Gilleleje – It’s part of the Gribskov Kommune and the northernmost point of Zealand in Denmark. The name Gilleleje means a cliff for fishing and it is pronounced Gill – ill – LIE.
Kierkegaard Slept here
The fifth largest fishing port in Denmark, the area is known as the “Danish Riviera”, but that’s a bit of a stretch. It makes for a nice sleepy fishing village (Since the 16th century) and it’s where we found a little place to call home for a week.
Right! I was in Copenhagen and I had to see this for myself:
The Illutron
It’s a collaborative art / maker space studio on a ship. Well, OK, it is sort of an old cable laying barge, a floating hacker platform, a rusting work of watery art, but very unique. From Copenhagen Central Station take Bus 40 toward Refshaleoen then walk a bit north and ask where the hippies live out on a barge.
Very Ship Like
With plenty of booty just lying about; aft ye might find woodworking tools and perhaps ye olde X-Y cutting table midships. Electronics projects be lyin in the hold.
But wait, there’s more
Above deck is a LP twin cannon that can shoot 20 foot diameter donuts of fire and an LED display for those seeking the ship at night (perhaps when the donut machine ain’t working). Included in the more than 8000 Sq.Ft. of space one might find a conference room and a party deck.
Lots of junk, but it’s all good junk
In one corner sits an ABB industrial robot and in another some sort of left-over controller for the cable rigging (so I was told) and aft on the port side a white cylinder resembling an orgasmatron (ref: Woody Alan’s Sleeper ) . Looking out the hatch in the direction west one might see ‘Den Lille Havfrue’ i.e., The Little Mermaid statue, that is if you had a telescope or an extremely powerful telephoto lens.
Lots of things to play with…
They said that they recently moved the barge to its present location so it’s a bit messy. They also mentioned they had an art installation at Burning Man. Burning Man! Like in the Nevada Black Rock desert, US of A? Wow! These guys are good.
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!
And maybe Frederiksbourg Castle
Jim and Jeanne in Hillerød
At various times and states of mind, having driven the little Fiat motor car from CPH to Hillerød then in and out of Hillerød several times, we felt like we were extra in the Twilight Zone– Since the year 1550 when King Frederik thought it would be funny to not place readable traffic signs indicating the best way out of town…
The Castle at Hillerød
This time, having taken public transportation to the proper destination in the town of 31,000 people and finding the Frederikbourg Castle in record time, we were on our way to see one of the best preserved castles in all of Denmark.
Inner courtyards and church
Hey, there was a boat so we took a ride on it!
Having something called “The Copenhagen Card” let us use buses, trains and boats anywhere on the island of Zealand, and the town of Hillerød was no exception.
Inner courtyard panorama
Everybody has horns today?
Pictures on the side…
1) Jeanne with the Viking hat, 2) Some poor cruise ship employee with a Viking hat, 3) A Uriah Heep tribute garbage truck? 4) Jim with a Viking hat, 5) Cool looking berm house on the Baltic shore, 6) Car fairy going into port. 7) Amusement park in Stockholm. 8) Near the cruise ship port in Stockholm.
Vasa Museet
The Vasa Museum is built around a Swedish warship that foundered and sank after sailing about 1400 yards into her maiden voyage in the year 1628. Largely forgotten until the late 1950’s, the ship was salvaged and now stands in the museum in Stockholm.
What I mean to say is “Oh! No Tourists!”
The Museum is closed today, but for you a special tour
Good News everyone! If you are on a Baltic cruise and they offer the evening Hermitage tour, grab it as soon as you can. While the Hermitage contains more than three million works of art and artifacts of world culture, on any given day it may seem like there are over three million tourists there as well. Not on this day! It’s a Monday when the museum is normally closed. This evening in the entire museum complex I would guess maybe there were only 90 guests.
The Hermitage grand tour
1) The Winter Palace, one of five buildings that make up the Hermitage. 2) Our very knowledgeable tour guide for the evening (the guy with the blue folder) for the two and a half hour tour. He kept us going from one era to the next as best he could. Of course if you spent one minute in front of each work of art 24/7 it would take you over 7 years to complete the Hermitage journey. 3) The palace tiled floor. 4) One of many elegant staircases.
Hallways of the Hermitage
One of the largest and oldest museums in the world with the largest collections of paintings in the world, it was founded in 1764 by Cathrine the Great and has been open to the public since 1852. The hallways above are from the Winter Palace, the former residence of Russian emperors.
One of more than a zillion paintings
By my calculation we probably saw one in twenty-four thousands (1/24,000) of this museum and we had a better time than most people who wrote a review on Trip Adviser. While most people liked the museum, the major complaint was the long wait to get in and the unruly groups of tourists who pushed and shoved their way in front of paintings. And someone actually wrote that they spent 8 hours in the Hermitage and saw 60% of the artwork? No freaking way!
