Helsingborg is Scania’s second largest city, and here you can experience a fine maritime atmosphere and several sights and historic buildings. The city is one of the oldest in the area that is today Sweden. It was founded in Denmark in 1085 on the strategically important position opposite Danish Elsinore at the narrowest point of the Øresund strait. This position was a determining factor for the development, not least after the introduction of the Øresund toll in 1429.

The toll had to be paid by all passing ships, and it was one of the largest sources of income for the Danish king. With the Peace of Roskilde, Helsingborg became Swedish, and a massive Swedishization of the area was initiated. Another significant part of history took place in 1892, when railway ferries were introduced on the crossing to Elsinore, and passenger ferries are still an important part of the city’s identity linking it to Denmark many times each hour.

Today, the center of Helsingborg is a cozy place, where you can enjoy some lovely walks in narrow streets and among nice attractions. Stortorget is the central square in the city, and from here you can walk along, for example, the always busy Kullagatan, the city’s main shopping street. There are several well-known buildings in the area as well, including counts Helsingborg’s beautiful town hall.

The town hall was completed in 1897 after the then only 26-year-old architect Alfred Hellerström’s design contribution in a competition issued by the city government in 1889. The style is Neo-Gothic inspired with four corner towers and a 65-meter-high bell tower. The outside of the town hall is beautiful, and inside there are some fine stained-glass windows. Close to the town hall you can see St Mary’s Church/Sankta Maria Kyrka, which in its current version was built in Gothic style in the 15th century.

In the area behind the city’s town hall, you can see Kärnan, which is a tower and a former fortress, which was built with the name Kernen on the ridge Landborgen. However, it is believed that there was already a defense structure here from the Viking Age to protect the crossing between Zealand and Scania.

The current Kärnan was built in the 1310s as part of a larger complex, but the entire fortress, except for the tower, was demolished by Sweden’s King Karl XI, as Denmark had occupied the castle during the Scanian War in the years 1675-1679. After that, Kärnan fell into disrepair until 1893, when a restoration was initiated. In 1903, the large stairs and terraces in front of the tower were built, and they provide an impressive entrance to Kärnan, from which there is an excellent view of the city and the Øresund area.

You can also go for some other wonderful walks in Helsingborg, where the waterfront is worth seeing. You can, for example, take a nice promenade from the ferry terminal Knutpunkten through the area by the ferry port and to the north through the marina and to one of the city’s beaches. Along the way, you can see the Ångfärjestationen, which is a former station that was built as a temporary building in 1898. The station was located by the now historic railway ferries that sailed to and from Helsingborg.

A little north of here you can visit Dunker’s Culture House, which was inaugurated in 2002. The Culture House is a venue for various art, music, theater etc., and it was designed by Danish Kim Utzon and named after Henry Dunker, whose foundation donated funds for the construction. If you go further north, you can see Helsingborgs Konserthus from 1932 and Helsingborgs Stadsteater from 1976 ad other significant buildings.