Nordsjælland – the Scandinavian Riviera, august 2025
Nordsjælland, the Scandinavian Riviera
We are a Danish travel agency, with the focus on the very best of culture, gastronomy, design and art. For this trip we focus on our own shores.
During this five-day trip we will experience, in depth, Nordsjælland, or North Zealand, just north of Copenhagen. The excursion is primarily aimed at a British audience, but that doesn’t prevent us from offering the tour to Danes as well.
Many of the events described here are not something you can easily arrange yourself, if at all, and will therefore be a new way for Danes to see their own country. The guided tours will be in English only.
Parnassos.dk is a Danish company and member of Rejsegarantifonden ↗, the Danish equivalent of ABTA (You can verify our membership by following this link↗). Just type our company name in the relevant field.
Rejsegarantifonden guarantees your money – independently from where you book your trip – whilst we guarantee your adventures.
The Jewel in the Nordic Crown
Copenhagen is not only the gastronomic capital of Northern Europe and Scandinavia: with its canals, medieval quarter, modern architecture, a backyard with miles of white sandy beaches, royal castles, wild nature, seaside resorts, cultural gems and a thousand-year-old history, Copenhagen and the Kings North Zealand are the jewels in the Nordic crown.
That is why Shakespeare set his classic, Hamlet, at Kronborg Castle in Helsingør, or Elsenor. Likewise, the author Karen Blixen, after her return from Africa, settled at her childhood home in the country estate Rungstedlund in Nordsjælland, to write her world-famous novels and stories.
Hotel SAS Royal – A Modernistic Classic
We will start in Copenhagen, Monday August 11th 2025, staying at the 5* Hotel SAS Royal, right in the centre of the city.
As an introduction to Danish design and architecture, we have chosen, for the first two nights of our Nordsjælland trip, to stay at the 5* Hotel SAS Radisson Royal in the centre of Copenhagen, a listed building designed by famous Danish modernist architect Arne Jacobsen, situated adjacent to Tivoli Gardens, one of the oldest amusement parks in the world.
Amongst his many achievements, Arne Jacobsen was the architect of the University of Oxford’s St. Catherine’s College.
Here, on our first evening, after we have all arrived and been assigned our rooms, we will enjoy dinner in the hotel’s Panorama Suite on the 20th floor. From here we have a stunning view over the city, the royal palace Amalienborg, the Opera House, and a clear view across the Øresund strait to neighbouring Sweden.
A Taste From the Viking Days
As you no doubt are aware, Denmark, along with Norway and Sweden, was the homeland of the Vikings. On our first full day, Tuesday 12th August, we will travel to the old royal town of Roskilde, where we’ll visit the National Viking Ship Museum. Yes, the Vikings were the hooligans of Europe in days past, but they were also fine shipbuilders.
We shall see the longboats that sailed up the English rivers, when the Danish king, Sweyn Forkbeard together with his son, Canute, conquered England in 1013 – sorry about that. He was crowned English king on London’s Thorney Island, where Westminster and the Houses of Parliament are located today.
We will be treated to a talk by one of the leading Viking experts at the museum. It will be followed by tastings of the Vikings’ noble drink, mjød or mead – an acquired taste – along with the diet the Vikings enjoyed on their raids, consisting of country bread with smoked salmon, smoked cheese, nuts and dried fruit.
The Museum of Modern Art, Louisiana
As we leave the Vikings in Roskilde, and head north towards the picturesque Øresund coast and its many historic houses and buildings, our next stop will be the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Humlebæk.
The museum lies along Øresund with a clear view to Sweden, just a few miles away.
Besides its current exhibitions and a large collection of the great masters of international modern art, it is in itself an architectural and modernist gem. The museum originates from an old privately-owned patrician villa. From the late 1950s, when it opened, it has been periodically extended in an irregular, even eccentric way. The result being discreet modernist architecture, that today meanders into and under the landscape, which includes a sculpture park.
This museum has become a game changer in the manner of experiencing art, and a role model for museums in Denmark and the rest of the world. We will skip the queues with direct access. You can read about their exhibitions via this link.
Dinner at Karen Blixen's Home
About six miles south of the Louisiana Museum you will find the old country house Rungstedlund, which was the childhood home of the writer Karen Blixen (also known as Isak Dinesen). After Hans Christian Andersen, Karen Blixen is probably Denmark’s best internationally-known author.
