Today is our last day of touring in Copenhagen. Tomorrow we will be flying home, and the vacation will be over. When we woke up at about 6:30 AM, it was bright and sunny outside. It is interesting that the sunrise happens very early in the morning, sometime around 4:30 AM, it is starting to get light outside. So, by the time we normally get up, it is very bright outside, and inside of our room. We leave the curtains open a little at night so it is not totally dark inside the room in case we need to get to the bathroom. There is enough street lighting outside for us to get some faint light in the room during the night. However, with the early sunrise, the sun is beaming in through the windows windows even at 6:30 AM.
Our Train to Helsignor
We got showers and dressed for the day, and then headed to the lobby for our breakfast. Our plan for the day was to take the train to Helsignor, a town north of Copenhagen. We needed to first get on the metro to ride to Norreport Train Station, and then boar a regional train for the trip to Helsignor. We are going to visit the Kronborg Castle.
The travel went well, and the train to Helsignor was almost empty since this train was heading out of Copenhagen in the morning, against the inflow of commuters coming into the city. The train traveled along the coast since Helsignor and the Kronborg Castle are on the coast. Kronborg Castle is located at a point in Denmark where Denmark and Sweden are very close together, about three miles across the sea from each other.
Fish Sculpture
The train arrived on time, and there were signs inside the small station directing us to the Kronberg Castle. As soon as we exited the station, you could see the large castle, there was not going to be any confusion on how to get there.
We had about a 1.2 km walk from the train station in Helsignor to the castle, but it was all along the waterfront. We first passed the large ferry terminal for the ferries carrying people and vehicles across to Sweden. The breeze was a little stronger off of the water than it had been when we left Copenhagen, so it was a little cool. Then we arrived at a giant fish sculpture made from discarded materials that were picked up along the shoreline, mostly plastic. It was constructed as a reminder of the impact that improperly disposed plastic has on the environment.
Kronborg Castle
When we arrived at the castle, we found out that it did not open until 11:00 AM. We probably knew this from our research, but had gotten into the habit of thinking everything opened at 10:00 AM in Copenhagern.
We had a little over an hour to wait so we walked along the outer seawall to the back of the castle grounds. There were quite a few people fishing from the banks along the inlet, where the current was running very swiftly.
Fishermen Along Shoreline
They were using shiny spoons to catch some type of long silver, flat fish, with a pointed head. They were about two feet long. We will have to try and research what type fish they were, but for the next hour or so while we waited, there was a continuous stream of people arriving to fish there. There were also several boats out farther from shore, drifting with the current while fishing.
Looking Back At The Helsignor Train Station
We walked around the entire perimeter of the castle, mostly along the seawall, but some parts were along a wooden dock on the side closest to the ferry. We headed back into the castle grounds to the main entrance to wait another thirty minutes for the castle to open. There were sever groups of school children at the castle, obviously on a field trip for the morning to see the castle.
Inside the Castle
The gates finally opened and we went to get out ticket using the Copenhagen Card. There were not many people here today other than the three large school groups. We also purchased a guidebook to help up to learn more about the exhibits, but it was not really necessary. Once we got inside, we saw that there were descriptions of all of the rooms, and also OCR codes on the descriptions to utilize the free wi-fi and listen to audios of the various rooms.
The Grand Ballroom
The castle had a lot of history, but very little of the interior was original. Most of the exterior had survived a large fire in the 1600’s that had pretty much destroyed the original interior. Most of the castle, with the exception of the chapel, had been restored in the early 1900’s. Also, during various periods of wars with Sweden, the interior of the castle had been modified and used for housing soldiers.
The Castle Courtyard
There were a few pieces of original furniture, and some original tapestries, but most of the original tie flooring had been replaced with wooden planks, probably due to the fire and from settling of the castle over time. We could see many repaired cracks in the walls, and many of the door frames were not square.
Stephanie In The Casemates
The most interesting part of the tour was the casemates. We actually listened to part of a free guided tour about what this was and meant. The casements was the fortified areas underneath the castle that were used to protect the people from bombardments during attempted sieges. It was deep under the thick walls, and was really dark and cold, even during our tour. There were places to keep horses, food , water and to cook, all protected from above. It was dimly lit for our tour by imitation oil lights running on propane, which we could smell. It was an intricate set of tunnels and rooms.
Canons Protecting The Castle
At around 1:30 PM we headed back to the train station in Helsignor to catch the train back into Copenhagen. It was a little more crowded for the return trip, but still not full. We hopped on the Metro to head back to the Nyhavn area to have lunch at one of the outside cafe’s that line the waterfront near our hotel.
Kornborg Castle
We looked a a couple of menu’s and picked out a cafe. Stephanie had fried grouper and I had roast pork, both of which were served in the traditional smørrebrød fashion, which is served over sliced bread. We both had a 0.5l Tuborg Beers with our lunches. We did a little better than yesterday, this lunch only cost 326 DKK, or about $50. The beers were almost half the cost of the meals themselves. The lunch was very enjoyable, other than it got a little cloudy and windy by the time we finished. The weather forecast for today was calling for increasing clouds this afternoon, with rain this evening, and the clouds had begun to move in when we were leaving the Kornborg castle.
We though about heading to a grocery and getting some cans of beer, but it was quite a walk, and we lost our motivation. There was a small local store across the street from our hotel that sold beer and tobacco products, but when we went there, their prices were very high. We walked around the block the hotel was on, but in a direction that we had not yet gone, hoping we might find another store. We found one more small store, but again, their prices were high. Since we needed to pack for the trip home tomorrow, we opted to [ass on the beer and just head back to the hotel and begin the tedious chore of packing our suitcases.
We had not really packed to maximize space when we had gotten off the cruise ship, so we had to reorganize some of the items in the suitcases that we had not used in Copenhagen. We also had not had to worry about weight getting off of the ship, but for the flight home, we would need to make sure we were under the weight limit using our travel scale.
Luckily we were wearing heavier clothes home than the shorts and T-shirts we had worn for the flight to Ft. Lauderdale. We were also lighter on toiletries, and were throwing away mostly used items before we go home tomorrow.
However, we had picked up a few items along the way, and had also accumulated some paperwork and maps from the sights we had visited, adding some weight. It took us about an hour to get everything organized and packed into our suitcases, and after a couple of iterations of redistribution and weighing, we had the bags set for tomorrow except for the clothes we were we wearing. We tried to get one bag close to the limit and then have the other one somewhat light so we could add today’s clothes.
We looked at the weather forecast again and found that there was no longer a prediction of rain for tonight or for tomorrow morning, so that made packing our rain coats easier, we could put them in the suitcases at the hotel before we left in the morning instead of wearing them for the walk to the Metro and then packing them in the suitcases at the airport.
With packing accomplished, we could relax for the remainder of the evening. I worked on the blog postings and Stephanie read her book. We were not as tired today since we had not done as much as the other two days in Copenhagen, but we had seen about as much as we could and were a little worn out.
Stephanie went down to the reception desk to request a wake up call for 5:30 AM tomorrow. They do not have typical hotel phones, our phone in the room looks just like a cordless house phone, and the hotel information book did not contain any instructions on how to request a wake up call, or to even call the front desk.
We set an alarm on one of our cell phones, just for back-up so I would not worry all night about getting up on time. We were planning to leave the hotel around 6:30 AM, walk to the Metro station, which takes about 10 minutes, and then take the 15 minute metro ride to the airport. Our flight is not until 10:00 AM, but we want to try and miss the commuters on the metro by going early.
With all of the travel packing set, we went to sleep at around 10:30 PM.