Friday, October 10, 2008

Road trip

Stephane lent us his car for the day to do one of our favorite activities, road trip.

Cruising up the coast of Zealand.









The town of Helsingør (Elsinor).









Helsingør is famous for Kronborg Slot (Castle), a monster of a castle that Shakespeare made famous as the fictional Elsinore Castle in Hamlet. It functioned for years as a tollhouse for ships crossing the strait; for us, it is where we fell in love with the Crown Prince and Princess of Denmark in the museum gift shop.









An old village inside the first set of castle walls.









Inside the main castle square, where Joe quite adeptly recited a lengthy Hamlet sonnet (thanks to his familiarity with the musical Hair).












Near the castle, we found a totally hyggeligt tavern, Grønnehave. The menu lists their various smørrebrød, traditional Danish open-faced sandwiches.












Quite hyggeligt


















We had a Wilbroe, the local pilsner, and two kinds of sild (pickled herring) smørrebrød (pronounced ‘shmorr bror’ as if you have a potato in your mouth, says our Danish host Stephane). Pickled herring, dark rye bread smeared with lard, caperberries, fresh dill, makes a lovely lunch.





















Fredericksborg Slot, lakeside castle with baroque garden, that is used like any local park (biking, jogging, strolling, etc) by locals. Imagine.

































The grand courtyard.









Little red riding hood?