Athena’s Banquet

So as I got on the train at the airport to head to Copenhagen Center, I kept hearing the little man in the intercom saying something about this train ending at Elsinore.  Elsinore, Elsinore, wait, yes, there’s that OTHER book about Denmark.  Some English dude wrote it.  Ends in death.  A fair bit of moping goes on.  Invented emo.

Of course, I speak of Hamlet, but not in iambic pentameter because I am not feeling creative like that right now.

Yes!  Apparently Elsinore (properly Helsingør) is quite close to Copenhagen, a 45-minute train ride and a fifteen-minute walk out to the castle.  Clearly it was meant to be.  (Aside: This is one of the awesome things about traveling alone.  “Oooh, a shiny!  Let’s do it!”  If my train had terminated elsewhere I probably would not have ended up exploring a castle damply, but it did, and I did, and it was lovely.)

So this morning I got up and ate the hotel breakfast (note: mistake; overpriced and also the sudden realization that your hard-boiled egg is, in fact, soft-boiled is both horrifying and messy.), then trotted two blocks over to the train station to head out.  There was a bit of confusion from me about where to validate my pre-purchased ticket (bought it yesterday), but I managed to get on the earlier train which left the station about ten minutes after I arrived there.  Perfect.

Eggs here have labels. Whut?

The ride was largely uneventful aside from a long wait at a station about two-thirds of the way there followed by an announcement from the conductor: “Ladies and gentlemen, please accept our apologies.  We were delayed due to false alarm because somebody was smoking in the toilet.”

Bear and Dragon wait for the train to start again.

Awkward.

At least the station is beautiful!

The weather had been variable all day and continued being so as I disembarked and started the walk to the castle.  I was a bit worried about finding it but it turns out that that was unnecessary.  It’s a huge bloody castle.  Sitting out on a promentory.  It’s pretty unmissable.  Rain kept periodically sheeting down, and my pants ended up quite damp not more than halfway to the castle.  Bear and Dragon had to hitch a ride under my raincoat.

As I said, unmissable.  This was from right outside the train station.

I passed this fountain, in the center of a small but lovely garden right at the intersection of two of the larger streets.  The flowers were beautiful, but I felt like Death of Snails as I tried to very carefully pick my way in to take some photos.

I bought a ticket for all four parts of the castle area (Royal Chambers, Cellars, Chapel, and Maritime Museum), but I only have pictures of the castle since my camera battery died halfway through.  Major bummer, since the cellars were absolutely astonishing and the Maritime Museum had the world’s oldest shipbiscuit and a model ship made out of cloves.

Guards kept walking past and giggling slightly when they saw me taking photos.  But nobody said anything, so that’s okay.

I did not see anything I recognized as an arras.  I was disappointed.

This bed giggled though.  It was odd.

This was on the ceiling in one room.  I hope it wasn’t anyone’s bedroom.

There were lots of tapestries though.

Playmobil makes for strange and uneasy oil paintings.

I wished I had gone ahead and bought the flashlight for the cellars, since about halfway through they give up on lighting them entirely and I think you’re just supposed to find your way out.  That part was creepy to the point where I got weirded out and left, back the way I’d come.  The statue of Holger Danske down there is also strangely majestic and awe-ful.  I would not like to meet him in battle.  Once again, American Gods made oddly appropriate recent-reading material.

The statue looked like this, except rounder.

There were, of course, multiple references to Hamlet and to Shakespeare, including a few costumes and several images from the plays that are put on each year.  Some of them looked quite spectacular.  I didn’t get any pictures of these, unfortunately.

I had lunch before heading back to Copenhagen.  I wish I could say it was delicious.  It wasn’t.

Tomorrow I’ll head back to Rotterdam for a week or so before we collectively move to Amsterdam.