Advertisement
Published: July 28th 2013
Helsingore
Outside Kronborg, "Hamlet's Castle"This morning we mosied out to Helsingor (Elsinore) to visit Kronburg - Hamlet's castle! It was pretty cool. A large part of the castle was open to visitors, including the chapel, the various apartments, and ... The dungeon. Three guesses as to what was my favourite part?
The castle was strategically located at the entrance to a sound, across the water is Sweden, and at various points in history, both sides of the entrance were Danish-controlled, and the Danish charged a toll for ships to enter into the sound to continue their journey. The fee was finally abolished in 1857. Personally, I think they should bring it back.
The afternoon was a trip out to Roskilde to visit the Viking Ship museum, but more importantly, to get on a reproduction Viking ship and head out into the fjord. The museum was pretty cool. They had some old ships that they had pulled from various wrecks, and in addition to artefacts, they also had workshops where you could learn about the various crafts required to get a ship going and sea-worthy - everything from weaving sails to rope making to carpentry. Again, I could easily have spent several more hours
Roskilde
Making a reproduction Viking ship there.
And then we got on the boat, a reproduction of a small Norwegian trading vessel. First, let me say that the life jackets they had were amazing. They were apparently self-inflating, and were tiny. You could actually move in those things. Which was good, because we actually had to row against the wind to get out of the harbour and into the fjord. About 20 minutes in, however, we hoisted the sail, and let the wind take us from there.
We were able to look around at the houses on the shore (for rich people, of course), the mental hospital on the shore (leave it to a socialist country to have the mental hospital with some of the nicest views in the city - apparently many of the first patients were victims of PTSD due to the shelling incurred in one of the wars). We soon spotted tons of jellyfish in the water and out guide, Johannes, pointed out that they weren't the stinging kinda so we were pretty soon scooping them out of the water. So, yes, I have held a jellyfish, and yes, they are just as slimy as you might imagine.
It turns out that these reproduction ships are a bit of trial and error - they found the wrecks of the wooden bits - hulls, etc. but none of the rigging survived, so they have had to experiment to figure out the best consistencies of sails, the best historic waterproofing methods, the best shapes for sails, etc. and it turns out that these vary regionally. In the Faroe Islands, for example, there tend to be a lot of down drafts, so a trapezoid sail, narrow at the top and wide on the bottom, is the best bet there to prevent the boat from capsizing. Similarly, learning to sail the boats has been trial and error - it turns out that to navigate large waves and stormy weather, you need to drop the sail as you hit the bottom of a wave, and bring it back up again as you crest in order to keep traveling and prevent capsizing. All in all, a really cool, really relaxing afternoon, out on the water in the sunshine.
A bunch of us went out for dinner in a small square near the hostel, to an Italian restaurant. We wanted to find a spot to sit together outside in the square, but with 13 people and a ton of busy restaurants, we figured we would likely have to wait a while. We asked at one restaurant if they would be able to seat us in a while. The staff kind of looked at one another and said "five minutes". Sure enough, they start hauling tables out of their restaurant into the square for us. Some of the best service we've had since we've gotten to Europe!
Finished the evening with karaoke at the hostel bar. A lot of fun. Have to admit I spent much of the evening ogling a very attractive (British? I think... Just going by the snippets of conversation I could hear) guy from across the bar, but the ogling was mutual, so... The downside of choir tour, I suppose, is that there was no real point in chatting. I guess my only regret on this tour is that I didn't take more time at the end to travel on my own again. Both because of the very attractive man and a because I've decided that Copenhagen and Scandinavia in general would be well worth exploring. I think I have my next vacation idea.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.116s; Tpl: 0.024s; cc: 7; qc: 48; dbt: 0.0753s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 2;
; mem: 1.1mb
