Hamlet never lived at Kronborg, but Shakespeare put him there, and the castle has been Elsinore in the imagination of the world ever since. It stands on a point of land at Helsingør where the Øresund narrows to about four kilometres, with Sweden clearly visible across the water, and for centuries it controlled one of the most important shipping lanes in Europe. King Frederik II built the castle in its Renaissance form in the 1570s and 1580s, and every ship passing through the strait had to stop and pay the Sound Dues, a toll that made the Danish crown rich for over four hundred years until it was abolished in 1857. Kronborg was inscribed on the UNESCO list in 2000.
The castle burned in 1629 and was rebuilt by Christian IV, then later used as a barracks. Today its great hall, chapel and royal apartments are open to visitors, along with the dark casemates below, where the statue of Holger Danske, the legendary hero said to wake when Denmark is in danger, sits asleep with his arms folded. Every summer, performances of Hamlet are staged in the courtyard, and actors from around the world have played the prince here. The Maritime Museum of Denmark, built into an old dry dock next to the castle, is a striking piece of modern architecture.
The riding around Helsingør is pleasant rather than thrilling. The coast road south toward Copenhagen, known as the Strandvejen, runs along the Øresund past fishing villages, beaches and grand villas, with views of the water and Sweden. It is busy, slow and full of cyclists, but the scenery is lovely. Inland, North Zealand has forests, lakes and the royal hunting grounds of Gribskov and Jægersborg, part of a UNESCO-listed par force hunting landscape, with quiet roads through beech woods. The ferry to Helsingborg takes only about twenty minutes, making a quick trip to Sweden easy.
Helsingør is a working town of about thirty-five thousand people with a filling station, somewhere to eat and supermarkets. Try smørrebrød, the Danish open sandwich, or fresh fish from the harbour. Walk around the castle ramparts, look across the strait to Sweden, and imagine the ships lining up to pay their dues. Then take a coffee by the harbour and watch the ferries cross back and forth.