The Ticket for Monday night
All I can make out is that the ticket was provided by the “Baltic Travel Company” which seems like a rather general name but the company really does do special tours in St. Petersburg so, there you go. Also you can get Android Google Apps for the Hermitage.
Can you imagine this:
At a typical Metro station in St. Petersburg
Classy light fixtures, sculptures and NO GRAFFITI ! Marble walls and floors with decorative tile, very clean and not too “fragrant”. This is what public transportation should be. Of course there is a closed circuit camera you can see in the upper left and the rope barrier is there to keep the status quo. I can live with that.
A trip “Through the eyes of the Russian people”
While Jeanne toured the Spilled Brood Church, I took the EYES tour which started off rather bland but got better as the day proceeded with 1) A sampling of traditional Russian condiments served with various concoctions of homemade vodka; you were welcome to drink more than three shots if you sat at the right table (which I did!). 2) You were given a metro token and told the proper way to use it in the antiquated token machines. 3) Our tour guide informs us of where we have to go, where to transfer, and where we should be at the end of our journey. Tour guide says “I hardly ever lose anyone on the Metro”. Note: Vodka helps you forget who you were sitting with on the bus back to the ship. 4) The market place. 5) Normal meats displayed just like at home. 6) Not so much. Outside on the sidewalk there were the traditional “Babushkas” selling mushrooms.
Today we are in Russia; St. Petersburg to be exact:
The Church of Our Savior on Spilled Blood
Yes, it’s a catchy name for a church; it was built on the spot of the assassination of Emperor Alexander II in 1881. Apparently someone thew a bomb into his carriage near the Naberezhnaia Kanala Griboedova area or the Грибоедова canal embankment.
Along the “Kanala”
1) A 100% real Egyptian sphinx of Amenhotep III, about the 15th century B.C. near the Academy of Fine Arts Museum. 2) The Russian battleship Aurora built in St. Petersburg between 1897 and 1900, it took an active part in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05. 3) Oh, maybe one of the Hermitage buildings, I forget. 4) A troupe of ‘Gypsies’ who invaded our Neva River cruise boat.
Neva River entertainment
St. Petersburg is one of the most beautiful cities in Europe and one Russian city that didn’t get screwed up by Soviet era shenanigans. We couldn’t possibly see all it had to offer in the short time we had. A Neva River tour at least gave us a little peek at the once great imperial city of Russia.
Next stop: Tallinn, the capital city of Estonia:
Pikk Street in Old Town, Tallinn
When you stroll along the Long street (Pikk = long in Estonian) you quickly understand why the old town is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The old buildings are well preserved and many are just brimming with historical significance. A global city, Tallinn is also listed as one of the top 10 digital cities in the world! Who would have guessed?
Estonian National Opera
As it just happened while we were passing through town looking for an Estonian Hacker space, the National Opera was celebrating it’s 109th season with a three day festival.
Festival Highlights
Among other things, the opera theater costume department was selling some of their unused stock. Many costumed characters were hanging about, some performing skits, playing music and singing. We never found the hacker space, but we did stop for lunch at a cafe on the way back to the ship. We had some Russian style meat pie and Coca Cola served in small 290 ml bottles.
Hell Hunt and Old German Club
When in Tallinn one must at least go into the Hell Hunt just to check it out. It’s Estonia’s first pub. Click here for the Hell Hunt location website and watch the silly video of some guy walking down Pikk Street past the German Club and into the Hell Hunt Pub. The Old German Club is also called the Hall of the Black Heads Society at #26 Pikk.
The NCL cruise is on! We are ready to board the Norwegian Star! The normal filing in at the port of entry is as expected. Lots of people getting checked in at the Copenhagen port, checking their bags, going through security, leaving their credit card info with the finance department…
First Stop: Warnemunde, Germany
It’s the cruise ship port for anyone going on to Berlin. At the port there was a sand sculpture contest (see above). Some passengers took the train to Berlin (3 hours one way!) but we decided to just check out what was in town.
A few sites in Rostock as well
Anyone on a Baltic cruise knows this port well. 1) The city hall and 2) Boats along the river Warnow. Warnemunde is a small town of about 15,000 and the population is used to all the cruise traffic. The much larger Rostock (Pop. 200,000) used to have factories that made airplanes for the Luftwaffe during WW II so many of the medieval buildings were destroyed by allied bombers. The 13th century church 3) St. Mary’s escaped the destruction. 4)A local wedding photo stop in the town square.
The Norwegian Star left the port late in the evening (due to those passengers coming back on the train from Berlin) and even though the citizens must have seen hundreds of these huge cruise ship come in and out of port every year, a good number of them headed for the banks of the Baltic Sea to wave goodbye to us! Sorry we didn’t spend much money there except for the one hour train ride to and from Rostock.