Saturday, May 24, 2025

Day 4 - Frederiksborg Castle + SMK

in the rain, get caught with me
in the moment, get lost with me
Slow It Down - Ben Barnes

A random thing on how I got to know that song. Stardust was on tv and I know it's a weird thing to say, it felt like an old movie to me. Anyways, I liked it when I first watched it in the cinema, so I googled it when it was playing on TV and then I clicked on Ben Barnes, who's also Prince Caspian in the Narnia film and also one of creepy bad guy in Westworld and I stumbled into this song in YouTube - didn't know he sings. It's not bad. So yeah, just something random and now let's get to this long post with many pictures. I'm not sure if all will get posted, we'll see.

I had some sort of a plan on what I should be doing on day 4. It wasn't supposed to be a rush getting from one place to another because on day 2 I had explored the touristy parts of Copenhagen, but somehow the night before I had this feeling, why not go see the one troll that's easily accessible in Copenhagen. The one problem is that, that troll is located in Freetown Christiania which according to the many blogs I read could be quite intimidating. There's some advices from bloggers to not take pictures when you're there, things like that. I was alone and a girl, so yeah I was hesitant, but in the end I did. The troll is not deep inside Christiania, so I thought I would just get in and get out. I was there in the morning and it's pretty much empty and it made me wonder if it's better that I was there in the morning or in the afternoon where there would be more people? I don't know what the right answer to that is.

As I started getting into it, I felt safer because in front of me there's a young mother pushing her baby in a stroller, just taking a little walk and enjoying the many grafittis in Christiania. So God bless that mother and her baby. With them leading the way, I made it to this troll, Green George.

I took some photos and then I started to make my way out, also still taking photos of the many graffitis and artworks around. The mom and the baby went a bit further but not so much I guess because then I saw them behind me. I really don't know what Christiania is like. Maybe it's fine. The government did shut down the street where you could previously buy drugs, so perhaps it's totally safe there. Maybe the people there are just chill, they just want to do their own thing making weird beautiful art which sounds really good actually.

Anyways, next it was off to Frederiksborg Castle. I really struggled in finding things to do in Copenhagen that excite me. Castles are options, but which castle. It would have been easier if I just had chosen a castle in Copenhagen central but then I thought it might be better to go somewhere further and hence why I then went to Frederiksborg Castle which is in Hillerød which is like 40-minutes away and I had to buy the large transport pass which cost more and truth be told I don't know if I made the right decision. I guess it's also because I have seen quite a number of castles especially last year, so castles and palaces do not amaze me much anymore. Not to say they're completely dull though, it's still something to imagine yourself living in one. I guess what I'm trying to say is I wasn't blown away by Frederiksborg Castle. Not its fault. At this point it needs to be one hell of a castle to amaze me. It's the usual in this castle, there are many rooms with many intricate things. In the top floor there's some paintings and a photo exhibition. Actually there's an artist also presenting his installation arts in some of the rooms. Here's some pictures of the inside of the castle, the first one is of its chapel.

After I was done with the inside of the castle, I made my way out to explore its ground. There's some renovation on the castle, so quite unfortunate that the outside look of the castle is not perfectly complete :( The castle itself has a moat so you have these little bridges around.

As for the castle ground and garden, it's big. I kinda walked around aimlessly. I'm pretty sure I didn't cover everything and see all the interesting things out there. I was also getting kinda tired of walking. I walked a lot in this trip, most days I did more than 20,000 steps.

Then as I was getting ready to leave, to the right hand side of the garden I saw a path to a smaller building which I found out is the Bath House hunting lodge (first picture below). You cannot enter it though, at least I couldn't find an opened door. Then following the path, I saw a small island with a black cottage. It looked very interesting. I found out it's called Louise's island (second picture). I don't know how to get there though, you may need to row a small boat. The paths here seem to be more interesting, but I don't where they would lead and how deep they are that I decided to not explore this further and end my visit in Frederiksborg Castle. For more pictures from the castle, see this.

So then it's off back to Copenhagen central. Bought a Danish pastry with rhubarb (also good) at the train station before boarding the train ride back. By the way, the seating design on the train is very interesting and nice, it has a sofa kinda seat that also curves at the end, but I don't know maybe being here in Asia when things have to be practical, I just don't see how that kinda seat will ever get adopted here. Cleaning them seem troublesome. Arriving in Copenhagen, first stop was to visit Frederik's Church. It was dark inside, I'm not sure if it's because Pope Francis just died the day before - I felt rather sad when I found out. It was actually raining when I arrived in Copenhagen, but I still decided to walk the straight path from the church to Amalienborg Palace.

