The Danish castles

Our awesome orange car

Frederiksborg Castle

Inside the Frederiksborg Castle and the Chapel inside the Hamlet Castle 

Hamlet Castle

Louisiana Museum  

The Belgian crew and me

Just casually reading Hamlet 

   Last Tuesday was a great day. Spring is finally starting to arrive in Denmark, so me and four Belgians rented a car and hit the road for a day of tourism. First we went to the Frederiksborg Castle located in Hillerød, Denmark. The oldest parts of the castle date back to the 1560 structure built by Frederick II but most of the current castle was constructed by Christian IV between 1602 and 1620. After Christian IV's death in 1648, the palace was used mainly for ceremonial events. The church has also been used as the knight's chapel for the Order of the Elephant and the Order of the Dannebrog since 1693; housed the Danish royal family's art collection, notably works on the life of Jesus by Danish painter Carl Heinrich Bloch; and was the site of the 1720 Treaty of Frederiksborg. It has now been made into the Museum of National History where you can view numerous painting and much more. After the first castle we drove up to the sea side where the Hamlet, or Kronborg, castle is located near the town of Helsingør, Denmark. Immortalized as Elsinore in William Shakespeare's play Hamlet, Kronborg is one of the most important Renaissance castles in Northern Europe. In 1785 the castle ceased to be a royal residence and was converted into barracks for the army. The army left the castle in 1923, and after a thorough renovation it was opened to the public. You could see Sweden right over the Baltic Sea, where we enjoyed an hour long lunch enjoying the sun for the first time in a couple of months. 

   After visiting the Castle's chapel and dungeons, we headed to the most famous art museum in Denmark, the Louisiana Museum. It houses a ton of pop art, from Andy Warhol and several others, and even paintings of Picasso. There were several other well known artists with artwork on display inside, and outside in the sculpture garden. Although I didn't really understand half of the pop art being artwork, it was still a fascinating museum to visit and luckily we had our own personal Belgian tour guide who knew everything about the artists and could give us some history lessons.. thanks Bram!