After a typical European breakfast in the sunshine (don't a lot of our days start like that?) Peter took us three and Maria, his oldest on a tour of the area. In the village Hillerød that they live in, is on of Denmark's biggest tourist attractions, Frederiksborg Palace. We did not do any tours, most of the time it does not turn into fun when children are involved. We did a long walk along the buildings, through the gardens and the woods. The kids had bikes, lucky them.
The palace was named after Frederik II, who built the oldest parts of the castle in the 16th century. Most of the palace was built for King Christian IV. It is the largest Renaissance palace in all of Scandinavia and houses the Museum of National History. It is built in the middle of a lake and there are lakes, canals, fountains and water features everywhere. It has a very beautiful baroque garden and a lot of gardeners who tend to it, I saw at least 7 people working in just that part of the grounds.
If I would live in that area, I would come to walk and bike, picnic and enjoy the garden a lot.
Just a few kilometers away is Fredensborg, a completely different castle, but very nice in its own right. It is less fancy and the charme lies in the bright and quaint cheerfulness. Built as a French inspired baroque pleasure palace for Frederik IV in the early 18th century and of all the Royal Family's residences, it is used the most by the family as well as for important state visits.
We only stopped shortly, I took a short walk and some pictures while the others enjoyed some icecream.
Off we were to Helsingør, the town on the northeast corner of Zealand, right on the
Øresund. The Øresund is one of the three Danish Straits that connects the Baltic Sea with the Atlantic Ocean. It is a very narrow straight and a busy waterway. Kronborg Castle in Helsingør shows off all its cannons pointing to the water, because ships had a to pay a sound due to pass or else.
I like this castle with the big courtyard inside it and the huge fortifications. Strange though, I remember it so differently from when I visited 24 years ago. It started as a fortress in 1420s and was built up to a Renaissance castle by Frederik II in 1585, then there were fires, Swedish conquests and other interesting bits of history, a truely remarkable place.
It is so beautiful right on the water, Sweden is so close, you think you could reach out and touch it. Actually, my cell phone registered with a Swedish tower and my European phone calls became cheaper - I just didn't have anybody to call.
Kronborg Castle and Helsingør (in English Elsinore) are also famous because it is the castle in Shakespeare's Hamlet. Sometimes the play gets performed in the castle - that would be wonderful to attend, unless it would be in Danish, which I don't understand except for a word here or there. The children were as usual less impressed with the architecture of this fantastic castle, they were happy to get their feet wet and look for seaglass. They did find seaglass and no Ophelia floating about, that would have been a strange turn of events.
We drove along the Øresund to Humlebaek for some pizza which was as bad as expensive (tourist trap - kachink), but we needed sustenance for our next part of the trip, Museum Louisiana!
If that had been me I would have had to plan my trip around a performance. I'd read along in English! Wishing I was there right now!
ReplyDeleteChris S.