Ticket to Kronborg Castle (aka Elsinore Castle)
Five-years ago, Jeff and I spent New Year’s week on Salt Spring Island, one of the Gulf Islands located off the east coast of Vancouver Island.
We rented a little cabin near the water, where we could relax for a week. The island at that time of year was dark and rainy and windy — the perfect weather for reading books and drinking a lot of coffee. In fact, I read all the novels I brought with me in the first three days and peed exactly 100 times in 72 hours.
On the fourth day, I headed to the town bookstore to replenish my stock. It’s usually hard for me to walk away with no less than three books from a bookstore. But this time, I succeeded in only buying one book I saw prominently displayed by the front of the door under the ‘mystery’ section.
I got back to the cabin and immediately cracked opened Jo Nesbo’s The Leopard, one in a series about a Norwegian detective named Harry Hole, who drinks too much and solves difficult crimes.
After discovering The Leopard, I was hooked on Scandinavian crime novels. And they are so much more than just Steig Larsson. Over the last five years, I read about strangling in Norway, a decapitation in Sweden, a drowning in Finland, and poisonings in Denmark. A good friend and I even developed enormous crushes on Harry Hole and his down and out ways.
Once Jeff and I decided to visit Copenhagen, I started to look for my literary companion to the region. My first thought went to The Department Q series by Jussi Adler-Olsen, about a disgruntled Danish cop who solves cold cases in Copenhagen. What better way to see Copenhagen that through its streets of crime?
However, I didn’t end up picking a Scandinavian crime thriller to start because Jeff reminded me another famous story takes place in Denmark. So I traded in a contemporary thriller for, quite possibly, the most famous murder story ever that takes place in Denmark – Hamlet.
Hamlet is set at Elsinore Castle, which is actually called Kronborg Castle in Denmark. Elsinore is located a forty-minute train ride north of Copenhagen. And as I took my solo train ride from Copenhagen to visit the famous castle, I let my imagination take me quite some centuries back, to the time of Ophelia, Hamlet, and Claudius.
Kronborg Castle
The funny thing is, Shakespeare never visited Denmark. Historians believe that many of his actor friends performed in Kronborg, bringing back stories of the castle to England. And the play itself is based on a Danish legend.
Today, it is and it isn’t hard to imagine Hamlet wandering the halls of Kronborg. On one hand, the castle is sparse and barren. There is nothing dark or gloomy about the castle, to suggest dastardly deeds and murder. In fact, there was ‘nothing rotten’ about this castle in Denmark at all. On the other hand, the actor walking around in a crazy-looking medieval costume made it very easy to imagine some crazed man wandering the hall looking to avenge his fathers death. And every summer, the castle invites famous actors to perform Hamlet on site.
Photos of past performances of Hamlet are on display inside the castle.
After I left Kronborg, I hopped on the train and headed South back to Copenhagen. I was satisfied that I visited the setting for Hamlet, but something felt lacking. That’s when I pulled out my Kindle and downloaded the fourth book in the Department Q story. In the end, Shakespeare may have been the world’s greatest playwright, but I’d prefer a Scandinavian author any day for a mystery.
Even though the Bard never visited Kronborg, there is still a plaque for him.
expositions 
[…] can eat pizza, drink beer, and nap. Or just park your self for hours on one of the picnic benches, reading a Danish crime novel. Just try to make it before 3 p.m.- afterwards there’s a €3 […]