It was a
long trip down to Copenhagen.
We left at 7am and after only 45 minutes on the train we had to change to
another train and then onto a bus to Gotenburg due to an accident on the line.
I finally arrived in Copenhagen
mid-afternoon and luckily managed to find the information centre across the road from the station as my
directions to the hostel seemed to assume I carry a compass and know which
direction NW is! Unfortunately it seems I really should carry a compass as I
left the information centre in the wrong direction and confidently walked the
WRONG way down the RIGHT road. After about 20 minutes I realised I was at a
river, but not the right river, and so had to walk back to where I started and
then head in the correct direction to the hostel. Sleep in Heaven is a nice enough hostel with a good-sized common
room and outdoor area where you can drink a beer from the hostel bar. The beds
are however, triple bunks, which is enough to give a short vet vertigo.
The next day I decided
to head out to Helsingor (or Elsingor) to visit Hamlet’s castle and used the
first of my Inter-rail travel days for the hour long train trip. I’d bought a 10 travel day pass, which allows you 10 days of train travel within 20 days (continuous) for my travel through Scandanavia as the long distance train
trips are especially expensive – you really just need to travel from Oslo to
Bergen twice and throw in a couple more long distance trips and you’ve already
made back your money. The only downside is that there is a time limit so you
need to be stricter in your itinerary. As I’d already had to book my hostels
ahead of time keeping to a schedule wasn’t a problem and it gave me a few extra
days to travel around the local areas.
Helsingor
is a pretty coastal town in North Zealand overlooking the channel between Denmark & Sweden,
and the castle was built when they extracted taxes for the use of the passage
(I think Spain was in charge
of the Suez Canal). Eventually the Americans
refused to pay and they ended up doing away with the taxes after the rest of
the countries involved paid some sort of fee. I learnt that Hamlet was
actually based on a historical story of the Royal physician ruling in place of
the “insane” king whose wife he turned into his mistress, having a child with
her before the nobles grew jealous of his power and had him executed for
adultery. The best part of the castle are the ‘casements’ or basement, which
was used as a shelter under barrages. It was poorly lit with wall-mounted
candles while some rooms were left dark and I used my camera flash to illuminate
them, until I freaked myself out imagining how that is exactly when the
monsters in a horror movies emerge! I had lunch on the beach overlooking Sweden and
watched some guys fishing unsuccessfully from the shore. I didn’t spend much
time in town as it was mostly restaurants and tourist shops, and instead headed back to
Copenhagen
where I made the most of the beautiful evening exploring the town. I walked
past the town hall where some random American Indian performers were playing
drums and pan pipes (in Copenhagen?)
and down the main shopping street, Stroget, which used to be the longest
pedestrian street, towards Gammeltorve (Old Square) and Nytorv (New Square)
where I checked out an amazing photo display documenting “Europe’s Wilderness”.
I then walked past the “round tower” which I chose not to climb, and through
the King’s Gardens past Rosenborg Castle (the “fairytale castle”) and up
through the pentagon-shaped island that contains the Kastellet (Citadel) and
windmill to the coast where I checked out the “Little Mermaid” statue, along
with about 200 other people. Not really sure what the fascination is as I’ve
seen much better statues in town – must be down to H.C. Anderson’s fairytales. I
preferred the “Gefion Fountain” based on Norse mythology – apparently
Gefion ploughed through the waters of the ocean using her sons as oxen in order
to create Zealand, unfortunately killing them in the process. Nice one mum.
After a
late-ish start I walked into the CBD and decided to visit Tivoli Park,
as it’s one of the oldest amusement parks in the world. In the end it is just
another amusement park and not really worth the money unless you have kids with
you or want to go on the rides. I walked down to Nyhavn (New Harbour)
to check out the old houses on the waterfront, one of which H.C. Anderson used
to live in. I followed the waterfront past the “Playhouse” restaurant to Ophelia Beach, which is essentially just a big
sandpit on the wharf. Ugly, but good for a game of beach football. I decided to
get inside before the rain hit and spent a good couple of hours in the National Museum.
The following day I spent the
morning walking through Faelledparken before visiting the ruins of Christianborg Palace where I enjoyed checking out the
ruins of Absalon’s Castle and the further 2-3 castles/palaces that were built
over it. The history of the two fires and the loss of the palaces were
interesting. After a lovely couscous salad lunch while watching a great little
jazz band perform in the square, I headed over to the National Museum
where I spent the next 2.5 hours until closing time learning about Danish
history and seeing a lot of Viking treasure – the gold room was amazing. The
Ethnographic section with all the different cultures of the world was great,
and I really liked the ‘music room’ where they played music from all around the
world. After it shut at 5pm I was tempted to head home but decided I needed to
check out the “Our Saviour’s Church” on Christianshavn Island, which apparently
inspired Jules Verne to put it into “Journey to the Centre of the Earth” after
he climbed the spire. Unfortunately it was closed so I couldn’t climb it, but
the spire was pretty impressive. The neighbourhood however, seemed a little
dodgy, so I headed back to the hostel via the Stadsgraven Lake.
