Rosenborg Castle

Set in the green calm of Copenhagen's oldest royal garden, Rosenborg is a castle of slim towers, copper spires and Dutch-Renaissance gables in warm red brick. Christian IV — no Danish king ever built more — raised it piece by piece between 1606 and 1633 as a private summer retreat just beyond the city walls of the day.

Of everything he built, this was the king's favourite, and it was here that he died in 1648, in a plain bedchamber kept much as it was. Once absolute monarchy arrived, the castle slowly stopped being a home and became something less common — a vault for the memory of an entire dynasty.

What it is famous for

Rosenborg's great draw is the Treasury in its guarded basement, where the Danish Crown Jewels and royal regalia are kept: the crowns of the absolute kings, the anointing sword, the gold-and-ivory throne watched over by three life-size silver lions, and the jewel sets the Queen still wears on the grandest occasions.

Above the vault, more than twenty rooms unfold in one long sequence from Christian IV down to the nineteenth century — the Knights' Hall with its coronation thrones and silver furnishings, the Marble Hall, and a string of intimate chambers panelled, painted and filled with the belongings of monarch after monarch.

Good to know

The castle stands in Kongens Have (the King's Garden), a public park that costs nothing to enter and fills with picnics in summer. It is a few minutes on foot from Nørreport — Copenhagen's busiest station, served by train, metro and bus — and is cared for, like Amalienborg, by the Royal Danish Collection.