Her book, Out of Africa, became known around the world in 1985, when it was made into a film starring Meryl Streep and Robert Redford. A film adaptation of another of her novels, Babette’s Feast, won the 1988 Oscar for best foreign film, with Stephane Audran as Babette. Karen Blixen lived in Kenya for 17 years, where she started a coffee farm.
She returned to Denmark in 1931, at the age of 46, and settled on the family’s country estate. It was here, with a view over Øresund, that she would sit and write. Today it is one of the world’s best-known artists’ homes, with the rooms being preserved as they were when the author lived and worked here.
The historic buildings are surrounded by a large and atmospheric flower garden, which the author herself designed.
Next to the garden and house there is a large protected nature area, laid out as a bird reserve. “A real paradise for birds that came here across the World Ocean”, Karen Blixen noted, who, at her request, is buried in the middle of the reserve.
We visit both the author’s home and its impressive surroundings, which today comprise the Karen Blixen Museum, and here we will have our private dinner, before returning to the SAS Royal Hotel.
A Visit to the home of Queen Victoria's Grand- and Great Grandchild
Wednesday morning, August 13th, we leave SAS Royal to cross the narrow waters between Denmark and Sweden via the Øresund Bridge, known from the TV Danish-Swedish series The Bridge.
Denmark and southern Sweden have always been closely linked. For hundreds of years, until around 1700, southern Sweden was part of the Danish kingdom. In those days there were hundreds of miles of forest separating Stockholm from this part of the world, so Copenhagen was the more natural capital.
Even today, south western Sweden and eastern Denmark are collectively called the Øresund region. Having crossed the water, we drive north to the peninsula and the Kullen massif.
Here we can suddenly see directly over to Nordsjælland, before we continue to the pleasure palace, Sofiero, known for its beautiful park, inspired by an English country garden. When the Crown Prince Gustav Adolf married English princess Margaret of Connaught, the granddaughter of Queen Victoria, in 1905, Sofiero was given as a wedding gift by the King.
The newly-married couple transformed it into a more spacious country house with an English country garden.
Their daughter, Ingrid, became Queen of Denmark, grandmother to our present king Frederik II. Margaret of Connaught died aged 38, but three years later the now King Gustav Adolf married the English Lady Louise Mountbatten, who was the sister of Lord Mountbatten, great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria, and great-niece of King Edward VII and the Princess of Battenberg.
In 1950 she became Queen of Sweden.
After experiencing the gardens, we will have lunch in the palace restaurant, with a view over the Øresund Strait.
Helsingborg - Helsingør, Hornbækhus and Danish hygge
At the narrowest point in Øresund, the distance between Sweden and Denmark is only about 3 miles. We leave Sofiero and the Swedish town of Helsingborg, and sail to the Danish town of Helsingør, the easternmost point of Nordsjælland, where we dock just a stone’s throw from Hamlet’s Kronborg Castle, before continuing 10 miles along another beach route – Nordre Strandvej – to the North Zealand seaside town of Hornbæk.
Here we stay at the 120-year-old hotel, Hornbækhus, which, despite a gentle interior modernization, has retained all its original turn-of-the-century charm, its exterior being as it was when it was built. It is a historic setting and the epitome of Danish hygge or ‘coziness’.
Here we will mingle with the beach hotel’s other guests and the local Hornbæk residents who regularly participate in the hotel’s dinner party, which is a traditional, informal and hyggelig event with exquisite Danish dishes.
Prior to this, we will experience a chamber concert in one of Denmark’s most unique and beautifully-located museums; not particularly well known, even among Danes.
A Quartet Concert Among Giant Sculptures
A short drive from Hornbækhus, we find Tegner’s Museum and Statue Park, located in a large protected heath, where the heather will be blooming.
The octagonal concrete building is in the middle of the landscape, looking like a spaceship from a distant galaxy. Here we will experience a chamber concert. Artist Rudolph Tegner acquired the entire area to build a museum for his sculptures in 1936.
In this landscape his huge, vitalistic, bronze sculptures are enthroned, which we will experience in the late afternoon sun, between juniper bushes and heather, before a drink at the museum’s tree-lined café. And then it’s time for our private concert.
Parnassos has been given exclusive access to the museum after hours, so we will have it to ourselves. The ceiling in the museum’s main hall rises 11 metres above the floor, and many of Tegner’s plaster sculptures of mythical creatures almost touch the ceiling.
