x-default

Getty Images/Lonely Planet Images

Louisiana

Top choice in Zealand


This extraordinary museum of modern and contemporary art should be high on your 'to do' list even if you're not normally a gallery-goer. Along with its ever-changing, cutting-edge exhibitions, much of the thrill here is the glorious presentation. A maze-like web of halls and glass corridors weaves through rolling gardens in which magnificent trees, lawns, a lake and a beach view set off monumental abstract sculptures (Henry Moore, Jean Arp, Max Ernst, Barbara Hepworth etc), making them feel like discovered totems.

It's hard to predict exactly which pieces from the gallery's huge, stellar collection will be on display. Such is the quality and breadth that even works by Pablo Picasso and Francis Bacon stay in storage much of the time. There's a better chance of seeing pieces by Alberto Giacometti and prominent Danish artist Asger Jorn, but rotations every two months or so mean that there's always more to discover. Kids are spoilt with an entire section of their own, where they can create masterpieces inspired by the gallery's exhibitions, using everything from crayons to interactive computers. And an evening program often includes art lectures and live music (typically Fridays). Facilities include a great cafe and gift shop too.

Louisiana is in the pretty coastal town of Humlebæk, 30km north of Copenhagen. From Humlebæk train station, the museum is a 1.5km signposted walk northeast. Trains to Humlebæk run at least twice hourly from Copenhagen (92kr, 35 minutes) but if you're day-tripping, the 24-hour Copenhagen ticket (adult/child 150/75kr) is much better value. Hourly bus 388 from Helsingør stops right outside Louisiana (36kr, 17 minutes) and continues in half an hour to Rungsted, where it passes the Blixen museum.


Lonely Planet's must-see attractions

Nearby Zealand attractions

1. Danmarks Tekniske Museum

3.77 MILES

On an industrial estate southwest of Helsingør, Danmarks Tekniske Museum displays innovative technological inventions from the late 19th and early 20th…

2. Rådhus

5.31 MILES

Restored in 2015, the attractive, brick, Gothic 1852 town hall building is particularly appealing at night when light strained through the stained-glass…

3. Skibsklarerergaarden

5.34 MILES

Meaning 'Shipwreck Garden', this 1580 terraced building has a feel that has remained virtually unchanged for centuries. The ground floor 'Boutik' …

4. Sankt Olai Domkirke

5.37 MILES

The handsome, red-brick Sankt Olai Domkirke is a Gothic cathedral built in 1559 on the site of a 13th-century original. Eclectic features include a…

5. Helsingør Bymuseum

5.38 MILES

One block north of the cathedral, Helsingør Bymuseum occupies a former sailors’ hospital, built in 1516 by the monks of the adjacent monastery. It…

6. Sankt Mariæ Kirke & Karmeliterklostret

5.41 MILES

Karmeliterklostret is one of Scandinavia’s few fully preserved monastic cloisters, its arched brick arcades giving the feel of an Oxford college. The…

7. Værftsmuseet

5.51 MILES

This free museum hosts changing exhibitions that highlight the role of shipbuilding in Helsingør's 19th- and 20th-century history. Once the city's main…

8. Han

5.51 MILES

A humorous dig at the Little Mermaid, Han is a 2012 male version of that statue in a similar pose to the Copenhagen original but made in gleamingly…