Helsingør

Consider this as the Grand Finale for Denmark's chapter on this blog. Helsingør is a small town about 45 minutes north of Copenhagen by train. Opening with one of my favorites in my Denmark collection, an Oh!-so-Danish picture taken outside Kronborg Slot (Kronborg Castle). The canons point towards Sweden (Helsingborg) which is just 20 minutes away by ferry. Friendly indeed.


What is Kronborg Slot? Perhaps one would know it better as Elsinore, or Hamlet's Castle. Thanks to Shakespeare, who never even visited Helsingør but just heard descriptions from his well-traveled friends to get inspiration for the Hamlet setting, Kronborg Slot is now a major tourist attraction and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Another site worth seeing in Helsingør is the Karmeliterkloster (Carmelite Monastary).








Of course you also get your usual deal of colorful houses and pedestrian street.

Roskilde

As much as I want to keep the pictures of Amager Strand up on top, it's time to move onto a new post before I lose the motivation to keep posting.

Roskilde is a small town in Denmark about 20 minutes away by train from Copenhagen, most famous for its Roskilde Music Festival which takes place in July every year. Like other town/cities, it has a pedestrian street, a famous cathedral (Roskilde Cathedral), and some sort of touristy palace (Roskilde Palace- they're not so original with their names). One unique tourist attraction here is the Viking Museum which was quite worth my daytrip.

Replicas of Viking boats parked at the harbor outside the museum. You can actually join a boat tour to row in these things! Cool. And yes this was what the ship was alluding to in my previous post.

Colorful, characteristic houses of Denmark can be seen in Roskilde too. The picture on the left shows Denmark's sporadic weather: 5 minutes ago there was still a thunderstorm, and in a blink it cleared up. That's why the road is still wet from the downpour, while the sky has already rid of all evidence that it has ever rained..

Roskilde Palace, supposedly an example of baroque style architecture.. I soon found out that I'll see a lot more of this style in my little adventure.

Amager Strand

Here is a different side of Copenhagen. Amager Strand is a beach along Amager Strandvej. It's so unbelievably windy there that even the Amager Strand metro station constructed boxes for passengers to wait in. As you can see, this beach has quite a different feel to those of Vancouver's..

Retroblog

I mind as well call this a retroblog. Everything happens in retrospect. Every post involve pictures taken a while back, long after I've experienced the moments. Perhaps that is also how this blog reflects upon its author.

A few more pictures from Copenhagen.. Is it possible that a month ago I was still roaming in this city? Already it feels so far away.. 7 cities have come and gone in between.. the chapter that was written there, will it be forever left behind?

Opening with a picture of The Little Mermaid, also known as Denmark's biggest disappointment, with a mirror image of a mutated mermaid that even some locals did not know about. Apparently there's a Genetically Modified Paradise full of strange statues, and this mutated mermaid is certainly one of them.



More characteristic shots: Carlsberg beer and changing of the guards at Amalienborg Palace (occurs at noon everyday). And yes, if you haven't figured it out yet, Carlsberg is a Danish brewery, under which Tuborg is also a spin-off originally aimed for domestic sales.




Linked to the changing of the guards, this is a view of Amalienborg Palace and of Copenhagen from the dome of the Frederikskirken or Frederik's Church, which is open to visitors at 1pm and 3pm on Saturdays and Sundays, for a fee of course. Wished I had a super wide angle for these shots.



Another church that I quite like.. Saint Alban's Church with the famous Gefion Fountain in front. To put a long myth short, Goddess Gefion was given permission to plough enough earth for the island of Zealand, where Copenhagen is situated. She turned her 4 sons into oxes to facilitate the process! In essence, the statue shows how Copenhagen (and most of Denmark) came into existence. Wow. And I thought it was just another fountain where people throw coins into. Why do people throw coins into random pools of H2O anyways?




Two shots of Tivoli Garden from the inside.. It was built in the days when Chinese decorations were exotic. Not so exotic for me.




Two shots of Town Hall Square. Not great photographs, but the Rådhus deserves at least some space on this post.




More random shots: the new Opera House of Copenhagen facing Amalienborg Palace from across the waters, inside the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, and dusk view outside Irma (a grocery store) near Østerport station. Notice the street lights once again, hanging from the sky in a row..






Yet more random outside shots.. The ship can be thought of as a preview of what's to come later!