Jutland — Denmark's mainland
While Copenhagen sits on the islands, Jutland stretches as a peninsula up towards Norway and the North Sea. Here you will find Denmark's second-largest city, dune landscapes, UNESCO nature and the little plastic bricks known across the whole planet. Jutland is bigger, calmer and closer to nature than the capital — and for many travellers, precisely for that reason, more genuine.
Aarhus — the young metropolis
Aarhus is the capital of Jutland and a university city with a young, creative pulse. Its landmark is the art museum ARoS, a red-brick cube that opened in 2004. On its roof floats Your Rainbow Panorama, a circular walkway of coloured glass created by the Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson and inaugurated in 2011. As you walk the 150-metre ring, the city changes colour around you from red to violet — an experience no one forgets.
In the heart of the city lies Den Gamle By (the Old Town), an extraordinary open-air museum where more than 75 historic half-timbered houses have been relocated from all over Denmark and rebuilt into a living town. You can step into an 1800s bakery, a clockmaker's workshop and an entire quarter that recreates the year 1974. Actors in period dress bring the streets to life.
South of the city stands Moesgaard Museum, an archaeological masterpiece with a grass-covered sloping roof you can walk up. Its greatest treasure is the Grauballe Man — a 2,300-year-old bog body so well preserved that you can still make out his facial features and fingerprints. Found in a Jutland bog in 1952, he is one of the best-preserved bog bodies in the world.
The city's soul is the Latin Quarter, the oldest part of Aarhus, with cobbled lanes, tiny cafés, design shops and wine bars. This is where you feel the town's relaxed, cosy atmosphere most strongly.
Legoland Billund — where the toy was born
In the small town of Billund lies Legoland, opened in 1968 next to the factory where the LEGO brick was invented in 1932 by the carpenter Ole Kirk Christiansen. The name comes from the Danish words leg godt — "play well". The park's heart is Miniland, where millions of bricks recreate the world's cities in miniature. Legoland is Denmark's most visited attraction outside Copenhagen and a must for families.
The Wadden Sea — UNESCO nature of world class
Along Jutland's west coast lies the Wadden Sea, inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2014. It is the world's largest unbroken system of tidal flats, where the sea withdraws twice a day and lays bare kilometres of glistening seabed. Millions of migratory birds stop here to rest.
The most magical spectacle is the sort sol ("black sun"): in spring and autumn up to a million starlings gather in vast flocks at sunset and dance across the sky in shifting, living patterns before settling for the night. No film does it justice — it must be witnessed in person.
Ribe — Denmark's oldest town
Not far from the Wadden Sea lies Ribe, founded around the year 700 and thus the oldest town in Denmark — and in Scandinavia. Its cobbled streets wind between crooked half-timbered houses, and above it all towers the cathedral from the 12th century. Every evening in the summer half of the year, the town's night watchman makes his round through the streets with lantern and song, a tradition reaching back centuries. Ribe feels like a living museum where the Middle Ages and the Viking Age can still be sensed.
Coasts, dunes and beaches
Jutland's west coast is one long beach facing the North Sea. At Blokhus and Løkken you have long been able to drive right down onto the broad, firm sand, and fishermen once hauled their cutters up onto the beach. Further east lies Djursland, a lush peninsula of hills, manor houses, Denmark's largest safari park and charming coastal towns such as Ebeltoft with its old town hall.
Jutland rewards those who take their time: the wide horizons, the sea and the ancient towns tell a different story of Denmark than the big city — slower, larger and every bit as beautiful.