9 Best Sights in Aalborg, Jutland

The Aalborg Historical Museum contains the well-preserved underground ruins of a medieval Franciscan friary, including a walled cellar and the foundations of the chapel. Enter via the elevator outside the Salling department store. Another favorite attraction is the Renaissance chamber Aalborgstuen, which features furniture and glassware from the 16th and 17th centuries.

Aalborg Maritime Museum includes a visit aboard the submarine Springeren or the torpedo boat Søbjørnen, and a look at Queen Margrethe's Prinsesse-jollen, a dinghy she learned to sail when she was still a crown princess. All the exhibits depict what life is like at sea, in the port of Aalborg, and at the shipyard.

The baroque Cathedral Church of St. Botolph is dedicated to the Anglo-Saxon patron saint for seafarers. The stone church, which stands on the site of an older wooden church built in the year 1000, has been rebuilt several times in its 800-year history. The church is a fascinating juxtaposition of austerity and splendidly ornate woodwork, paintings, and gilded statuary, including a quadruple clock face installed in the church tower from which eight gilded cocks crow the hour. By turns Protestant and Catholic, this Reformation- era church bears the marks of the religious turmoil that plagued the region.

Next to Budolfi Kirke, the 15th-century Monastery of the Holy Ghost is one of Denmark's best-preserved monasteries and the only one that admitted both nuns and monks. The building was erected in several stages in the 15th and 16th centuries, and the duty of the first nuns and monks to live there was to look after the sick and aged. Coincidentally, the building is now a home for the elderly. During World War II, the monastery was the meeting place of the Churchill Club, a group of Aalborg schoolboys who earned world fame for their clever sabotage of the Nazis—their schemes were implemented even after the enemy locked them up.

The favorite local landmark is the magnificent 17th-century Jens Bang's Stone House, built in 1624 by the wealthiest merchant in town. It was rumored that because he was never made a town council member, the cantankerous Bang avenged himself by caricaturing his political enemies in gargoyles all over the building and adding his own face with its tongue sticking out in the direction of town hall. The five-story Renaissance building has been the home of Aalborg's oldest pharmacy for 350 years. Note that the Aalborg tourist office is directly across the street.

In the center of the old town is a narrow cobbled street named, as the story goes, for an aristocratic maiden accused of being a witch, then beheaded. Now its fame as nightlife central is second only to that of Copenhagen's Strøget. Despite the flashing neon and booming music of about 30 bars, nightclubs, and restaurants, the street attracts a steady stream of visitors and appeals to all ages.

The imposing marble-and-glass structure of the North Jutland Museum of Modern Art was designed by architects Alvar and Elissa Aalto with Jacques Baruël. The architects skillfully laid out the interior to allow the natural Nordic light to flood the spaces, and a series of interior grids and partitions permit curators to tailor the space according to each exhibition, many of which are drawn from the museum's acclaimed permanent collection of 20th-century Danish and international art. The extensive grounds contain a manicured sculpture park and an amphitheater that hosts concerts and other performances. The structure, which dates to 1972, underwent a total renovation in 2014-15.

Just north of Aalborg at Nørresundby (still considered a part of greater Aalborg) is Lindholm Høje, a Viking and Iron Age burial ground where stones placed either in the shape of a ship or in triangles denote where men were buried and oval or circular groups of stones show where women were buried. In total, there are about 682 graves dating from AD 400 to shortly before AD 1000, when the site was completely covered by sand drift, which preserved both the graves and a freshly ploughed field. At the bottom of the hill there is a museum that chronicles Viking civilization.

A protected heathland, the park was purchased with funds raised by a group of Danish-Americans and hosts the biggest Fourth of July celebrations outside the United States, a tradition that dates back to 1912 as a salute to the US for welcoming some 300,000 Danish immigrants.