Our first view was just five minutes after we got off the train from Copenhagen. There it was, in all its magnificent glory, though less ominous than I had imagined it perhaps because of this glorious day. There was hardly a cloud in the sky; the brisk breeze whipped my hair about my face as we walked toward the grand.
The royal Danish castle is actually called Kronberg but we know it all as Elsinore from Shakespeare’s greatest tragedy, “Hamlet.”
To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles…
My companion for the day, journalist Jacqui Banaszynski, and I walked up to the castle, crossed the moat and looked out to the sea that separates Denmark from Sweden. How cold it must be here in the middle of January, we thought. An equally chilly history accompanied us through our tour. We learned of a fire that ravaged the castle, an attack and capture by the Swedes, of Bubonic Plague halving the nearby town’s population.
We climbed to the top and stood awed by the majestic views of sea and sky. And then descended on the stairs thinking of the madness, rage, grief, revenge and moral corruption Shakespeare so eloquently gave us in his play.
We didn’t have time to stick around for the Hamlet tour. Instead we walked back to the town of Helsingor, where we stopped for a drink at an Italian cafe in one of the town’s main streets. From bard to beer, Jacqui announced.
A day well spent.
