A Hit, A Very Palpable Hit - Denmark Day 2

Welcome to Helsingor (Elsinore)! Once home of the one and only Hamlet (if he had been a real person) and location of the eponymous play. This was a big day.

Realizing that I'm in Scandinavia to study Scandinavian literature, I couldn't help but take this opportunity to travel 40 minutes north of Copenhagen to Helsingor and visit Kronborg Castle, the setting of Shakespeare's Hamlet. Because Shakespeare belongs to everyone, so it's just as Scandinavian as H.C. Andersen's fairy tales!

The square tower in the front corner of the castle in the picture above is the canon tower, which has been closed for the past three years for renovations. But luckily for us, it is now open! 145 stairs later, we were at the top of the tower, looking out over the water at Sweden, and waiting for the ghost of King Hamlet to appear to us. But alas, it was day time, so he did not show.

All summer, Kronborg Castle has been putting on an interactive version of Hamlet; different characters will show up in different parts of the castle as you're walking through to play out bits and pieces of the play. So, we sort of saw Hamlet in Hamlet's actual castle. Like I said, it was a BIG DAY.

Next, we headed to Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Humlebæk, a few metro stops closer to Copenhagen than Helsingor. It's famous for housing some of the best examples of contemporary art in Europe, so it was a must-see for us art-inclined folks.

These walls are a Richard Serra piece that is typical of his work and that we have now had the chance to see in four different cities and two different countries. Pretty sweet.

Here are some bronze-cast ladies by Giacometti. Sculpturally, he works with the human figure and incorporates raw material to create his pieces.

Louisiana was a cool museum to see, too, since the museum itself is a great example of Scandinavian architecture.

At the end of our day, we enjoyed traditional Danish open sandwiches, called Smørrebrød. The sandwich on the left is pork loin with apples and pickes, the second is salmon tartare with crisp rye bread, and the third is egg salad with shrimp piled on top. [The dessert is marzipan with almonds and dipped in chocolate.] All of the sandwiches are on Danish rye bread, which is served everywhere here. If you are a fan of seeds in your bread and not that much rye flavor, then you would absolutely love Danish rye bread. There is a lot of texture in that bread. A whole lot.