hamlet's castle

We headed to Kronborg Castle (Hamlet's castle) on Saturday morning. The train station in Helsingor, the city where it's located, is literally right on the coast- it has both trains and boats- so cool! Anyway, the castle overlooks the coast too.

I should explain. Kronborg Castle is where Shakespeare set the tragedy of Hamlet. It's known as Elsinore Castle in English. But, there never was a real Prince Hamlet.

The castle is known for its famous ballroom. If you have seen Kenneth Branagh's version of Hamlet, you will recognize it! It was smaller than I expected.



I should warn you that the next two images are rather disturbing...but they were in the castle for some horrible reason.

Birds...do not belong in a pie. Or on a table. That's all I have to say about that.

Apparently the skin of ugly cherubs is a delicacy in Denmark. KIDDING...but seriously what is up with this painting? It was on the ceiling where the bird pie feast was.

As we left the castle, we were attacked by a swan!! Okay, not attacked. But it did stretch its wing out menacingly. We also recited part of the "to be or not to be" soliloquy outside the castle, just for kicks!

Since we could see it from the castle, we decided to take a trip to Sweden for lunch and quick exploration. More on that in another post!

Later on, we decided to try and find a castle, Frederiksborg. Unfortunately, it was growing dark and we basically knew nothing about it. So we arrived in the town and walked through the shopping area. It was supposed to be at the end of the area, but we were tired and didn't see it yet. We came across this pregnant lady and her husband, who offered to show us where to go. They took us back up the shopping street and all the way around to a residential area, then left us to go bowling. This was a terrifying window along the street...creeper!

It was pitch black. And, the castle wasn't lit up, to save energy. We basically walked down a creepy road not knowing if we were even seeing the castle. Finally, we reached it, took some failed pictures, and realized that we were almost where we had first been walking in the shopping area. The crazy lady had taken us 20 minutes around the castle! Here's the best picture I was able to get. It was sitting on a lake but still we couldn't see anything.

A nice lady helped us get back to our hotel by Metro when we got back in Copenhagen. We cheated the system and didn't buy a ticket...oops! ;) In some places you can get away with it. Just not Budapest, that's for sure.