The Synagogues of Prague

Wednesday, April 7, 2010 (Part 4):

Like many large cities in eastern Europe, Prague has a long history of being home to a large Jewish population. And like other such cities, the Jews of Prague were targeted for extermination as part of Hitler's campaign to destroy this race of people. We had tried to tour the Jewish Quarter of Prague on our first day here, but had to wait two days until the synagogues re-opened to the public following a period of Jewish holidays.

The Jewish Quarter has a very organized tour route and audio guide, and we followed it completely. We had to wait in a long line to purchase our tickets, but once we got started we found it all fascinating. We visited a total of five synagogues, a Jewish cemetery and a ceremonial hall. It took us four hours!

The tour began at the Pinkas Synagogue. This is a very old synagogue -- many of hundreds of years old. It is now a permanent memorial to the Prague Jews who were exterminated at the death camps during World War II. On the interior walls of this synagogue are hand-inscribed the names of the more than 77,000 Jews from Prague who were killed during the war. This is a very moving monument. Conceptually, it reminded me of the Vietnam War Memorial on the Mall in Washington, D.C. The names are arranged alphabetically. The family name is in red block type, followed by each family member's first name, date of birth and date sent to the death camps. Stars also denote the beginning and ending of a family grouping.

Also of note, these names were first inscribed in the early 1950s. When the city came under communist influence and was occupied by the Russians in the late 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, the names were obliterated. When the city emerged from communist rule in the 1970s, the names were inscribed all over again!

Pictures were prohibited inside any of the synagogues, so I have selected here (i) a picture of an interesting building on one of the central street corners in the Jewish Quarter that featured a nice statue on the exterior corner of the fourth floor, and (ii) a picture of the clock tower on top of the Jewish Town Hall within the Jewish Quarter.

An Interesting Detour

Wednesday, April 7, 2010 (Part 3):

Our lunch today was at another restaurant just below the Charles Bridge at the river's edge. We enjoyed our salads while sitting in the sun on a beautiful terrace. And following lunch, we walked under the Charles Bridge and came upon two really interesting sites. The first was a section of railing along a walkway that was adorned with hundreds of locks. Apparently, it is a custom here for couples to visit this walkway and leave behind a lock representing their love for each other. And leaving a lock here is supposed to ensure a long, happy life together for the couple. Many of the locks are engraved with names and dates. This struck me as a lovely custom.

And just around the corner from the walkway adorned with locks is "Lennon's wall." This is a 60 or 70 foot stretch of wall that is chock full of graffiti. And in the middle of the wall is a graffiti drawing of John Lennon. The wall was very colorful, and it was a lot of fun to walk along and pick out words and phrases. It is also quite the tourist attraction. There were a lot of other people walking along its expanse.

Financial Considerations

Wednesday, April 7, 2010 (Part 1):

One of the real advantages experienced during this trip was that the US dollar was strong in value compared to the Euro and other European currencies. We dealt with three different currencies during our travels: (i) the Danish kroner in Denmark, (ii) the Czech crown in Prague, and (iii) the Euro in Vienna. In Prague, in particular, it was difficult (for me, anyway) to really keep track of how much things cost. The Czech crown is a high denomination currency. I think the exchange rate was something like 20 Czech crowns to a single US dollar. So 100 crowns was equal to $5. And so the numbers get really high really fast. It'

s not uncommon to be carrying 1000-crown and 2000-crown bills. On top of the great exchange rate, everything in Prague was just plain cheap.

What was most hard to adjust to, however, was that the great majority of merchants only take cash. As a result, o

n the second day in the city, we ran into an unexpected problem. We were enjoying a lovely lunch at a restaurant by the river's edge, when the waiter brought our check. I pulled out a credit card, and he advised us that they only took cash. Katherine and I looked at each other. We didn't have that much cash on us. So we started scrounging through our purses.

We did come up with the cash that we needed, but that left us with very little, and I'd left my ATM card back at the hotel (about a mile away). We had enough money left to get into one more site on our list, but then we had to pass on a couple other places we had planned to see that afternoon because we simple had no more money! We had no choice but to head back to the hotel. Needless to say, once I was in possession of my ATM card, we made a bee-line for an ATM. From that point forward, we made sure we always had plenty of cash on hand.

