Egeskov Castle is not just a pretty façade behind a moat. It is a water castle, built for defense, but today also a visitor destination, museum and private home. That mix is what makes the place a little unusual: you move through a historical setting, where parts of the castle are opened to guests while Countess-family Ahlefeldt-Laurvig-Bille still lives here.
Outside, the experience changes character. The garden is divided into 17 garden rooms, framed by long beech hedges, and Egeskov's own garden guide describes a green route through them all. The Renaissance garden is more formal in expression with a central axis, fountains, clipped boxwood and colored gravel, while the Hågerup Stream gives some of the views of the castle a softer, more landscape-like edge.
Inside and around the castle there is plenty to alternate between if the family does not have the same patience for weapons, dresses or old rooms. The castle visit can, among other things, be combined with exhibitions about the castle ladies' clothing, hunting trophies, duel weapons, housekeeping and H.C. Andersen's paper cuttings. Egeskov's exhibition area also extends into vehicles, airplanes, motorcycles, camping life and a grocer's museum, so the day can bring picture-postcard charm, motor oil and miniature adventure all in one trip.
The castle park at Egeskov is not one garden, but layers upon layers of garden ideas spanning more than 300 years. The formal hedge systems from the 18th century are still a hallmark, while the park also contains avenues, labyrinths, and gardens with a touch of Renaissance, Baroque, and English landscape style.
There is room here for both picnics and small detours among clipped hedges, old trees, and more playful details such as the sundial with Piet Hein's labyrinth around it.
The vintage museum is Egeskov’s engine room of memories: more than 100 vehicles from the early 1900s to the beginning of the 1980s stand in the large exhibition hall.
The collection is built not only on the expensive and rare, but also on vehicles with personal histories. The hall has previously been one of the Nordic region’s largest thatched barns, so cars, aircraft, motorcycles and helicopters are set in a frame that is almost as distinctive as the machines themselves.
