Culture and Castles

Well, what a day of adventure. We bought an all day travel ticket. 'It's for 24 hours' the official explained, like it was a real selling point. I wasn't quick enough to say I'd prefer two 12 hour stints. Or even better, three 8 hours stints.

We set off up north to see Kronborg Castle (Hamlet's Castle). It is in Helsinger. It was terrific - what a setting, right on the coast, looking across at their (at the time) arch enemies, Sweden. We walked round the ramparts, which are covered in wild flowers. People were fishing on the beach and yachts and ferries to Sweden were swishing by constantly.

We then stopped off Humlebæk, where the Louisiana art gallery is. What an amazing place (a rather long hot walk from the station, I might add), with sculptures in the manicured gardens, and a huge modern gallery below ground.

There was a Yoko Ono exhibition. It was immense. It had the famous white ladder that John Lennon climbed up, looked through a magnifying glass at a word on the ceiling, (Yes!), and was mesmerised by her. My favourite one (not) of hers was a line up of those chewing gum machines, but they were full of little plastic containers of 'air from Yoko', and you could could buy one for 2 Kr! I resisted.

But the better exhibition was Lara Donovan, who had amazing sculptures made from everyday objects, like toothpicks, pins, straws, buttons. They were clever and truly wonderful.

I looked at the map and realised we were quite near Fredericksborg Castle, but when I asked directions I asked for Fredrensborg Castle (too many 'Freds' and 'borgs') and we were told to jump on a nearby bus. We realised we were in the wrong place, but could get another train to our preferred castle.

What a picturesque wee village (another long hot walk from the station) but we sat on the provided deck chairs and had a huge ice cream, looking across the lake at the fairytale castle. We were too stuffed to walk around the lake to see it, so we took a wee boat trip to it instead. It was quite an effort to get there, so this is my blip today.

Back to the city, and wanting to use up more of our 24 hour pass, we took the little 11A bus into town- it goes all around in the middle of town where other buses can't go- and we ended up at Nyhavyn and the Playhouse, where we sat on the pier and had a beer and watched the river comings and goings.

It's been a long day and those four flights of stairs up to our flat were like climbing Ben Nevis this evening, I can tell you. We saw two amazing castles. And two amazing exhibitions. And we had two big ice creams. Perfect day.

It's my 500th blip. It snuck up on me. Thanks for all the support and lovely people who pop in regularly, many of you without fail. I really appreciate it. TAK!