North of Copenhagen the royal family once hunted on a scale that reshaped the landscape, and Store Dyrehave, the Great Deer Park, near Hillerød, is a piece of that design. The forest is cut by straight rides, long avenues that radiate like the spokes of a wheel, so that horsemen and hounds could follow a stag at speed without losing sight of it. This kind of hunting, called par force, was fashionable at European courts in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and the Danish kings built an entire landscape for it, now recognised by UNESCO as the Par Force Hunting Landscape in North Zealand.
Close by stands Frederiksborg Castle, built in the early seventeenth century by Christian IV on three small islands in a lake, a red-brick Renaissance palace with copper roofs and towers. It houses the Museum of National History and is among the grandest buildings in Denmark. The deer park itself is a mixture of beech woodland, heath and meadow, and you will see deer, wild boar and many birds, and the forest is pleasant in every season. Beech leaves in spring are a luminous green, and in autumn they turn copper and gold.
For a rider, Zealand is gentle and rewarding at a calm pace. Roads in the forest are narrow and well surfaced, with moderate bends and cyclists, and the speed limits are strictly observed and enforced, with cameras on main roads, so ride at the limit. Some forest tracks are closed to motor vehicles, and signs are clear, so respect them. The best seasons are May, when the forest is fresh, and October, when the colours peak, though summer weekends bring many visitors.
Hillerød has fuel, supermarkets, restaurants and the castle, and Lillerød, a few kilometres from the park, also has services. Danish food is simple and excellent, with open sandwiches called smørrebrød, pastries known as wienerbrød and strong coffee, and a cafe by the castle lake is a pleasant place to rest. Leave the bike at the edge and walk the avenues for a while, when the light slants through the trees and the only sound is leaves.