Copenhagen first. Then the castles.
Which castle day is worth the train. Whether the canal boat beats the bike. Where the six wooden giants are actually hiding. Every tour in Denmark, reviewed and ranked.
Nyhavn, Kronborg, and six wooden giants.
The handful of days most Denmark trips are built around, and the best way to book each one.
Copenhagen is a bicycle before it is a city.
There are more bikes here than people, bridges built only for them, and not a hill worth the name. The three-hour highlights loop is how a first day in Copenhagen should start — Nyhavn, Christianshavn, the harbour front — without the walking.
Kronborg, Frederiksborg, Rosenborg: how the castle days split.
All castle & palace tours →
Denmark keeps its royal history within an hour of Copenhagen Central. Two of these three sit north of the city and are usually done together on one long day; the third is a walk from Nyhavn and needs no train at all. These three tours carry the most travellers.
- 1Kronborg, Frederiksborg Castle and Roskilde Tourfrom $205
- 2Christiansborg Palace Entry Ticketfrom $35
- 3Rosenborg Castle Entry Ticketfrom $23
Kronborg, where Hamlet is set
A star-shaped fortress on the narrowest point of the Øresund, its guns pointed at Sweden four kilometres away. Helsingør is about 45 minutes by train from Copenhagen and the castle is a ten-minute walk from the platform.
Frederiksborg, floating on its lake
Christian IV’s Dutch-Renaissance palace stands on three islets in a lake at Hillerød, about 40 minutes north on the S-train. Most tours that reach it also take in Kronborg, and several add Roskilde — the two northern castles are one day out, not two competing ones.
Rosenborg and the crown jewels
A small royal summer house in the King’s Garden, ten minutes’ walk from Nyhavn. The crown regalia are in the basement; the Long Hall upstairs is guarded by three silver lions.
Denmark’s most-booked tours.
Every review →The tours more travellers take than anything else in the country — and what makes each one worth its morning.
1
Copenhagen Card-Discover: 80+ Attractions & Public Transport
Digital Copenhagen Card-Discover gives free museum entry, canal cruise, and unlimited public transport across Greater Copenhagen for 1 to 5 days.
From · $92
Read our review →
2
Hop-On Hop-Off Bus Tour with Boat Tour Option
from $35
3
Private Walking Grand Tour of Copenhagen
from $342
4
Lund and Malmö 2-Country Tour
from $131
5
Copenhagen Highlights Walking Tour
from $40
6
Highlights 3 Hour Bike Tour with a Local Guide
from $62
7
Hamlet and Sweden Tour – Two Countries in one day !
from $142
8
Grand Day Trip around Copenhagen
from $211
Christianshavn: canals, houseboats, a corkscrew spire.
Christian IV laid this quarter out on reclaimed ground in the 1600s and gave it Amsterdam’s canals. Walk the houseboat moorings, climb the staircase that spirals around the outside of Vor Frelsers Kirke, and cross into Christiania, the self-governing community that has occupied the old naval barracks since 1971.
All 10 Christianshavn tours →
The Danish days that travel nowhere else.
Castles and canals turn up all over northern Europe. A hunt for six hidden timber giants, a fortress with a fictional prince, and five scuttled longships raised from a fjord belong to Denmark alone.
The Forgotten Giants
Thomas Dambo built six enormous figures out of scrap timber and hid them in the woodland and shoreline around Copenhagen’s western edge — Sleeping Louis, Little Tilde, Teddy Friendly and the rest. There is no gate and no ticket: you get a map and go looking. Most day tours pair two or three of them with the Forest Tower at Camp Adventure, a spiral ramp that climbs 45 metres above the treetops.
- 1The Forest Tower and Forgotten Giants-A day tour from Copenhagen★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 162 reviews
- 2The Six Forgotten Giants Hunt and Nature Walk★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 95 reviews
- 3The Forest Tower & Forgotten Giants Trolls Trip★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 76 reviews
Hamlet’s Elsinore
Shakespeare set Hamlet at Elsinore without ever seeing the place. The real Kronborg spent four centuries taxing every ship that entered the Baltic, and it plays along with the fiction: a sleeping statue of Holger the Dane sits in the casemates below, and the courtyard stages the play through the summer.
