museum area, bringing the ruins outside back to vivid life with digital reconstructions, while dedicated kids' features allow little ones to 'hunt ghosts'. Scan your museum ticket to enter and ascend the Gåsetårnet, the castle's last surviving tower.