Friday, November 5, 2010

Denmark- Kronborg Slot

Kronborg Slot, better known for being Hamlet (from Shakespeare's) Castle. This castle is in Helsingør Denmark, which is about 20 minutes by ferry from Helsingborg (the town where I live.) This castle dates back to the 1420's, was built in order of the Danish King, Eric of Pomerania. The king insisted on the payment of sound dues, because Helsingør is located right next to the harbor of course there would be much sound. So he built a very powerful fortress to control the sound. In 1629 some careless workers caused much of the castle to go up in flames. Only the Chapel was spared, and that was only because of its strong arches. Christian IV put much efforts into restoring the castle and by 1639 the exterior was once again magnificent, but it was never as great as it used to be before the fire. From 1739 until the 1900's Kronborg was used as a prison. The inmates were guarded by the soldiers in the basement of the castle. (Which was very dark, and consisted of many tunnels, very hard to find your way around in.) The prison was divided into two categories, those with minor sentences, whom were called "honest" and were allowed to work outside the castle walls; but those who were serving sentences for violence, or murder were called "dishonest" and had to serve the full sentence doing hard physical labour inside the castle. They all had to wear chains and spend nights in cold and damp dungeons. (Even hundreds of years now, those dungeons were really cold.) So many of you may think, "what about Hamlet?" well this technically was NOT Hamlet's Castle. Kronborg is known as being the setting of William Shakespeare's famous tragedy Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, but Hamlet has been performed in this castle many of times, the first was the mark of Shakespeare's 200th anniversary of his death.





The group that accompanied me to this lovely castle. ( I am to the far left, if you didn't know, then we have 2 australians, and 2 U.S girls!) We are the exchange students that are in Helsingborg Sweden.

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