Grøndals Å

Copenhagen 3/5
Last stop was Kronborg (Crown) Castle, 4km across the water from Sweden and of course very strategic in the protection of Denmark with its many cannons pointed seaward and a zigzag entryway so the enemy couldn’t shoot straight through the front gate. https://hamlettours.com/kronborg-castle/ We wound up and down stairs and into the high-up ballroom and down into the dungeons. Benjie was great with the kids and Ellie especially was following right behind him, hanging on his every word. We parked outside a big marina and ferry port and crossed over the old dry docks which have now been turned into a marine museum and café, then had a bit of a walk through the grounds to the old moat. There was a lot to see in a short time but we made the most of it. I really liked the chapel, one of the few parts of the castle not to have been burned down a few centuries ago. It was quite simple but looking carefully, all the carved pew ends were different and detailed. One room was being renovated, all the painted ceiling panels had been taken down, cleaned, and were in the process of being put back up, not sure if the room would stay white as you can see in the photo, but it certainly makes the colours of the panels stand out.

A few stories:
One of the kings got to mid-30’s, still unmarried, got desperate and asked the various kingdoms to send paintings of likely princesses. He checked them all out (like Tinder, one bright spark said, swipe left or right) and chose Princess Anna who turned up with an entourage of 40 and……..she didn’t look anything like the painting. So that was a no from him. However, she had her cousin with her, Sophie, she was only 14 and he fancied her. So Anna was put aside to wait for a ship to take her home, they had furnished her rather small room, it even had her slippers alongside the bed. The king waited until Sophie was 15 and married her, they had children and lived……..not very happily ever after because he died quite young.

Story about the ballroom, HUGE room 62m long, with a turret room in one corner that was used as a toilet: it was filled with hay, people did what they needed to and the servants pushed the hay out through a door to outside the turret. The kids (and adults) liked that story.

Bedwarmers – simple: put two or three servants in the bed until you were ready to turn in, out go the servants and in goes the king etc into a nice warm bed.

And the castle attics, why did they have a whole lot of wheat stored up there? Because they made an enormous amount of beer, the soldiers had an allowance per day of 8 litres, it was stored in vats and barrels in the dungeons along with vast quantities of salted herrings. The soldiers had herrings and beer six days a week, meat only on one day a week, not a great diet. The soldiers lived down in the cellars and guarded the prisoners, low ceilings and very very dark, a very authentic feel when we were walking through over uneven ground.

So that was our excellent tour, everyone was pretty tired afterwards and very happy to be dropped off at our door at the end.Read more