Danish Castles, Skup Palets and another Danish Staple

Day 42 - July 5^th 

  

Despite getting a number of bike rides in, Claire and I had been feeling a bit unfit so decided to throw a few weekly runs in to keep the Bratwurst and Danish pastries from doing too much damage.

The morning was therefore spent jogging through the marina, down the coastal path and back up through the park. It is actually a great way to start the day and motivation to get out of bed a little earlier than normal. 

After the run and breakfast, we hit the road as the day was planned to be a castle-visiting day. Our first stop was at the very imposing Frederiksborg Slot (Castle). 

The castle itself was Dutch Renaissance and history has it that it fell into a bit of disrepair in the 19^th century. Luckily, the Carlsberg brewery owner (Mr Jacobson) decided to purchase it and do a little renovation, building it back to its former glory. 

Now we’ve been to a few castles in our time in Europe, so it takes a little to be impressed, but this one certainly lived up to the mark. What was really great was the artwork and furniture inside and how close you could get to them without being ushered away by security. 

The Ballroom.

Fredriksborg Castle and Gardens.

In front of the castle fountains before heading inside for a while.

Having a cup of coffee outside the castle.

Of particular note were the grand ball room and church, which had wall to wall of these tiny plaques/coat of arms showing who had visited the castle – with Nelson Mandela being one of them.

Astronomical Clock. The Danish bloke that built this refuted
Copernicus theory that the Earth revolved around the sun.
That's why I can't remember his name.

It was quite common for 5 year olds to carry
weapons and top hats in those days.

The next castle wasn’t really a castle but classified more as a Summer Palace and it is where Prince Frederik and Australian Mary Donaldson tied the knot. The palace is only open in July, so we decided to go have a look and see how it stacked up against our reception venue. 

Although very large in size, the palace lacked any real warmth and to be honest was quite boring. I can only hope Mary was happy with it, as going by the admission price it would have cost a bomb! 

Our next castle was a short drive up the road to a town called Helsingor. Better known as Kronborg Castle it features in Shakespeare’ Hamlet as Elsinore Castle. For some reason I had always had a vision of the castle being perched on a huge hill and being fairly rundown and gothic in design – like something out of Highlander. 

Fredensborg Slot - where Frederik and Mary had their wedding reception. 

What we got though was a very well fortified and built castle that was actually used as a medieval tollbooth to collect funds from ships entering and leaving through the Oresund headland. I’m not sure what would actually happen if you tried to leave the Oresund straight without paying, but given the dozen cannons pointing out towards the sea (and Sweden), I’m assuming you would get smoked.

Kronborg Castle from Hamlet.

Kronborg Castle and Skup Palet.

After a very long day of visiting castles, we headed down the west coast of Zealand to a town called Hornbaek, which had received very good reviews for it’s beaches and small touristy towns.

The drive along the coast was great as you could see all manner of ships moving up and down the straight and a clear view of Sweden on the other side, which was only 4km away. 

We passed through a number of towns before Hornbaek, noting some possible wild camping spots but continued on to see if there was anything decent in our destination of choice. About 3km out of town, we started passing parking lots, which were directly on the coast. Unfortunately, these parking areas came with ‘No Camping’ signs so we continued into town to see if there was anything available. 

As it was a warm, sunny day the town was busy with tourists and many possible places were full up. After a bit of consternation, we decided to head back to the coastal lots we had seen earlier and ignore the signs as it was getting late in the day. To be honest, I think the Danes don’t really mind you camping in their ‘No Camping’ areas as long as you don’t make yourself too comfortable by lashing out the camp chairs, table and BBQ.

So after about a minute of procrastination, we setup camp for the night with a beautiful seaside view. 

You can't get this type of view from a hotel room can you?

After dinner that evening we took a ride into the town center and treat ourselves to what I believe is the Danishes most loved food – ice cream. I’ll go into this in a bit more detail later on, along with a few other Danish idiosyncrasies we’ve noted along the way.

A Danish staple - Icecream on the beach with our own palm tree.