Quirky Scandinavia: Private day trip from Copenhagen

Brace yourself for one of the world's most deliberately uncomfortable museum experiences at the Disgusting Foods Museums in Malmo, a temple to the foods that unite some cultures and horrify others.

What to see

• Over 80 foods from around the world selected for their capacity to provoke disgust, fascination, or both: maggot-infested cheese from Sardinia, fermented Greenlandic shark, century eggs, and insects prepared as everyday delicacies
• Thought-provoking exhibitions exploring how culture, biology, and psychology shape our sense of what is edible (and what isn't)
• The smell bar: a sensory gauntlet that presents some of the exhibition's most pungent entries without any visual context

What to do

• Dare to taste samples from the museum's most notorious entries, the adventurous are rewarded
• Reflect on how the foods we find revolting reveal more about our own culture than the cultures that love them

Take note

• Check current opening hours and book in advance: disgustingfoodmuseum.com

Stroll through one of Denmark's most perfectly preserved 18th-century villages, where cobblestone lanes, ochre-painted houses, and an unusually assertive population of free-roaming geese make for an unforgettable afternoon.

What to see

• The historic harbour and its colourful painted fishermen's cottages, largely unchanged since the 18th century and best photographed in the golden afternoon light
• The self-declared "Goose Republic", a playful local tradition in which the village geese roam freely and have been known to assert their right of way over visitors on the lanes
• Dragør Museum, housed in a former merchant's villa and dedicated to the village's seafaring and trading heritage

What to do

• Wander the narrow lanes and settle by the harbour for a coffee or picnic, the pace of life feels pleasantly distant from the capital
• Give the geese a respectful berth, they take their republic seriously

Stand on one of the planet's most significant geological boundaries, a chalk cliff where the day the dinosaurs died is literally written into the rock.

What to see

• The UNESCO World Heritage cliffs of Stevns Klint, stretching 15 kilometres along the Danish coastline, a dramatic wall of white chalk and dark flint rising directly from the sea
• The fish clay layer embedded in the cliff face: a thin dark band of iridium-rich sediment deposited exactly 66 million years ago when the asteroid impact that ended the Cretaceous period left its chemical signature in the Earth's crust
• The Cold War-era Stevnsfort fortress, built into the clifftop during the 1950s to defend against Soviet naval assault

What to do

• Walk the clifftop path for views along the dramatic coastline and down to the pale chalk walls below
• Visit the Stevns Klint Museum (Klimarium) to understand the geological and Cold War histories embedded in this remarkable site