Denmark Travel Guide

The Little Mermaid sits quietly on a rock at Copenhagen's Langelinie promenade - Denmark's most famous city symbol. Cast by sculptor Edvard Eriksen and unveiled on 23 August 1913, she came from a commission by Carlsberg heir Carl Jacobsen after he saw the Royal Theatre's ballet of Andersen's tale. Ballerina Ellen Price was invited to model but declined to pose nude, so the body was modelled on Eriksen's wife Eline. The bronze stands just 1.25 m tall and weighs 175 kg, small and still, keeping company with gulls and tour boats. A century of mishaps has left its mark: beheaded in 1964 and 1998, an arm sawn off in 1984, blasted into the harbour by explosives in 2003 - restored each time, though the original head was never recovered. In 2010 she travelled to the Danish pavilion at Expo 2010 in Shanghai, her only official move from Copenhagen since 1913. At dawn or on quiet weekdays the rock is most peaceful - a good moment to be alone with her.

Nyhavn (Danish for "new harbour") is a 17th-century canal in central Copenhagen, running about 500 m from Kongens Nytorv square to the inner harbour. Cut between 1670 and 1673 on King Christian V's orders by Swedish prisoners of the Dano-Swedish War, it was meant to bring sea trade directly into the city centre. The north side is lined with gabled townhouses in red, yellow, blue and green, mostly built between the 17th and early 18th centuries, mirrored in the water beside old wooden sailing ships - Copenhagen's most classic view. The south side historically held more substantial mansions, so the old social divide still reads across the canal. Once a quarter of sailors, taverns and brothels, it was revived by the Nyhavnsforeningen society in the 1960s and designated a museum harbour in 1977. Fairy-tale writer Hans Christian Andersen lived at Nyhavn 18, 20 and 67, and plaques on the facades still mark his years here. The Memorial Anchor at the canal mouth, from the 1872 frigate Fyn, honours more than 1,700 Danish seafarers lost in World War II. Today the quays are lined with open-air restaurants and cafés, and this is the main departure point for canal tours.

Rosenborg Castle is a red-brick Renaissance palace in central Copenhagen, begun by Christian IV in 1606 as a summer house and expanded into its present form by the 1630s; the king died here in 1648. It served as a royal residence until about 1710 and opened as a museum in 1838. Upstairs, twenty-four rooms are arranged chronologically from the early 1600s to the early 1900s, with furniture, tapestries and portraits largely left in place; Christian IV's Winter Room keeps its original 1620 oak panelling and painted ceiling, while the Long Hall holds the coronation throne of narwhal tusk - once believed to be unicorn horn - guarded by three life-size silver lions. In the basement treasury lie the Danish Crown Jewels and regalia, including Christian IV's crown of 1596 and the 15th-century Oldenburg Horn - the only crown jewels in the world both on public display and still used in royal ceremony. The castle is ringed by the King's Garden, laid out in 1606 as Denmark's oldest royal garden, with rose beds and avenues free to enter.

Legoland Billund Resort opened on 7 June 1968 in Billund, home of the LEGO headquarters, as the world's first LEGO theme park and Denmark's most popular family destination. Its heart is Miniland, a 1:20-scale world of landmarks built from tens of millions of bricks, with working trains, harbours and day-night lighting; beyond it the park offers more than 45 rides and attractions, from a children's traffic school to family coasters and water rides. Themed zones - Pirate Land, Adventure Land, Knights' Kingdom, Polar Land and LEGO City - fill a full day. LEGO House, opened in 2017, sits minutes away beside Billund Airport, about 45 minutes from Copenhagen by air or 2.5-3 hours by train with a change, making this the classic base for a Danish family trip.

Kronborg Castle stands on a narrow spit at Helsingør, commanding the narrowest point of the Øresund with Sweden's Helsingborg directly across the water - Denmark's most theatrical historic landmark. It began as Krogen, a fortress built in the 1420s by Eric of Pomerania to control the strait and levy Sound Dues on every passing ship, a revenue stream that ran for over 400 years. Between 1574 and 1585 Frederick II spent those dues turning it into a Renaissance palace clad in Scanian sandstone with copper roofs and corner towers, renaming it Kronborg - the Crown Castle. A fire on the night of 24-25 September 1629 destroyed the interiors and left only the vaulted chapel standing; Christian IV rebuilt between 1631 and 1637, raising the towers and adding early-baroque interiors. Swedish forces captured and looted the castle in 1658, and from 1785 it served as an army barracks for nearly 140 years before a thorough restoration in 1923. UNESCO inscribed it in 2000 as a Renaissance masterpiece. Shakespeare set Hamlet at Elsinore around 1600 without ever visiting Denmark, though English players did perform here in his time; an August Shakespeare Festival still uses the castle as its stage. The 62 m ballroom once carried 40 tapestries of 100 Danish kings - only 7 survive, 3 still hanging. In the casemates, kept near 8 C year-round, stands the stone figure of Holger Danske, the sleeping Viking hero fated to wake if Denmark is in danger. From the ramparts you see Sweden across the Sound and, on a clear day, Copenhagen.

Aalborg Zoo sits in the city of Aalborg on Jutland's north coast and opened in 1865, making it one of Scandinavia's leading urban zoos, with around 130 species and more than 1,300 animals. It was the first zoo in the world to earn ISO 14001 environmental certification, and part of every ticket funds field conservation in Borneo and Africa. The headline exhibit is the polar bear area, where a glass-fronted underwater tunnel lets children watch the bears swim at eye level; the EXTINCTION dinosaur walk, included in standard admission, scatters about twenty life-size dinosaurs through a woodland trail and is a firm favourite with ages 5-12. Scheduled keeper talks and feedings run daily - wild boar, penguins, orangutans, baboons, tarantulas - and the Zoofari stage brings reindeer and a trained falcon up close. The zoo closes only on 24 and 31 December, has paved stroller-friendly paths, welcomes leashed dogs, and is the first stop for families visiting Aalborg.