I haven't travelled much through Europe yet, but Denmark seems to have more than it's fair share of Castles. Today we visited two more of them, first
Frederiksborg Slot in
Hillerød and then
Kronborg Slot in
Helsingør. We got up early and took a bus to Hillerød which is about 40 minutes north of where I am staying.
Frederiksborg was my favorite of the two castles, although part of that was that it was the first one we visited. Most of the current castle was built in the early 1600's although like everything else it had a big fire in 1859 that burned much of the interior. The castle was rebuilt, and the Museum of National History was also established. Several floors of the castle hold collections of paintings and other art. The rest of the place is full of rooms that are crazy ornate, often gaudy but always something to behold. This is one of those places where even the doors are impressive. The most famous room in the palace is the
Riddersalen, or great hall, which is indeed pretty great (pictured left here). My personal favorite was a series of paintings by an artist whose name I can't remember, but they were a series of paintings of Copenhagen including several ones of Dutch and Danish warships.
Kronborg is very impressive from the outside, with some seriously intense fortification going on. Kronborg is older than Frederiksborg (1420s) and from the outside looks more like a fortress than a royal palace. It was originally built in order to maintain control of the Øresund, which the king collected high tolls (the Øresundstolden, or Sound Dues) from any ship wanting to pass into or out of the Baltic. In 1585, Frederik II rebuilt Kronborg into the castle you see today, although much of it burned down in 1629. The castle was rebuilt, and while the exterior was fully restored the interior was not brought back to its previous splendor. The interior of the castle does not look nearly as ornate as Frederiksborg.
Still, Kronborg has its charms. Although we did not see Hamlet's ghost, we did wander around the tunnels beneath Kronborg. There is a statue of
Holger Danske (Ogier the Dane), namesake of one of our dorms, down there though. Above ground, there is a very ornate chapel, one of the few parts of the original castle to survive the fire. The royal apartments were a little bare and lacked the crazy ornateness of Frederiksborg. It really doesn't help that there are a lot of strange modern art and large toy swords and stuff hanging from the ceiling that kind of detract from the romanticism of the building. Personally I found the defensive fortifications more interesting than the Hamlet-related stuff going on inside. Sweden is only 4 km across the straight, and you can see it quite clearly with the naked eye. After an extra line of defense called the Crownwork was completed in 1690, Kronborg was considered the strongest fortification in Europe.
Afterwards we wandered around Helsingør and got dumped on. Most of the time it rains around here it's pretty light and goes away quickly, but today's rain stuck around for a while. It didn't really rain that hard but it was very windy and cold. Once the rain stopped, we walked around some more. Helsingør itself is a neat little town, although at this point most of the shops were closed. Then we hopped on the S-Train back to Copenhagen. Apparently we got into the "quiet car," and for a minute we though a fight might break out but trouble was averted and we got home without incident.
I haven't travelled much through Europe yet, but Denmark seems to have more than it's fair share of Castles. Today we visited two more of them, first Frederiksborg Slot in Hillerød and then Kronborg Slot in Helsingør. We got up early and took a bus to Hillerød which is about 40 minutes north of where I am staying.
Frederiksborg was my favorite of the two castles, although part of that was that it was the first one we visited. Most of the current castle was built in the early 1600's although like everything else it had a big fire in 1859 that burned much of the interior. The castle was rebuilt, and the Museum of National History was also established. Several floors of the castle hold collections of paintings and other art. The rest of the place is full of rooms that are crazy ornate, often gaudy but always something to behold. This is one of those places where even the doors are impressive. The most famous room in the palace is the Riddersalen, or great hall, which is indeed pretty great (pictured left here). My personal favorite was a series of paintings by an artist whose name I can't remember, but they were a series of paintings of Copenhagen including several ones of Dutch and Danish warships.
Kronborg is very impressive from the outside, with some seriously intense fortification going on. Kronborg is older than Frederiksborg (1420s) and from the outside looks more like a fortress than a royal palace. It was originally built in order to maintain control of the Øresund, which the king collected high tolls (the Øresundstolden, or Sound Dues) from any ship wanting to pass into or out of the Baltic. In 1585, Frederik II rebuilt Kronborg into the castle you see today, although much of it burned down in 1629. The castle was rebuilt, and while the exterior was fully restored the interior was not brought back to its previous splendor. The interior of the castle does not look nearly as ornate as Frederiksborg.
Still, Kronborg has its charms. Although we did not see Hamlet's ghost, we did wander around the tunnels beneath Kronborg. There is a statue of Holger Danske (Ogier the Dane), namesake of one of our dorms, down there though. Above ground, there is a very ornate chapel, one of the few parts of the original castle to survive the fire. The royal apartments were a little bare and lacked the crazy ornateness of Frederiksborg. It really doesn't help that there are a lot of strange modern art and large toy swords and stuff hanging from the ceiling that kind of detract from the romanticism of the building. Personally I found the defensive fortifications more interesting than the Hamlet-related stuff going on inside. Sweden is only 4 km across the straight, and you can see it quite clearly with the naked eye. After an extra line of defense called the Crownwork was completed in 1690, Kronborg was considered the strongest fortification in Europe.
Afterwards we wandered around Helsingør and got dumped on. Most of the time it rains around here it's pretty light and goes away quickly, but today's rain stuck around for a while. It didn't really rain that hard but it was very windy and cold. Once the rain stopped, we walked around some more. Helsingør itself is a neat little town, although at this point most of the shops were closed. Then we hopped on the S-Train back to Copenhagen. Apparently we got into the "quiet car," and for a minute we though a fight might break out but trouble was averted and we got home without incident.
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