Cute and compact, Denmark is a harmonious blend of the old and the new. Ancient castles and Viking ring forts exist side-by-side with lively cities and the sleekest modern you’ll ever see. Over a millennium ago Danish Vikings brought the country to the world’s attention when they took to the seas and ravaged half of Europe, but these days they’ve filed down their horns and forged a society that stands as s benchmark of civilization, with progressive policies, widespread tolerance and a liberal social-welfare system.

May and June or AD 900 if pillaging is your thing

Knocking back a local beer while enjoying a summer evening on Nyhavn canal Letting your hair down at northern Europe;s largest rock festival, Roskilde Festival Being charmed by the cobbled streets and well-preserved buildings of Ribe, Denmark’s oldest town Building (and destroying) your own mini-empire at Legoland Dipping a toe at Skagen, where the waters of Kattegat and clash Cycling from end of this flat landscape on the extensive bike routes Exploring a Viking ring fortress at Trelleborg

Read Miss Smilla’s Feeling for Snow by Peter Hoeg, a suspennes in Copenhagen; or for a change of pace, Kierkegaard’s philosophical works or Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tales

Listen to the pop of Aqua, dance of Junior Senior, or raw rock of D-A-D

Watch anything by Lars Con Trier, particularly The ldiots, a black comedy set in Denmark

Eat smorrebrod (the famous Danish open-faced sandwich), frikadeller (Danish meat-balls of pork mince, served with potatoes and gravy), sild (pickled herring), and of course Danish pastries, known locally as wienerbrod (literally, Vienna bread)

Drink ol (beer), or akvavit (schnapps)-but you have to swallow it in one swing

Det var hyggeligt! (that was cosy!)

Butter cookies; brightly coloured plastic bricks; progressiveness; ‘The Little Mermaid’; Bang and Olufsen stereos; Royal Copenhagen plates and Georg Jensen jewellery; Arne Jacobsen’s egg chair

Denmark has virtually no downhill skiing because its highest ‘mountain’ is 147m; not Danes are blond and blue-eyed

Perhaps nothing captures the Danish perspective more than the concept of hygge which, roughly translated, means cosy and snug. Lt implies shutting out the turmoil and troubles of the outside world and striving instead for a warm, intimate mood. Hygge affects how Danes approach many of their personal lives, from the design of their homes to their fondness for small cafes and pubs. There’s no greater compliment that a Dane can give their host than to thank them for a cosy evening.