3 Best Sights in Helsingør, Zealand

Kronborg Castle dominates the city of Helsingør. Built in the late 1500s, it's the inspiration for Elsinore castle in Shakespeare's Hamlet (1601). Shakespeare probably never saw the castle in person, but he managed to capture its spirit—it's a gloomy, chilly place, where it's clear that an ordinary person today lives much better than kings once did. The castle was built as a Renaissance tollbooth: from its cannon-studded bastions, forces collected a tariff from all ships crossing the sliver of water between Denmark and Sweden. Well worth seeing are the 200-foot-long dining hall and the dungeons, where there is a brooding statue of Holger Danske (Ogier the Dane). According to legend, the sleeping Viking chief will awaken to defend Denmark when it's in danger. (The largest Danish resistance group during World War II called itself Holger Danske.)

Close to Sankt Olai Kirke stands Sankt Marie Kirke; the 15th-century Carmelite Convent is one of the best-preserved examples of medieval architecture in Scandinavia.

On the corner of Stengade and Sankt Annægade near the harbor is Sankt Olai Kirke, worth a peek for its elaborately carved wooden altar. Also in downtown are whole streets of medieval-era merchants' and ferrymen's houses—they're now modern shops.