Copenhagen fits in a weekend. Denmark does not.
Which canal boat carries a guide and which just plays a recording. What a bike tour costs once the bike is in the price. Whether Kronborg earns the train ride north. Reviews of every tour you can book in Denmark.
A canal boat, a bicycle, three castles and one long lunch.
The four bookings a first trip to Denmark tends to hang off. What each one costs, and what the travellers who took it say.
01The first hourCanal Cruise with GuideOut through the harbour, under the low bridges of Christianshavn and past the opera house. The cheapest way to learn how the city is put together.
02The morning ride3-hour Copenhagen City Highlights Bike TourThree hours in the saddle, which is how this city is meant to be crossed. Flat the whole way, on lanes wider than the roads at home.
03The day up northKronborg, Frederiksborg Castle and Roskilde TourElsinore, Frederiksborg and Roskilde in one run. A long day, and the only way to reach all three without a hire car.
04The long lunchCopenhagen Culinary Food Tour with 6+ Tastings of Danish ClassicsSmørrebrød, cheese, pastry and whatever the season has put on the counter. Six-plus tastings, so treat it as the meal.
Copenhagen owns more bicycles than people. Borrow the habit for a morning.
The city is flat, the lanes are separated from the traffic, and a guide keeps you out of the bus lane while you learn the hand signals. Three ways to ride it, what each costs to board, and how much of the time you are actually moving.
Copenhagen on the water, in the saddle and at the table.
The city is small enough to cross on foot and much better crossed by boat or bicycle. Six ways to spend a day in Denmark, and the best of each.
Copenhagen was built around its harbour. Start in it.
Flat-bottomed boats slip under bridges you have to duck for, past the opera house, the black library and the timber yards at Refshaleøen. The water is clean enough to swim in by July, and half the city does.
Copenhagen: the harbour first, then whatever the sky allows.
All of Copenhagen →
An hour on the water fixes the map in your head, and after that the centre is walkable in an afternoon. These three carry more travellers than anything else in Denmark.
Guided boat, or the recorded loop
The guided boats cost a few dollars more and are worth it; the recorded ones run the same route with a voice you stop hearing by the second bridge. Both leave from Nyhavn and Gammel Strand.
The National Museum, and the rest of the wet-day plan
A thousand years of Danish life, a bog body and the Viking halls, all under one roof ten minutes from the harbour. Entry is cheap, the building is warm, and nothing about it depends on the forecast.
Market halls, smørrebrød and a bakery stop
Through Torvehallerne and the bakeries around it, then open sandwiches built in the order a Dane would eat them. Book it as lunch rather than before lunch.
Denmark’s most popular days out.
Every Danish tour we have reviewed →More travellers take these than anything else in Denmark. What each one gives you for the money is underneath.
1
Canal Cruise with Guide
Cruise Copenhagen’s harbor and canals for one hour with an English or Danish guide, passing Christiansborg, Amalienborg, the Opera House, the Little Mermaid, and the old Stock Exchange. Guides such as Peter, Tony, Ali, and Kristian bring plenty of humor, while audio tours may offer several languages. The boat can feel exposed in bad weather.
From · $26
Read our review →
2
Hop-On Hop-Off Bus Tour with Boat Tour Option
from $35
3
Private Walking Grand Tour of Copenhagen
4
Lund and Malmö 2-Country Tour
from $141
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
Three castles north of the city, and the crown jewels in the middle of it.
Kronborg is Hamlet’s Elsinore and stands on the water looking straight at Sweden. Frederiksborg is the one on the lake with the formal gardens. Rosenborg keeps the regalia in a basement twenty minutes from Nyhavn. The north run takes all three in a day.
Every castle day in Denmark →
Aarhus is three hours west and worth a night of its own.
The second city keeps a Viking settlement under its main square, an art gallery with a walkable rainbow on the roof, and a harbour quarter that has outgrown the word regeneration. It is small, it is flat, and nobody is queueing.
- 1Aarhus Walking Tour: From Viking Village to Metropolisfrom $31
- 2Street Art and Rooftops of Aarhus, Denmarkfrom $63
- 3The Ancient Viking Stronghold of Aros: A Self-Guided Audio Tour in Aarhusfrom $11
What a Danish day out actually costs.
Every tour on the site, grouped by price. Denmark is not a cheap country, and a surprising number of its best days still come in under the price of dinner.
Canal hours, museum entries, self-guided hunts and the walking tours of the old town.
