Thursday, August 24, 2006
Goodbye Denmark, Hello Sweden
We spent our last hours (and Danish Krones) in Denmark today. It was a bit of a mop up mission. Yesterday got called on a count of weather. The plan yesterday was to see some various sites around Copenhagen. We managed to get to Roskilde, the site of a nice little town, cathedral, and interesting Viking museum. Then, it was on to Hillerød, which boasts Denmark's nicest castle called Fredriksborg Slot (slot means castle). But, as we toured the amazing castle, it started to rain. Rain hard. Like, really really hard. It kept raining, and raining, and raining. Eventually, we had to walk back to the train station. However, we were only in the rain for a few minutes before we were soaked. Ugh. After that, we decided to cut the tour short and head back to the hotel room for change into dry cloths.
So, today we set out to finish our trip from yesterday. However, we had to check out of our hotel and move our luggage to a train station in southern Sweden called Malmö. This is the train station that we will depart today (overnight train) to Stockholm. They have giant lockers in the train station that both of our big packs would fit into. Then, we got on a train that was headed back to Denmark and up north to a Helsingør.
Helsingør is famous for a certain castle called Kronborg. Big deal? Well, the English call this castle Elsinore as in the castle in Shakespeare's play Hamlet. Although the guide books are quick to point out that Shakespeare never visited this castle, and the (barely) historic Hamlet died several centuries before this castle was built, the local tourism board still plays up the connection and has many plaques and banners with Hamlet references. That's especially important on the interior, which is sparsly furnished (compared to the more impressive Fredricksborg castle from yesterday). But, we still enjoyed the tour and took many pictures (mostly of the exterior). Then, we took a ferry across the stait to Helsingborg, Sweden.
Helsingborg is a bit larger than Helsingør. However, it's castle was trashed by the Danes several wars ago and all that is left is a single tower. Despite this, Helsingborg has a very nice old town with winding coblestoned streets. We spent an hour or so here before hopping a train down to a college town called Lund.
Lund was very nice. It has a huge grey cathedral with beautiful twin towers. But, the highlight of Lund was it's open air museum (our third). More like Århus' than Oslo's, the museum featured a cluster of 3-400yr old open-timbered old houses, most of which were open for us to go into. Lots more pictures here.
Then, it was back to Malmö. Malmö's castle was closed by the time we got to town, but there is this huge music festival going on. The streets around the main town square are packed with people and we could hardly walk threw it. We finally found a cafe on the pedestrian only street that had an opened table. We had a very nice meal and I had a local beer (pilsner, but still flavorful). Ahh.
That's it for now. Tomorrow, we'll be in Stockholm.
So, today we set out to finish our trip from yesterday. However, we had to check out of our hotel and move our luggage to a train station in southern Sweden called Malmö. This is the train station that we will depart today (overnight train) to Stockholm. They have giant lockers in the train station that both of our big packs would fit into. Then, we got on a train that was headed back to Denmark and up north to a Helsingør.
Helsingør is famous for a certain castle called Kronborg. Big deal? Well, the English call this castle Elsinore as in the castle in Shakespeare's play Hamlet. Although the guide books are quick to point out that Shakespeare never visited this castle, and the (barely) historic Hamlet died several centuries before this castle was built, the local tourism board still plays up the connection and has many plaques and banners with Hamlet references. That's especially important on the interior, which is sparsly furnished (compared to the more impressive Fredricksborg castle from yesterday). But, we still enjoyed the tour and took many pictures (mostly of the exterior). Then, we took a ferry across the stait to Helsingborg, Sweden.
Helsingborg is a bit larger than Helsingør. However, it's castle was trashed by the Danes several wars ago and all that is left is a single tower. Despite this, Helsingborg has a very nice old town with winding coblestoned streets. We spent an hour or so here before hopping a train down to a college town called Lund.
Lund was very nice. It has a huge grey cathedral with beautiful twin towers. But, the highlight of Lund was it's open air museum (our third). More like Århus' than Oslo's, the museum featured a cluster of 3-400yr old open-timbered old houses, most of which were open for us to go into. Lots more pictures here.
Then, it was back to Malmö. Malmö's castle was closed by the time we got to town, but there is this huge music festival going on. The streets around the main town square are packed with people and we could hardly walk threw it. We finally found a cafe on the pedestrian only street that had an opened table. We had a very nice meal and I had a local beer (pilsner, but still flavorful). Ahh.
That's it for now. Tomorrow, we'll be in Stockholm.
# posted by Greg @ 11:31 AM 