In the middle of this breathtaking spectacle, with its very special acoustics, we have set up a concert hall, where a chamber ensemble will entertain us with classical works that match the spirit of the place.
This has never happened before in the museum’s 89-year history, so it will truly be a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
A Visit to the Royal Summer Residence
Considering that we are visiting the Kings of Nordsjælland or North Zealand, what would be more appropriate than to start Thursday, August 14th, with a visit to the Danish royal couple’s summer residence in Fredensborg, which is beautifully located next to the large Esrum Sø or Lake.
Our host will be the Royal Head Gardener, who will talk about the Palace’s history and show us around the impressive park. Fredensborg Palace was built as a pleasure castle for the Danish king Frederik IV in 1722.
In the second half of the 19th century, the castle was the setting for gatherings of the crowned heads of many of the European royal houses. The Danish King Christian IV was known as Europe’s father-in-law, because his daughters married into the other royal houses.
Among the summer guests you would have found the Russian Tzar, married to Danish Princess Dagmar; the English Crown Prince and later King, Edward VII, who married Alexandra of Denmark (further close family ties between the English and Nordic royal houses); the new Greek King, George I, who was the son of the Danish King, along with nobles and royalty from other European countries.
Today, Fredensborg is the summer residence of both the now abdicated Queen Margrethe II and Denmark’s King Frederik X and Queen Mary. The probability that they will be present at the palace when we visit Fredensborg is quite high.
Meet the Man who set the Watergate Scandal in Motion
Our lunch for the day will be the luxury version of traditional Danish smørrebrød (you may know the word from the Swedish version, Smörgåsbord). We will enjoy it in one of Denmark’s oldest and most popular seaside and summer towns, Tisvildeleje.
For a century and a half, Tisvilde has been sought by artists, intellectuals and people eager for sun and nature, who have set up their summer residences here. One resident was Nobel Laureate Niels Bohr, a genius of our time, who discovered the atom and founded quantum physics.
Today, you can stumble across Hollywood stars, media personalities, well-known artists, and politicians. They unabashedly mingle with the local residents and other summer visitors, on the beach and in the city’s unpretentious restaurants and cafes; perhaps running into American actor Bradley Cooper, the speaker of the Danish Parliament, or a former prime minister.
Parnassos’ guide, Poul Arnedal, lives in Tisvildeleje. He will take us on a stroll around the atmospheric city and tell us about the place’s incredible history and its famous personalities. Lunch is served in the Garden in the middle of Hovedgaden, or the main street, where we will meet R. Spencer Oliver, who, more than 50 years ago, triggered the Watergate scandal, and the downfall of President Nixon.
During the presidential election campaign of 1972, Oliver was a key member of the Democratic National Committee, located in the Watergate Office Building. It was his phone that was tapped by Nixon’s ‘Plumber Gang’, so that the president’s team could eavesdrop on their opponents’ election strategy.
Oliver later became secretary general of the OSCE, based in Copenhagen, married a Danish woman, and bought an old fisherman’s house on the beach in Tisvildeleje as his summer residence. Despite his 86 years of age, he is still politically active, with close connections to the inner circle of the Democratic Party. Stories to follow! He spends all his summers with his wife Jeanie in Tisvildeleje.
An Organ Concert by Johann Sebastian Bach's Teacher
We leave Tisvildeleje and drive to Helsingør. Here Parnassos has arranged, together with one of Denmark’s foremost organists, Søren Gleerup Hansen, an organ concert specially for us, including works by one of baroque music’s greatest composers, Dietrich Buxtehude, performed in St. Mariæ Church, on an organ that dates back to Buxtehude’s time as organist there, from 1660 until 1668.
Born in Helsingborg (when the city was still Danish), Buxtehude grew up in Helsingør, where his father was organist in the Cathedral of St. Olai.
He later moved to Lübeck, in the principality of Holstein, which until 1864 was part of the Danish kingdom. His reputation as a composer attracted and inspired younger talents, such as Johann Sebastian Bach and Friedrich Händel.
The young Bach stayed with him in Lübeck for a few months, where he was taught a thing or two about fugues and polyphony. One can therefore argue that Northern Europe’s classical music started in Helsingør.
You can read our article about this little-known but central figure in the firmament of classical music. (In Danish only).
