Day 3: That's it for castles

Mondays just about everything museum-like shuts in Copenhagen, so I went out of town to Frederiksborg and Kronborg (better known as Elsinore, of Hamlet fame) castles. The day started auspiciously when I caught the correct train and arrived in the correct town, walked down the correct road and arrived in plenty of time before opening and had a quick wander in the baroque garden across the lake from Frederiksborg.

The castle, surprise, surprise, was mostly a rebuild of an earlier one after a major fire. The Carlsberg beer baron paid for most of it apparently and it was set up as a national museum. The rooms are pretty ornately decorated and there are many portraits of royalty, nobility and other notable persons from Danish history. There was also an exhibition of a portrait prize to liven things up. The great hall had a display of the queen's clothes: she is rather more out there than the English queen. The room that stood out was a dark tower room. You had to manually turn on dim lighting to reveal a large collection of miniatures. It was rather poignant since miniatures are generally keepsakes. They often had smiles or slightly quirky looks to them. A representation in delicate brushstrokes of dozens of lives long over.

Frederiksborg from the baroque garden

 

 

Proof I'm actually here

The Danes weren't always minimalist

The little ferry

Had Danish open sandwiches for lunch after taking the little ferry around the lake. They were delicious - slice of rye bread with a creamy salad topping on ham and another on egg with prawns. They are justly famous and much tastier than my soup of the day lunch a day or so ago that was twice the price. The venue was a bit different. Was given my meal and told to go two doors down. In an eccentrically decorated store, an old man sat eating his lunch. I took a table, ate and then delivered my plates back to the sandwich counter.

The separate cafe eating room

I am not a natural orienteerer. I had a short time to get to the station and overshot it, to the point where I only just made the next train for Helsingor a half hour later after making a complete circuit of the station. Thank you Google Maps - I'd be wandering still without you. The station isn't very well signposted and there was no indication of which platform, but I found it in time to get on. It went through some lovely countryside - forests and rolling fields. The train line has no fence which removes, as it were, the barrier between you and the view. As I noted the time getting up to 25 minutes, the time I knew it took to arrive, Helsingor didn't come up in the announcement. I checked my guide and realised I was on the scenic route which ended up taking over twice as long. However, it was a very pleasant tour of North Zealand, I had plenty of time and I was quite glad to be off my feet for a while.

If I had to choose, I'd pick Frederiksborg over Kronborg, though Kronborg is a REAL castle that has seen fighting and is dramatically placed on the Sound. I went through the subterranean vaults where soldiers could be quartered when needed. It was cold, dark and dank and a bit eery. The chapel, built around 1585, was the bit that survived the (inevitable) fire in the early 17th century.

To see or not to see? I'd pick Frederiksborg over Kronborg here, but both are impressive

Bill Shakespeare has a plaque

Rather plainer than other castles, though this wasn't always the case, of course. The castle was occupied by the armed forces up till the 1920s and they still had barracks there until the nineties.

Pew decoration from the 16th century chapel

The town of Helsingor is rather historical and not overly spoilt by all the liquor shops catering to Swedes coming over on the ferry to stock up

 I got on the correct train for Copenhagen first go.