Dyrehaven Deer Park

Jaegersborg Dyrehave, known to everyone simply as Dyrehaven, the Deer Park, is the great escape of Copenhageners and one of the most beautiful places in Denmark. It covers about eleven square kilometres of ancient oak and beech woodland and wide grassy plains just north of the city at Klampenborg, and it has been left largely untouched for around three and a half centuries. King Frederik III enclosed the area as a royal deer park in 1669, his successors laid it out for par force hunting, the baroque form of hunting on horseback with hounds, with straight rides cut through the forest in a star pattern, and in 2015 the park became part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site of the Par Force Hunting Landscape in North Zealand. What makes it unforgettable is the deer. Around 2,100 of them live here, roughly 1,700 fallow deer, 300 red deer and 100 sika deer, and they roam freely across the plains and among the trees, so you are almost certain to see herds grazing within a few minutes' walk of the gate. At the centre of the park, on a rise in the open plain, stands the Eremitage, the Hermitage, a white Baroque hunting lodge built for Christian VI in the 1730s, where the royal family still holds hunting lunches; it is not open to the public, but the walk to it, across the plain with views to the sea, is the classic Dyrehaven outing. The park is free and open at all times, and it is crisscrossed with gravel paths and forest tracks, ideal for walking, running and cycling. Old oaks, some several centuries old, are left to fall and decay naturally, making the woodland feel wild and timeless. At the southern edge, a few minutes from Klampenborg station, lies Dyrehavsbakken, or Bakken, which claims to be the oldest operating amusement park in the world. It grew up around a spring discovered in 1583 by Kirsten Piil, which drew pilgrims, and then entertainers and traders, to the forest. Entry to Bakken is free, and you pay per ride; its main season runs from late March to the end of August, and in 2026 Christmas at Bakken opens on weekends from 21 November to 20 December, with a Christmas market, lights and shows. Klampenborg is about twenty minutes from Copenhagen Central Station by S-train.

The deer are wild and should be treated with respect. Keep a distance of several metres, never feed them, and keep dogs on a lead, as the rules require. In autumn, roughly September and October, the red and fallow deer are in rut, when the stags roar and clash over the plains at dawn and dusk; it is a spectacular sight, and many Copenhageners come out especially to watch, but give the males a wide berth at this time. In early summer, fawns hide in the long grass, and you should leave them alone even if they seem abandoned. The light is best early and late in the day, when the deer are most active and the mist lies on the plains in autumn.

How to visit well: take the S-train to Klampenborg and enter through the Klampenborg gate, opposite the station, the park's most popular entrance. Walk past Bakken and up onto the plain to the Eremitage, about half an hour's walk, then choose a longer loop through the woods. Rent a bike in the city and take it on the train if you want to cover more ground, as the park is large. Several historic restaurants in and around the park serve traditional Danish food, including Peter Liep's House, named after the park's first royal huntsman, and Fortunen, a former ranger's house on the old royal road. Bring good shoes in wet weather, as the forest paths can be muddy.

Klampenborg itself rewards a longer stay. Bellevue Beach, by the station, is one of the most popular beaches near Copenhagen, and the area around it was designed in the 1930s by Arne Jacobsen, with his white Bellevue Theatre and housing, and his famous petrol station a short way south along the coast road at Skovshoved, a must for design lovers. In summer, combine a morning in the deer park with an afternoon on the beach; in autumn and winter, the park is quieter, the deer easier to watch and a hot drink in one of the old inns a perfect end to a walk. Bakken in its season is a cheerful, unpretentious contrast to Tivoli, with a famous wooden roller coaster from 1932 and Pjerrot, its clown, entertaining children.