Gala Dinner at Kronborg Slot
You can’t think of Helsingør without thinking of Hamlet. After being enriched by Buxtehude’s and his pupil’s organ music, we will stroll the short way to Hamlet’s castle, Kronborg, immortalised by Shakespeare as Elsinore.
Here we will enjoy a celebratory dinner in the Blue Gallery, with a view of the castle courtyard. According to tradition, Shakespeare was inspired by Helsingør and Kronborg, where an English delegation studied the Øresund toll: a toll levied on the ships that had to pass the narrow strait between Helsingborg and Helsingør in order to go to and fro the Baltic Sea.
The cannons of both cities’ fortresses ensured that all ships paid their taxes. 150 years later, the medieval castle was rebuilt as the magnificent Renaissance castle we know today. The former Royal Castle forms a significant part of Danish heritage.
For major royal events, Kronborg’s cannons fire a 27-gun salute, at noon. However, we will skip the cannons and instead focus on enjoying a renaissance-inspired gala dinner in one of the castle’s most beautiful rooms, before we return to our beds at Hornbækhus, happy, full and satisfied – we trust.
We Return to the King's Copenhagen
Friday morning, August 15th, we will head back to what the Danes call the King’s Copenhagen; a designation that has gained new relevance since January 2024, when King Frederik X, with Australian-born Queen Mary, ascended the Danish throne, after his mother, Queen Magrethe II, abdicated due to ill health.
Guests who have chosen a late flight on Friday will be able to enjoy a canal cruise, which will take us around Copenhagen city’s canals and along the harbour, where you can see The Little Mermaid, the Opera, the Amalienborg Royal Palace and the Christiansborg Parliament Palace (the setting of another Danish TV series, Borgen), as well as the historic 17th-century quarter, and the most modern state-of-the-art buildings, seen from the waterside.
This concludes the official part of our program. For those guests who have wish to stay an extra day in Copenhagen, we have arranged a special program for Friday night, which can be booked separately.
Restaurant Geranium, the best of the best
The evening consists of an exquisite gourmet dinner at the three-star Michelin restaurant, Geranium, which in 2022 was voted the World’s Best Restaurant, and whose head chef, Rasmus Kofoed, has won the Bocuse d’Ore. Geranium today belongs to the small circle of “Best of the Best” restaurants in the world.
The dinner takes place on Friday 15 August with an accompanying overnight stay at the Royal Radisson. This evening must be purchased (which you can do during the booking process).
It’s a fantastically expensive pleasure, but then you will also have one of your greatest culinary experiences ever.
You may be tempted by the above trip. But in this day and age, with rampant fraud on the Internet, we understand if you may be a little hesitant to purchase a trip from a foreign company. We are a member of the Danish equivalent to ABTA. We could also, to ease your doubt, invite you to our evening at Burgh House in London, Monday 23rd April 2025, for our private event with William Hanson.
You are also welcome to call us on +45 6141 6505.
Kind regards, Erik Bach Christophersen
And our Purpose is?
We want to create exclusive experiences – without excluding anyone. Granted, our tours are not among the cheapest, but they are still accessible to most of those who walk in the footsteps of Hans Christian Andersen, the Danish poet who once said, ‘to travel is to live’.
The ‘trick’ is to be larger than small groups. We’re talking about around 40 people. Being many has its own dynamic.
And a larger budget allows us to offer truly unique adventures, that surely will be beyond most of us if we acted on our own. Our purpose is to tear us away from our day to day lives, to ensure that when you are back home again, you will ask yourself, ‘did I really experience what I think I experienced’?
What Exactly do you get for your 13,000 dkk? (aprox € 1,750)
- Two Nights at the 5* Hotel Radisson Royal.
- And an additional two Nights at Hornbækhus.
- Speech and lunch at Vikingeskibsmuseet.
- Entrance to all museums and churches.
- Entrance to all privately held concerts.
- Dinner at Karen Blixen’s Home.
- Gala Dinner at Kronborg slot, Hamlet’s Castle, wine-pairing, included.
- Dinner at Hornbækhus.
- Frokost i Sofiero.
- Frokost i Tisvilde.
- A Canal Trip in Copenhagen harbour.
Please Note:
Please Note: The price covers accommodation and experiences in Denmark only and does not include the flight.
This is to give you as much flexibility as possible, such as when you fly during the day and from where. Maybe you also want to extend your stay.
If the trip is canceled – regardless of the reason – we will compensate your flight ticket of up to £ 150/person.
