| I wanted to spend my
last weekend in Europe visiting Denmark and splurged on a Porsche Boxter.
The rental company was so late getting it ready that I missed the chance
to visit Legoland and still haven't found time to go back.
It was overcast and drizzling for most of the drive, which meant that the car top stayed up as I flew along at 250 km/h on the autobahn. The rain stopped just after I crossed the border and my first view of Denmark was this double rainbow: |
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| I spent a night in Odense, visiting the home of Hans Christian Andersen, before driving to Copenhagen over the Great Bell Bridge, at the time the largest single span bridge in the world. It took nearly 20 minutes to cross. I saw the Little Mermaid statue, for some reason dressed in a Hawaiian lei, the charming harbour area, and many, many shops selling amber collected from the shores of the North Sea. | |
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On Sunday I drove up
the coast to Helgisnor, known to millions of English students as
Elsinore. I was surprised to find that Kronenburg Castle didn't
fit my mental image of Hamlet's residence, but was assured it was indeed
the same place. I had expected something more medieval.
After a tour of the castle proper, I went underground to the former garrisons and the guide told the legend of Holga Dansk, the Viking hero who would sleep for centuries but awake when Denmark again needed his help. It reminded me of Arthurian legends. I returned aboveground and scrambled up on the boulders along the shore to catch the spray off the North Sea and glimpsed Helsinborg, Sweden, on the opposite shore. |
| My last night in Denmark was spent at the Tivoli Gardens, the amusement park which had inspired Walt Disney. It was a warm summer night and the rides continued until midnight. It was five in the morning before I got back to Hamburg, but well worth it. | |
This page was last updated 22/04/2007 12:52:35