Helsingør

Helsingør stands at the narrowest point of the Øresund, across the water from Helsingborg. A fishing settlement and St Olaf's Church existed here in the Middle Ages, but the town's great fortune came from its command of the strait. Eric of Pomerania developed Helsingør in the 1420s and built the castle of Krogen at Zealand's northeastern tip.

In 1429 Eric established the Sound Dues. Ships passing through the strait stopped at Helsingør to pay the Danish crown, bringing business and wealth to the town. Frederick II rebuilt and enlarged Krogen in the 1570s, naming the Renaissance castle Kronborg. It became the setting of Shakespeare's Hamlet under the English name Elsinore. By 1672 Helsingør had grown into Denmark's third-largest town, its fortunes bound to the traffic between the Baltic and the North Sea.