Hamlet's castle and classic Arne Jacobsen

Today I was determined to figure out the transport system here so after another great breakfast, I headed to the information bureau near the train station.  Since today is the first full work day since I arrived, it was finally open and as I hoped, the lady there was able to help me determine the best pass to buy at the station, which is a 7 day flex card for 2 or 3 zones.  From my hotel, 3 zones will cover the airport, so I go for that one.  This probably would've saved me a lot of money yesterday, oh well.  For longer trips out of town, like heading to Helsingor today, I will just need to get an add on ticket.  Before I head north though, back to the hotel for gloves, second scarf and hat-it is windy and really cold today!  The train to Helsingor passes by some beautiful homes.  The landscape here is very flat and the clouds today are spectacular-I don't think I've ever seen clouds like this and they go on for miles and seem to move really fast across the sky.

Kronborg Slot is the Renaissance castle located at the most northern point of the island of Zealand.  There is a narrow channel here and you can easily see Sweden on the other side.  One of the early Danish kings had the brilliant idea to charge a fee to boats coming through the channel and made a mint, but the place had to be fortified against attack as well (from the Swedes).  There is a giant moat, ramparts, cannons, gates, and casements (dungeon), everything you'd want in a good old fortress castle.  The private apartments are mostly giant rooms barren of most furniture with some tapestries hanging on the walls and giant fireplaces for warmth.  The tapestries and paintings displayed here give you a small history lesson.  The casements are rather amazing.  They are basically a series of passages and rooms under the castle, pitch black save for some little lights on the walls and the guide's flashlight.  A statue of the mythological hero Holger Danske sits in the first room as you enter.  This place was used to store food, hold prisoners, house soldiers during war, and it's wonderfully creepy and eerie.   A tower leads to the roof and a terrific view across the sound to Sweden.  It started raining while I was seeing the castle so the sea is looking particularly fierce, and on the way back to the train station, it started to hail!

Another rest in the afternoon, but this evening I wanted to check out the SAS Royal hotel, near Tivoli.  It was designed inside and out by Arne Jacobsen in the late 50s, early 60s and still has most of the original furnishings in the lobby.  I chose a different path to stroll down there, this time going by way of Gammel Strand which runs along the canal.  The hotel lobby is filled with classic Jacobsen-egg chairs, swan chairs, series 7 chairs.  They look like they've literally been there since the 60s.  The lights are all classics from Louis Poulsen-artichokes and PHs.  There is an expensive restaurant on the top floor, but a more reasonable cafe on the ground floor.  The waiter there confirms that some of the furniture has been there since the hotel opened and are worth a small fortune.  While I eat my chicken club sandwich, I can watch pedestrians stroll by on their way to and from the train station.  I have trouble eating a large dinner here, my stomach expects breakfast not a large meal.  I've still got half a sandwich left which would make a wonderful dinner or lunch tomorrow, so I take a chance and ask the waiter about wrapping it.  It's not typically done here, but after some back and forth, he brings me back my other half neatly wrapped by the chef in foil.  Yay!

Rather than walk, I decided to take the train/metro back to the hotel.  The crowds here are an interesting mix.  There are a lot of tourists-mostly German, some English, French and surprising numbers of chinese speaking groups.  People here dress like it's still the 80s (sand washed jeans with slashes, leggings, piercings, etc).  Not everyone here is blond and fair, but there are people here who have hair that is almost white.  Most people here are average height but there a lot of exceptionally tall ones as well.  On the train back, I hear a young Danish man helping a couple of even younger German women navigate the system.  Their common language with each other is English, so I'm eavesdropping.  Getting off the metro, I hear a couple of young African-American men working out directions, and they sound so exotic here, where everyone speaks English with some sort of accent (to my ears).