Amalienborg Palace is the official residence of the Danish royal family. You can visit it, but I didn't plan to. There's a few guards walking around their posts when they're not standing still. Not many tourists, because it was raining. I walked further to the garden by the water where's there's a fountain, blooming cherry trees and other flowers. I realized then that directly accross it over the water is the Opera. I think it would be kinda nice to enjoy the garden on a good weathered day. I didn't explore it at all, I pretty much turned back after taking a few photos.

My next destination was SMK (Statens Museum for Kunst) / The National Gallery of Denmark. I contemplated if I should take the metro or walk there and somehow I chose to walk even though it's some distance away in the rain - at this point I took out the umbrella. I actually didn't plan to go to any museum, because I thought after D'Orsay it's enough and it might be hard to top that, but then before the trip I happened to stumble on a CNN article about the exhibition Michelangelo Imperfect in SMK and I thought, I would be there, so why not? It would be good to see David again, even though all of these would be reproductions. It was really nice to see all these works because the originals are scattered all over; places I've never been. The one below is La Pietà whose original is in Saint Peter's Basilica right by the main door in the Vatican. The one below it is of Saints Paul, Peter, Gregory the Great, and Augustine which the guide booklet says are in Siena Cathedral. I don't even remember if I entered the cathedral when I was there more than a decade ago.

Now I was rather disappointed that there's no reproduction of David in marble. There was one full reproduction in bronze and there's a reproduction of his head. Then I realized, this reproduction of David's head was kinda cool. It's at my height level and I never noticed this before so I was stunned when I saw this because David looked concerned, almost like there is some fear in him. I really have never noticed this before. The guide booklet also brought to my attention that his irises are heart-shaped. I think the whole exhibition is great, it's really nice to see all these and learn new things.

After the Michelangelo exhibition, I explored the rest of the galleries. SMK is not very big, but its collection is pretty great. There's French Art, European Art, Danish and Nordic Art (this is something that I haven't really encountered before, so I feel really thankful for the opportunity). There's also modern and installation art (which is still not 100% my thing).

This Rembrandt's painting got me quite stunned when I saw it because I thought I saw it last year in Warsaw's castle. Now that I have googled it, it seems they're completely different paintings. The one in SMK is titled A Young Woman Resting her Hands on the Picture Frame. I'm really glad I visited SMK. I even stayed up to its closing hour. Half an hour before it closed a staff approached me to let me know it's closing in half an hour and if there's any artwork I really wanted to see, I should go and find it. SMK is really great. For more pictures, go here.

As I made my way back, I passed by Rosenborg castle and its garden. Rosenborg castle is pretty cute and it doesn't look very big. Looking at it, I really wondered if I made the right decision to go all the way to Frederiksborg Castle - oh well. Its garden looks pretty nice too, again too bad I had a gloomy cloudy day, but at least it was no longer raining.

The last thing I visited was Rundetaarn / The Round Tower, but I actually didn't go in it. I just looked at it from the outside. They say it gives you a good view of Copenhagen, but you know it was a cloudy day and I have walked all over, I didn't think it was necessary. After that, I pretty much ended my day. With that, this long post also concludes my time in Denmark. For more pictures of Copenhagen, go here. I wouldn't say my time in Copenhagen or Denmark was exceptional, but I am thankful for the opportunity - thank you God. Oh one thing I haven't written about was the long wait for the visa. It really got me pretty anxious and also because it was so unexpected. The Denmark Embassy was also the one who processed the visa when I went to Iceland and that time I got my passport back in like 3 days, but this time around they really took the whole 2 weeks and I guess a bit more. The website did say that they were currently processing a higher volume of application due to the Easter break, but still I started to get worried if this was the time where I was going to get rejected. All's good though but I still have another complain. The Denmark Embassy only gave me single entry and I know they saw no reason to give me multiple entries, but I was hoping they could be generous :( All and all, I suppose I shouldn't take my frustration on them. It should be on the Indonesian government - why is our passport so lousy? When will it be better? Will it be in my lifetime? *sigh*

:) eKa @ 1:35:00 PM •