Dinner and Dessert in Prague

Tuesday, April 6, 2010 (Part 9):

We were not very adventurous in our dining while in Prague, but we ate well. Our first night, we ate at an italian restaurant. There are a lot of italian restaurants in Prague, and we were very pleased with our choice. I had pasta bolognese and Katherine had mushroom gnocchi. We also shared a bottle of red wine. Katherine is now 21 after all.

The second and third nights, we ate at two different cafes around the Old Town Square. The food was surprisingly good. We typically ordered salads of some kind, and one night we both enjoyed soup - a lobster bisque for Katherine and veal tortellini for me.

Yum! (So much for my diet.)

And on our second night, following the marionette show, we treated ourselves to an ice cream sundae, which we shared. There was an ice cream parlor on the first floor of our hotel and we'd been walking by it for two days. On this night, we finally broke down. But it was worth it!

Another treat that Katherine enjoyed was a fried donut-type confection, covered in cinnamon and sugar. They were being sold by a number of vendors as part of the Easter fair that was set up in the Town Square.

Mozart's "Don Giovanni" - Marionette Style

Tuesday, April 6, 2010 (Part 8):

One of the things for which Prague is well known is its marionettes. There are tourist shops everywhere selling marionettes of all styles, figures and sizes. They were even selling Obama marionettes! And there are several theaters in Prague that exist for the sole purpose of presenting marionette shows. Perhaps the longest running and most well know of these is "Don Giovanni" presented by the National Marionette Theater.

We picked up our tickets for the show early in the day and learned that it was "open seating" with the doors opening 30 minutes before curtain time. So, of course, we had to get there 30 minutes before curtain time so that we could get the best possible seats. We did, and we were rewarded with seats in the center of the second row.

As you might expect, this was a fairly intimate theater. I'm guessing that it could seat maybe 100 people. The stage itself is relatively small. The marionettes are about 3-feet tall, and the puppet-masters stand behind the set, and hang over it from the top. We could see their hands and their upper bodies. It looked a lot like the marionette show that we all know and love from the movie "Sound of Music."

The show was fabulous -- thoroughly entertaining. It started with a conductor marionette who provided the comic relief throughout the show. We then proceeded to a fairly full presentation of Mozart's opera, "Don Giovanni." Katherine and I didn't know the story, so we read a summary of it online earlier in the day. It's a pretty dark opera. Don Giovanni is the ultimate villain. He as no redeeming qualities as far as I could tell. But seeing this opera performed by puppets, obviously, added a completely new dimension. It was great fun.

The Loreto - A Place of Pilgrimage

Tuesday, April 6 2010 (Part 7):

Following lunch, we took a bit of a hike up past the castle and on to The Loreto. The Loreto was built in 1626. It's purpose was to house a replica of Santa Casa of Loreto, which is believed to be the house of the Virgin Mary in Loreto, Italy. The complex consists of a square building (referred to as the cloisters) building built around a courtyard in which sits a replica of Santa Casa. [Once again, taking photos was prohibited.]

The Loreto had a really wonderful audio tour which Katherine and I both thoroughly enjoyed. This complex was commissioned by a woman who wanted to promote the legend of this house. For hundreds of years, the Loreto has been maintained by a Franciscan order of monks.

Also located within the Loreto are several chapels (in each of the four corners) and a small church as well as two large statues and a "treasury." And finally, there is a bell tower that plays a particular hymn several times a day. We were disappointed that they did not play during the time that we were there.

The small church was particularly nice and had a number of impressive gold/gilt statues. The treasury was also impressive -- housing several bejeweled "monstrances" (which we had to look up to understand its purposes -- it houses the host for communion) and other reliquary.

A Great Lunchtime Setting

Tuesday, April 6, 2010 (Part 7):

Following our tour of several churches, we walked across the Charles Bridge once again to get to the western part of the old town area of the city. As we were walking across the bridge, we noticed that there were several restaurants located on the western side of the river. It was a beautiful day, and it struck as as the perfect idea to find our way to one of these restaurants for lunch. Additionally, when Katherine was in Prague the previous week, she was on a walking tour where they were shown the smallest "street" in Prague. That street was on the western side of the river and led to a restaurant at the water's edge. And so that became our destination.