- 1Canal Cruise with Guidefrom $26
- 2Hop-On Hop-Off Bus Tour with Boat Tour Optionfrom $35
- 3Copenhagen Highlights Walking Tourfrom $40
Guided bike days, the castle run north, food walks, and the crossing to Malmö.
Private guides, chartered boats and the day that takes in three castles without hurrying any of them.
Three Danish things with no equivalent anywhere.
Harbour cities and good bakeries exist all over northern Europe. Six wooden giants hidden in the woods, a self-governing freetown, and a national mood with its own word do not.
The Six Forgotten Giants
A Danish artist built six enormous trolls out of scrap timber and hid them in the woods and parks ringing Copenhagen, each with a riddle pointing to the next. Finding them takes a full day, a bike and a tolerance for being a long way from coffee. Nobody charges you to look at them; what you book is the route and the person who knows it.
- 1Round-Trip to Møns Klint and Forest Tower★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 439 reviews
- 2Møns klint and The Forest tower – A day tour from Copenhagen★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 181 reviews
- 3The Forest Tower and Forgotten Giants-A day tour from Copenhagen★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 162 reviews
Christiania
In 1971 squatters walked into an abandoned naval barracks in Christianshavn and never left, and the place has been negotiating with the Danish state ever since. It has its own building style, its own rules and a hard line on cameras in certain lanes. A guide is the difference between walking through it and understanding what you walked through.
- 1Hippies & Christianshavn Walking Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 249 reviews
- 2Private Walking Tour of Christianshavn★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 122 reviews
- 3Christiania & Christianshavn Guided Walking Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 119 reviews
Hygge, at source
Hygge is not candles and knitwear, or not only. It is the Danish talent for making a dark afternoon feel chosen rather than endured, and it is a practical skill with rules. The walks built around it cover the habits underneath: the bakery stop, the long table, the light deliberately kept low.
- 1Hygge and Happiness Culture Walking Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 539 reviews
- 2Good Morning, Copenhagen: Feel The Danish Hygge & Happiness★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 503 reviews
- 3Copenhagen Walking Tour: Highlights and Hygge w/Lunch★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 272 reviews
Four Danish bookings that will not wait.
Most of this country can be arranged over breakfast. These four run on a guard change, a timed slot and a coach that leaves once.
- 01Walk & Canal Tour: Copenhagen Highlights + Changing of the GuardsThe guard walks from Rosenborg to Amalienborg once a day and reaches the palace at noon. The tour is timed to meet it, and the clock is not ours.
- 02Home of Carlsberg Experience Entry TicketEntry runs on timed slots. The afternoon ones go first, and turning up without one on a wet Saturday is a wasted trip across town.
- 03Round-Trip to Møns Klint and Forest TowerThe chalk cliffs at Møn are a two-hour drive each way and the coach leaves once. Miss the departure and there is no second run that day.
- 04Best of Danish Pastry Tasting TourSmall groups, morning starts, and bakeries that have sold the good trays out well before lunch.
When the light goes at four and the wind comes off the sound.
Denmark does weather rather than seasons. From October the useful daylight is a narrow window and the rain arrives sideways, which is why so much of the good part of this country happens indoors and at a table. Keep the outdoor day for the forecast that allows it, and hold these in reserve.
Smørrebrød at lunch, pastry at eleven, beer with a lecture attached.
Half of what this country is known for arrives on a plate. Take the market walk before the lunch rush, the pastry crawl while the trays are still full, and the brewery when the afternoon has already gone dark.
- 1Home of Carlsberg Experience Entry Ticketfrom $35
- 2The Copenhagen Culinary Experience Food Tourfrom $149
- 3Party Pub Crawl Copenhagenfrom $48
By place, and by day trip out of it
By kind of day — water, saddle, table or hunt
Water, saddle, castles and the bridge to Sweden: the run most first trips end up doing.
The long lunchJust added to the Denmark list.
The rest of the new ones →
Understanding Klaksvík: A Self-guided city tour in KlaksvÍk
Read our review →
SUP – Stand Up Paddle – Kitesurfing – Wingfoil & Kitefoil courses
Read our review →
Copenhagen Walking Tour with Food Testing (smorrebrod dish & snap)
Read our review →
walking tour – Copenhagen and Christiansborg 3 hours
Read our review →
The Six Forgotten Giants Trolls Hunt with Minibus
Read our review →
The Philosopher’s Last Walk: An audio tour on the life of Søren Kierkegaard
Read our review →
Small Group Guided Food Tour and Street Art Visit to Norrebro
Read our review →
