Thursday, 1 August 2013

Catching the ferry, beaches and towns of Sweden!

Our last morning in Copenhagen was spent with a walk around the Carlsberg Brewery complex and to check out a market that had been listed in Copenhagen's only English newspaper. I thought the market was a bit of a let down.  Every stall was selling secondhand goods with nothing of real interest ie. old clothes and toys.  We had a picnic in the park nearby and then headed north to the outer suburbs where we went to the Frilandsmuseet.  It is an open air museum of around 80 buildings from Denmark and Sweden between 1600-1950s.  There were several farm houses.  Many of them in a square formation with a courtyard in the middle, or as a long building with animals in one half and the family in the other.  There were also waterpumps, windmills and a Swedish bathhouse.  There was a singing and comedy performance put on by staff members in period dress and we spent the rest of the afternoon there.

The following day we headed up to Hillerod, where Frederiksborg Castle is located.  After a quick stop at the Aldi, we were there about 10.30am.  We had decided not to get audio guides as they required you to leave an ID which would be returned upon return of the audio guide.  I'm reasonably against this as the ID would have had to be a license, passport or credit card.  So we went inside to the first two rooms where we saw a lot of Danish text.  I suggested to Dale that we go back and get audio guides as otherwise our experience here might not be as good.  So we returned to be told that they had no guides left as many tour groups had been through that morning.  It was after 11am at this stage so we decided to wait, which took about 15 minutes, and in the end was worth it.  We took 2 hours touring the castle which doubled as a National History museum.  The history is mainly portrayed through paintings with a few objects as well.  Unlike most museums it is not heavy in written text to read.  We spent an hour in the gardens having lunch and walking, before returning to the castle where we went up to the top floor to look at the modern history which isn't included in the audio tour.  This took another hour.  Overall a nice day at the castle.  It was packed with Aisan tour groups and there were a few Americans as well.  We feel there could be some simple changes that could be made to make it a better experience for the visitor.  We thought more audio guides and printed room guides (as some rooms had only Danish, or 1 Danish and 1 English copy) would be a good idea.

Frederiksborg Castle

The chapel, Frederiksborg Castle


The Great Hall



Frilandsmusset (open air museum)






We then went to Fredensborg Castle (not Frederiksborg- the names are very similar!) nearby in hopes of walking around the grounds, but this isn't possible as you have to pay to see them.  So we took a couple of photos and continued on to Helsingor, which is where we are going to get the ferry to Sweden from tomorrow.  We parked in an area next to the marina where a lot of motorhomes were using.  After dinner we walked around the outside of Kronsborg Castle, which is a UNESCO site.  We had a relaxing evening overlooking the beach and looking out at the lights of Sweden across the water.

The next morning we walked into Helsingor in order to spend our remaining cash of 30 kroner (about 4 euros). The town is lovely and we managed to buy 500g grapes, 150g cherries and cheese.  We found out from the information centre that it is cheaper to buy your ferry ticket online (46 euro instead of the normal 52 euro).  This cost is for a 20 minute ferry ride!  These are July/August prices.  So as we had got wi fi last night from where we were parked, we tried again, to no avail.  We even parked near the information centre as they usually have wi fi, to no success.  So we had to pay the 52 euros.  As I said the journey was very short.  Essentially sitting on the passenger deck for 10 minutes then returning to the van.  We noticed people in one car, so you must be allowed to stay in your vehicle?

Once we arrived, our first job was to full the gas tank with LPG.  We had been 17 days since we last did, and we had been thinking for the last few days that at any moment we would run out and we would have to change to our camping gaz bottle.  So we popped the address into the GPS.  The final destination was marked on the GPS on the wrong part of the road, but we continued and eventually came across it.  We were very lucky as they even accepted our UK Visa card.  We headed north and stopped in the first town we saw called Bastad, to withdraw cash and to go to the information centre.  Both those achieved we walked down to the beach and the marina.  We watched some novice wind surfers having a lesson.
We had a late start the next day and continued to head north.  Our first stop was the town of Laholm and the information centre.  We picked up a guide there on all the  motorway rest stops in the country, where we can fill up with water and empty waste, and some other useful brochures on areas we plan to visit.  The attendant there was very helpful and also gave us a self guided town walk which we could do.  Attached to the information centre was the drawing museum which we had a look in and featured life drawing.  We went back to the van as it was raining.  The shower was short and we completed the town walk afterwards.  The map was drawn by hand and quite ambiguous, which made it hard to follow.  The town is one of the oldest in Sweden.  We left the town mid afternoon and headed to Tylosland, via the Lidl supermarket.  We found that most things in the supermarket were a little cheaper than in Denmark, which may just be the exchange rate with the euro.  We got to Tyloland beach, which is supposed to be one of the best in Sweden.  The sun had come out by this stage and it had got to about 25 degrees, so we were ready for a swim and weren't disappointed.  There was lovely golden sand and no jellyfish!  We were both able to go out to our shoulders and there were lots of waves.  It was the most enjoyable swim I have had so far on our holiday.

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