Hillerød is a compact market town 35 kilometres north of Copenhagen, best known as the home of Frederiksborg Castle — a magnificent red-brick Renaissance palace reflected in its moat that ranks among the grandest royal residences in Scandinavia. The town itself wraps comfortably around the castle lake, and most visitors find that a morning at the castle and an afternoon wandering the old streets makes for one of the most satisfying day trips from the capital.
The castle was built by King Christian IV in the early seventeenth century and houses the Museum of National History, a sweeping collection of Danish portraits and historic rooms that tells the story of the Danish nation through its monarchs, generals, and intellectuals. The baroque garden terraces behind the castle are particularly beautiful in summer, laid out with geometric precision in the Dutch style. When the lake freezes in a hard winter, the view across the ice to the castle towers is one of the most memorable sights in Denmark.
Beyond Frederiksborg, Hillerød is the northern terminus of the suburban S-train line from Copenhagen and sits at the edge of the North Zealand lake district — a landscape of forests, deer parks, and quiet lakes that Danes have long escaped to from the city. The UNESCO-listed Store Dyrehave hunting forest sits right on the southern edge of town. It is an easy base for exploring the nearby Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, the harbour town of Helsingor with its Hamlet castle, or the parklands around Fredensborg Palace.