Hillerød; Saturday, 29 August, 2026

I had a long lie in and a late breakfast in the hotel before heading back up to my room to repack my bag, check out of the hotel and walk the short distance to the railway station to pick up the train into Copenhagen. In the city centre I changed onto the S-Tog, suburban trains, out to the end of line A and my destination for the weekend, Hillerød.

From the station to my hotel was about a 20-minute walk, which I made a bit longer by quickly popping into a supermarket in the centre of town to grab some lunch items and water before completing the walk to the hotel. Thankfully, despite it being a good two hours before official check-in time, the hotel had my room ready, so I was able to head up there, unpack, have some lunch and freshen up before heading out into the town to explore.

I’d been through Hillerød on a couple of occasions before when I’ve stayed in this part of Denmark, and the town’s main draw is the spectacular castle – the Frederiksborg Slot. Originally built as a Royal hunting lodge it gradually grew over time into an important castle for the Danish Royal Family, and the largest renaissance residence in Scandinavia, before falling out of favour and then burning to the ground in 1859 – what exists today is almost all a late 19th century reconstruction, though at the time of visiting even that reconstruction was under renovation with scaffolding masking most of the side that’s normally visible from the town centre.

I headed over to the castle from the hotel and spent quite a bit of time wandering around the courtyards and spaces around the building, holding off visiting the castle itself until Monday as the weather forecast suggested doing outdoor things today, and saving the indoors stuff for the following two days which were due to be quite wet.

From the castle I wandered out into the castle gardens, located by the side of the large lake that separates the castle from the town. All of this is man-made, part of the original construction of the hunting lodge, with the town of Hillerød only being created at that time to act as a service point for the castle.

The gardens have several different areas including meadows, forests and, immediately opposite the castle, the Baroque gardens, a multi-levelled garden with lots of fountains and topiarised trees and hedges. I spent a good while wandering up through the Baroque garden and then walking back down through the rest of the park, taking in the Bathhouse castle as well as parts of the wooded areas.

From the castle there is a pleasant 1Km or so long walk that heads around the edge of the lake and back into the centre of town, so I followed that, stopping regularly for the stunning views across the water to the castle, which by now was being backlit by the late afternoon sun. Back in the centre of town, I had a wander around the Torvet area, the main central square of the town overlooking the lake and castle, before heading back to my room to freshen up.

A little later I headed back out to grab a bite to eat and then, after the sun had gone down, went for another long walk around the castle complex and the lake to take in the views with the last of the long twilight as well as parts of the castle floodlit, before returning back to my room for a good night’s sleep.