Voergaard Castle

Voergaard was built in the sixteenth century on the site of a bishop's manor, a moated brick castle with a Renaissance facade of sandstone and a wing added later, and it is best known for two things. The first is a violent local reputation attached to Ingeborg Skeel, the sixteenth-century owner who completed the building and around whom a set of grim stories accumulated. The second is the collection: the last private owner, a Danish count who had lived in France, filled the castle with furniture, porcelain and paintings, including works attributed to Raphael, Rubens, Goya and Fragonard, along with furniture said to have belonged to Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, shown in the rooms rather than as a gallery.

What you actually see

• A moated Renaissance castle - sandstone facade over brick, in water.
• The private art collection - paintings and furniture in the rooms.
• French royal furniture - pieces attributed to the eighteenth-century court.
• The Ingeborg Skeel stories - the castle's long-running local legend.

When to go

May to September; opening is seasonal and often afternoons only. Two to three hours. Guided tours are the usual way through the rooms. Weekends are busier.

Honest expectations

Attributions in the collection are the owner's and are not all independently established, which the visit does not dwell on. Opening hours are short and seasonal. Tours may be in Danish only. Photography inside is restricted.

Nearby

Saeby is north-east on the coast; Aalborg lies south.