Denmark

The perky Little Mermaid, unofficial patron saint of Copenhagen, casts a canny eye over her trendy and progressive offspring; the tax-free commune of Christiania; the ultra-minimalist clubs of Sebastian and Baron Boltens Gård; the risqué Museum Erotica. The pedestrian-friendly capital combines cute with cutting edge.

Beyond the long harbour, you'll find warren of streets packed with designer shops and cafés. A day at Tivoli Gardens reveals that beneath the city's demure facade, the rococo mansions and baroque churches, Copenhagen is a place where people come to enjoy themselves.

An expanse of evergreen farmland and pretty villages, provincial Denmark is a world apart from Copenhagen, and not such a far cry from the clichés of Hans Christian Andersen's fairytale world.

Jutland's chief city is Århus, a lively university town surrounded by royal parks and pebble beaches. Some 150 fine Danish beers, mostly pilsners, encourage this feeling of bonhomie.

But most of Jutland is wilder, and its lonely moors and murky forests stretch as far north as Skagen. Artists discovered these luminous sand dunes speckled with rose and heather in the 19th century. Waves lash the stormy shores, and the surreal tower of the Buried Church, jutting from the dunes, has born the brunt of the brutal collision between the Baltic and the North Sea.