Friday 7th July 2017 – Hillerod, Denmark

We are very close to Copenhagen here with easy access by train, so it was always in our plan to spend one day there. Our hostess told us about the Copenhagen Card that not only gave us free entry to a large number of venues but also covered all public transport, including the train, for 24 hours. The card not only covers Copenhagen but also many towns in the area, such as Hillerod. We realised that, with careful timing, we could not only use the card in Copenhagen but we could visit Frederiksborg Slot tomorrow, which was always in the plan.

Our first target was the National museum, which was much more of a traditional museum than the modern and highly interactive museum at Moesgard but was none the worse for that. The Danish pre-history section of the museum was the largest and best part of the museum with vast amounts of very impressive finds. We spent three hours in the museum, mainly in the pre-history section. There was a surprisingly good Greek / Roman / Egyptian section, with many beautiful Greek finds. They were collected by one of the Danish kings by purchases mainly from auctions and collectors but, judging by the lack of information, I suspect that most of them have no provenance.

Also covered by our card was a canal trip. The hour-long trip was excellent with great views of the city and a good commentary telling us about the history and interesting facts ….. and lots of reminders about keeping our heads down under the low bridges! One story was about an old warship that we past, the Peder Skram. In 1982, during manoeuvres, the crew accidently fired a missile which hit land and destroyed four summer homes and damaged 130 other buildings. Fortunately, the homes were not occupied at the time and no people were hurt in the incident. There must have been many red faces in the navy and a huge bill to pay!

Today is the first day of the Copenhagen Jazz Festival and it was lovely to hear the sound of Jazz drifting through the air as we moved around the city. We stood and listened to some jazz before a rain shower sent us into the Amber Museum that was also covered by the card. The museum was really a shop selling beautiful, extremely expensive amber jewellery but upstairs there was a moderately interesting display showing where in the world amber is found, the Baltic being the largest source.

It was still raining, so we found a restaurant for an early dinner and had a very good three-course set meal.

On the way back to the station we passed a contemporary modern art museum and decided to use our card for a quick visit. It was interesting but reinforced our view that contemporary modern art is not our scene.

We arrived back at the campsite to find oil lamps lit and candles fresh flowers on all the campsite tables. This really is a lovely campsite.

Photos: The ultimate take-away hot dog; The lakes of Zealand provided excellent fishing in pre-historic times – this amazing collection of bone harpoons dating from 8700 – 6500 BC were found at the bottom of lakes; Beautiful stone daggers deposited in lakes in the late Stone Age and early Bronze Age; Decorated polished amber pendants dating from 8000 – 7000 BC; Lur Horns, unique to Scandinavia in the Bronze Age, 1200 – 700 BC; Detail of one of the Lur Horns; The Early Iron Age Dejberg Wagon was probably made in central Europe but was ritually deposited in a bog in Jutland; The very pretty Nyhaven where we had dinner; Copenhagen senior citizens enjoy a wild night out in the city.