We set up our base of operation in the town of Gilleleje and using our Copenhagen Cards we traveled on the electric trains along with regular Danish commuters to the town of Helsingør. This town, which is also known as Elsinore by English speaking countries, is where the Castle Kronborg is located; it’s the castle where Shakespeare’s play Hamlet is set. Sorry, we didn’t get to see the castle but I think Frederiksbourg was a good alternative. Besides, if you’ve seen one… yada yada yada.
We managed to have some time to sample a real Danish pastry in town, the kind the train commuters would eat, and yes, it was good. Further south is the town of Humlebæk where the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art is located. This is a great museum by all accounts, but we will have to save it for a future visit. We have stuff to do in Copenhagen:
Tivoli Gardens
The gardens are centrally located right next to the central station (actually it was the other way around; the central station was placed next to Tivoli) which makes it an easy target for travelers. It’s where Disney got his idea for Disneyland. Kind of quaint and much nicer on Summer evenings, it was something we can check off the old bucket list if we had one.
Free Town Christiania
Here in Denmark the Hippies of the ’60’s took over an old navy yard and they are still there today. This 84 acre ‘autonomous neighborhood’ of less than 1000 inhabitants have their own government and laws apart from the outside ‘EU’ establishment. Hated by Copenhagen conservative groups, this small part of the peace and love generation may not last much longer.
Canal boat tour
Sights that need to be seen in Copenhagen include 1) The Little Mermaid. OK, see saw it. There it is! 2) Not sure what building this is, but you can see our canal boat in the window’s reflection. 3) The new Navy yard and museum 4) The New Opera house.
Comment on Danish computer keyboards: The Danish language uses some extra characters like å æ é ø „ » and « . While for the most part I used Shipping Port WiFi to access the internet from my iPad, there were some instances where I used local terminals and in doing so found that some keys on the keyboard had triple functions. No big thing if you are just typing a note in English, but the little ‘at’ character that is used in email, i.e., the ‘@’ symbol on a Danish keyboard is not easy to find. On some keyboards, the ‘2’ key has two more options; the double quote and the @ symbol. Shift-2 gets you a double quote, not @. Someplace on the keyboard is another key for getting the @, and it’s not always the same on other keyboards. The keyboards at the CPH airport do not even have the @ anywhere on the keys. Sure, you could use ALT code 64 to get the @ symbol, but when’s the last time anyone has ever done that? Just weird is all!