Encounter with the Prince of Denmark

This has been an adventurous and fun day involving three trains, two castles, and much walking. In fact the whole weekend has involved much walking, as city breaks often do, with more than 20,000 steps each day according to my Fitbit. Anyway, today we decided to leave Copenhagen to visit the towns of Helsingor and Hillerød. 

First we caught a train to Helsingør, a pretty little medieval town on the coast to the north of Copenhagen - it was about 40 minutes by train. Our main reason for going there was to see Kronborg Castle, which is famous for being Hamlet's Castle - Helsingør is known as Elsinore in the play. Its setting is beautiful, right beside the sea on the northeastern tip of Zealand where the Sound between Denmark and Sweden is only 4 km wide. This was lucrative for the Danes because they charged ships a tax to pass into the Baltic Sea which was a nice little earner for them until it stopped in the 19th century. 

When we entered the castle we found out that as part of the commemorations for the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death, a troupe of actors were performing scenes from Hamlet all around the castle. What luck! It was great fun; the actors were really good and we watched several scenes. Hamlet was very handsome and suitably sulky; Uncle Claudius was very handsome too. It was an amazing experience to listen to the beautiful language of Shakespeare in the castle courtyard. Apparently there is a tradition going back 200 years of Hamlet being staged in Kronborg Castle - as well as various Danish actors, Hamlet has been played there by Laurence Olivier, Richard Burton, Derek Jacobi, Kenneth Branagh, and recently Jude Law. 

We had lunch sitting bathed in warm sunshine outside a picturesque restaurant just beside the castle walls. Again we had delicious Danish open sandwiches.

Then we headed back to the station but instead of going straight back to Copenhagen we jumped on a train to Hillerød which is half an hour inland. Hillerød is famous for its large and lovely castle, Frederiksborg, which now houses the National Museum. But the weather was too good to spend time indoors, so instead we walked around the lake to the castle and then spent time exploring the extensive gardens, both formal and informal. It was so pleasant, and when we arrived back at our starting point we had a coffee outside a very friendly café overlooking the lake, with views of the castle beyond. Back at the station we only had ten minutes to wait for the train back to Copenhagen (I must say that I'm very impressed with the Danish train system!)

What to do on our last evening in Copenhagen? Back to the Tivoli Gardens of course! A gentle stroll took us to Faergekroen Bryghus which was beside a little lake all lit with fairy lights.