- 1Hamlet and Sweden Tour – Two Countries in one day !★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 2,223 reviews
- 2Kronborg, Frederiksborg Castle and Roskilde Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 1,763 reviews
- 3Kronborg Castle Entry Ticket★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 209 reviews
The Roskilde Longships
Five Viking ships were sunk across a channel of Roskilde fjord around 1070 to block the approach to the town. They were raised in 1962 and now stand in a hall with a glass wall facing the water they came out of, next to a working boatyard that builds sailing copies of them.
- 1Full-Day; Castle, Palace, Cathedral & Viking ships Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 326 reviews
- 2Aarhus Walking Tour: From Viking Village to Metropolis★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 122 reviews
- 3Out of Copenhagen; 2x Castles, Cathedral & (Viking Ships)★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 40 reviews
What a day out in Denmark actually costs.
Every tour on the site, sorted by what it charges. Copenhagen is not a cheap city — but the best hours in it are among the cheapest things you will do here.
Entry tickets, canal boats, bike loops and the walking tours that explain the city — most of a good first day.
The full-day castle runs, the food walks and the small-group tours that include lunch and the train fare.
Private guides, chartered boats and the two-country days that cross into Sweden and back.
- 1Lund and Malmö 2-Country Tourfrom $131
- 2Hamlet and Sweden Tour – Two Countries in one day !from $142
- 3Grand Day Trip around Copenhagenfrom $211
Copenhagen does winter on purpose.
All hygge walks →Midsummer here runs to seventeen hours of light; late December gives you about seven. The city answers with candles on the table at four in the afternoon and a whole vocabulary for sitting still indoors. Hygge is not a gift-shop word here — it is what half the year is for.
Good Morning, Copenhagen: Feel The Danish Hygge & Happiness
Read our review →
Copenhagen Walking Tour: Highlights and Hygge w/Lunch
Read our review →The best Danish days start with a train out of Copenhagen.
Copenhagen Central puts three of the country’s headline days inside an hour. None of them need a car; all of them need the morning rather than the afternoon.
- 01Kronborg, Frederiksborg Castle and Roskilde TourHelsingør is about 45 minutes up the coast line, and the castle is a ten-minute walk from the station.
- 02Kronborg, Frederiksborg Castle and Roskilde TourHillerød sits at the end of the S-train, roughly 40 minutes north; the palace gardens alone take an hour.
- 03Lund and Malmö 2-Country TourMalmö is in Sweden — about 35 minutes across the Øresund bridge. It is a border, so carry your passport or ID card.
- 04The Forest Tower and Forgotten Giants-A day tour from CopenhagenThe giants are scattered across the western suburbs and the Forest Tower is an hour south, so this one really is a full day out.
Aarhus, and the islands that answer to nobody.
Aarhus is Denmark’s second city and its student one: a Viking settlement called Aros that grew into a design town, with street art along the rooftops and a circular glass walkway ringing the top of its art museum. Further out sit the Faroe Islands — eighteen islands of cliff, sheep and waterfall in the North Atlantic, a self-governing nation inside the Kingdom of Denmark rather than a part of Denmark itself.
- 1Aarhus Walking Tour: From Viking Village to Metropolisfrom $31
- 2Street Art and Rooftops of Aarhus, Denmarkfrom $63
- 3Harbour Cruises with local guidefrom $25
Danish weather changes its mind; have an indoor answer ready.
Wind comes off the Øresund with nothing to stop it, and a bright morning can close over by eleven. Most of Denmark’s best rooms are indoor ones anyway: palace interiors, the national collections, a brewery cellar, a museum full of street art taken off the wall.
By place — where the day happens
Copenhagen302 tours
Christianshavn10 tours
Nyhavn4 tours
Helsingør & Kronborg12 tours
Hillerød9 tours
Aarhus24 tours
Malmö & Lund8 tours
Faroe Islands4 tours- Every tour in Denmark →
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Understanding Klaksvík: A Self-guided city tour in KlaksvÍk
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Copenhagen Scavenger Hunt and Highlights Self Guided Audio Tour
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Explore the Instaworthy Spots of Copenhagen with a Local
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Copenhagen & Christiansborg Palace Private Walking Tour
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