Kronborg
The castle at the narrowest point of the Øresund controlled shipping and the tolls. Frederick II rebuilt a medieval fortress as a splendid Renaissance castle in the Dutch style. Shakespeare set his Hamlet here, in the castle he called Elsinore.
In the 1420s Eric of Pomerania built the fortress of Krogen here so that he could levy tolls on every ship passing through the Øresund. In 1574–1585 Frederick II had the fortress rebuilt as a Renaissance castle. The Netherlandish master builders Hans van Paeschen and Anthonis van Obbergen led the work, and the façades were clad in sandstone. The king gave the castle the name Kronborg. The Sound Dues made the castle a symbol of the Danish king’s power, and the tolls were collected right up to 1857.
The castle has four wings around a courtyard, with towers of different shapes and heights. The façades have Netherlandish Renaissance features with gables, carved decoration and sandstone window surrounds. The Great Hall in the south wing is about 62 metres long. The chapel in the south wing survived the fire of 1629 and retains its furnishings from the time of Frederick II. The castle is surrounded by bastions and moats from the 17th and 18th centuries.
A fire in 1629 destroyed large parts of the castle. Christian IV rebuilt it, but with simpler interiors. The Swedes captured Kronborg in 1658 and carried off much of its art. From the 18th century until 1922 the castle was a barracks. It was then restored and opened as a museum. Kronborg became a World Heritage Site in 2000. Shakespeare’s Hamlet has made it one of the most famous castles in the world, and the play has been performed in the courtyard since 1816.