This morning we met up again with my two cousins to travel around the northern coast of Sjælland, the biggest island in Denmark. We first went to Rungsted to see Karen Blixen's (author of Out of Africa) home and farm...this is  her grave. It was a beautiful place.

We then drove to Helsingør to enjoy the afternoon...and see the famous Kronborg Castle, the setting for Shakespeare's play "Hamlet." These are some nice thatched roof homes along the shoreline as we drove. It was raining and there was rain on the car window, so that's why the quality is not perfect.

This picture below is a great example of how close Sweden is to Denmark. Just across the water on the right is Sweden.

Sweden across the water again...

And this is Kronborg Slot (Kronborg Castle). It is a great medieval and renaissance castle. The oldest part dates back to around 1430. This castle is in a nice spot for taxing ships. The coast to Sweden is very very close, so ships HAD to pass through here to get to Finland and Russia...and if they wanted to pass through they had to pay taxes. If they didn't pay, Kronborg Castle fired upon the ship and killed them all or took them prisoner.You can also see that Kronborg Slot does have a nice moat as well.

Below you can see the other buildings inside the castle walls... it was a community rather than just one fortress.

These two pictures below are of amemorial for Danish police from World War II... they were not treated so nicely by the Nazis.

Below is Holger Danske... the viking savior of Denmark by legend. As legend has it, Holger is deep asleep, and will only wake up when Denmark is in danger so he can save Denmark. 

These next few pictures are of the casemates/basement of the castle where they kept prisoners, and food stores.

This is the church in Kronborg. Every Danish castle has a church in it.

This letter below starts of saying "The Royal Majesty... For Denmark you pay (bla bla bla amount of money) to cross the Oresund (which is the waterway). 

This below is the royal ballroom.

My cousin had been here quite some time ago and remembered something neat... but it was in an area locked off to the public... but he asked a worker and she opend the area to us privately and let us see. You see the grooves in the spiral of the staircase? That little groove goes all the way down to the bottom, and was used by men during the parties to relieve themselves of urine and it would go all the way down to the bottom.

This is the view of Sweden the Kronborg soldiers had.

Someone built a Noah's Ark and brought it to Helsingør, and it was very neat to see.

This is the town of Helsingør

And this is Fredensborg Palace, where the Queen and her family lives during the summer. They have what they call the Royal Lifeguards, which are not swimming lifeguards...they are the fancy soldiers who protect the Queen. Anyways, my cousin used to be one, and he talked to the guard on duty and arranged for us to take a picture with him.

And this is my two cousins (the two men beside my fiancee) and the one on the left's wife.

And this is another cousin of mine.

And we went to Tivoli Gardens when we got back to Copenhagen. It is the world's second oldest amusement park. The oldest is Bakken, and it is not far Copenhagen also. 

I just thought the water shooting through the air like that was really fun to watch...so see the below video.

 The tower in the middle is Copenhagen City hall. It is also visible in the next couple of pictures.

This is a video of the laser light show at the end of the night. It was very nice and interesting. See Copenhagen City Hall again in the background.