Helsingør

I love this sign. There are a few of these on the sidewalk leading up to Kronborg Castle.
Once a month the trains and busses are free in and around Copenhagen and so Matthew and I decided to take a trip North of Copenhagen to a little town called Helsingør. This castle is the setting for Shakespeare's play Hamlet.
I took a trip up there in March when my friends Laura and Kiana came to visit, and Matthew has been there years ago, but it was the first time for us going together. More than that, it was just a fun place to go on the free train! I packed up some picnic food and put on the kids' snow suits and we went to catch the bus to the train. It only took about 45 minutes - an hour to get there with switching trains once. The castle is so beautiful. I am not a great picture taker, I wish I was, and I know that my scenery shots are especially lacking, so for some good pictures of the castle and tons of information about the history of it, which is very interesting, you can go here.


View from the street as you are walking around the castle to enter.


Once you enter the courtyard of the castle you come upon a moat which you can see in the background there. We enter this magnificent area and just wander around and are amazed by how cool it is. Olivia found a few tiny models of the castle and was putting grass and flowers inside the model castle. Here she is standing in the presence of this amazing piece of history that is hundreds of years old and all she wanted to do was to play with grass and flowers. Oh, and look at fountains. She just loves them. I love that kid.


We missed being able to take a tour of the place by 3 minutes- we didn't realize it was closing so early. We blame that on the 10 minutes it took to pry Olivia away from the fountains.


A couple of tourists decided that they would try and climb one of the castle walls, so Olivia ran right over there to try and do it too.


A random Indian family stopped me and asked if they could take a picture of me and Graham. I was wearing him in the Baby Bjorn. Okay, weirdos. They were very nice but I just couldn't imagine why they would want a picture. The funny thing was that they wanted to just take the picture quickly and be on their way. Nope. I don't think so. You are a stranger and want to take a picture of my baby? Well then there will be small talk. I will ask you if you are in Denmark for long? Where are you from? What brings you here? Do you like it here? It was clear that they did not want to chit chat but I was going to get something out of the exchange other than the weird feeling that came over me as I imagined them back in India showing their Denmark pictures with us in it to a large group of more strangers and what they were saying and stuff. Weird.

The town of Helsingør sits on the coast and you can see Sweden from there. I believe it is where Denmark and Sweden's land masses are closest to each other. The view is amazing!







Matthew and Olivia being sad penguins. Sad Viking Penguins.


Olivia making her most Vikingest face


On the way home on the train Matthew entertained the crowd, and more importantly Graham and Olivia, with his game of cups. Unfortunately I have no pictures of that. All in all, it was a great day!