Grand Day Trip, Denmark
I had researched getting around the four attractions of this tour independently, however it wouldn’t have been possible to visit them all in one day so I booked myself on a day trip on a small bus tour through Trip Advisor. The first stop was Roskilde Cathedral which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and is situated only 30 minutes west of Copenhagen. It dates back 1000 years and 40 of the country’s kings and queens are buried in the church in ornate coffins, vaults and crypts. The cathedral was built by King Harald Bluetooth who united Denmark and Norway’s warring tribes. I wonder what he would think about his name being used a millennium later for a wireless technology? We were fortunate enough to hear an organist playing the most beautiful piece of music I’ve ever heard while visiting, but unfortunately you can’t use Shazam for live music so I have no idea what it was called.
We then travelled a short distance to visit the Viking Ship Museum. The main attractions there are five original viking ships that were scuttled in the waterway of Peberrenden at Skuldekev around 1000AD, discovered many centuries later and excavated over 4 months in 1962. They were studied and reconstructed over many years and the museum was built specifically to house them. Some of the Viking culture and history detailed in the exhibits was horrifying, in particular the specific details of a young slave’s demise when she ‘volunteered’ to accompany a Chieftain to Valhalla after he had died. A bit like Katniss Everdeen ‘volunteering’ to be tribute in the Hunger Games, I would imagine.
I was happy to continue north on our way to Frederiksborg Castle, which was built by King Christian IV in the Renaissance style and today houses the Museum of Natural History. It is situated at Hillerød and dates back to the 17th century. The art, castle and grounds are absolutely spectacular.
The last stop of the day was Kronborg Castle at Helsingør which overlooks the Øresund, the strait that separates Denmark and Sweden. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site that dates back to 1574 and is also known as Elsinore, the setting of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. It’s interesting to note that he never stepped foot in Denmark. Unfortunately, it absolutely poured with rain shortly after our arrival so I didn’t manage to explore the gardens at all, and because we had stayed too long at the other attractions our time was cut short. What I did see looked stunning however so I was disappointed that I couldn’t properly explore. If I were to return here I think I would allocate a half day to visit. A really cool highlight was watching the last 15 minutes of Hamlet being performed in one of the castle’s ballrooms.