It took a little exploring but, without too much difficulty, we found our way to this very small "street" that led to the river. Of course, it really isn't a street a tall. It's no more thanan incredibly small alleyway -- about the width of a single person. In fact, it can only be traversed one person in one direction at a time. There is even a stop light -- with red and green lights -- to tell people when they can proceed up or down. The lights are really not necessary. The length of this passageway is no more than about 75 feet. But it was a cute touch.

We had a lot of fun making our way down the alley and finding ourselves in the outdoor seating area of a restaurant. The seating was in two

sections, an upper and a lower section. Because we were arriving before the lunch hour, we had a wonderful selection of seating options. We chose a table directly on the water. It was great! We enjoyed a very nice lunch of salads and we took advantage of our relaxing break to write a few postcards.

The Churches of Prague - St. Nicholas

Tuesday, April 6, 2010 (Part 5):

The third church that we went into this day was St. Nicholas, in the New Town area of the city. This was on the west side of the Vltava River. Once again, this church is notable for its many tombs / altar pieces. The design and layout is similar to the other churches we had seen. All of them are considered excellent examples of baroque architecture. This church was the most crowded of all. In fact, it had an almost clostrophobic feeling.

The Churches of Prague - Our Lady of Tyn

Tuesday, April 6, 2010 (Part 4):

Our Lady of Tyn stands to one side of the Old Town Square and truly dominates the Square. It is the tallest structure in the area and is marked by twin towers with multiple spires. It truly looks like something out of a story book.

I am not much of an artist, so I would not attempt a sketch, but I took several photos of this church at different times of the day. The church is also well lit at night and, against a darkening sky, it may be prettiest at that time.

Just as this church is large on the outside, it is equally big, in all respects, on the inside. In particular, the altar and the area before the altar are huge and they are filled with ma

ssively tall statues of various saints. They must be 25 to 30 feet tall -- very impressive.

I should mention that saints are really big here. Over the centuries, the protestant church and the catholic church wages many wars here and fought for control of the city. The catholic church must have been the victor because all of the churches we entered were catholic and were decorated with paintings and sculptures of countless saints. Some of the saints most often portrayed here were St. Wenceslas (of course), St. John Nepomunk, St. Catherine and St. Barbara.

The Churches of Prague - St. James

Tuesday, April 6, 2010 (Part 3):

As you may recall, we were frustrated in our efforts on Monday to see inside any of the great churches in Prague, and so it became a primary goal on Tuesday to do so. This time, we were successful. On this day, we saw St. James and Our Lady of Tyn (both in the Old Town section of the city) and St. Nicholas (in the Little Quarter).

St. James Church: This was the most notable of the churches we saw, due primarily to three (3) specific things we saw there. First, there is a really beautiful wooden pieta. It is many hundreds of years old (maybe 600 - 700 years old). Much of the statuary that we saw in Prague was wooden and dated back to the 13th thru 15th centuries. This pieta was quite striking. Also in this church we saw one particular tomb/altar that was called out as uniquely well done and well known. It had several statues that adorned it.

And third, there hangs on one wall of this church a mummified hand. The story goes that this was the hand of a beggar who tried to steal the jewels off of a madonna statue and the statue grabbed his hand and held on so tightly that the only way to release him from her grip was to cut off his forearm. The hand (shriveled up beyond recognition) remains on display as a warning to would-be thieves. [Prague is full of ghoulish stories like this one!]

As in so many of the places we visited in Prague, pictures were not allowed to be taken in this church. Boo hoo! So, I've included here another photo that we took from the top of the Town Hall.

The View from the Town Hall Tower

Tuesday, April 6, 2010 (Part 2):

We began our morning this day with a wonderful breakfast in our hotel. We then walked out of our front door of the hotel and about 20 paces to the Town Hall across the street. We purchased tickets and then started the climb to the top. Instead of steps, this tower has a series of ramps -- which is much easier on the legs. Towards the very top, we climbed a small spiral staircase and emerged into a square room, about 20 feet square. From there, we passed through a doorway to the outside gallery which runs along all four sides of the top of the tower.

This day was a really beautiful day, with clear blue skies and a nice warm sun, and the view from the tower was fantastic. Needless to say, we took a lot of pictures. And we met two college girls from Australia and took turns taking photos of each other. We walked the entire circumference of the tower and took in every conceivable angle.

This was a great way to start our day.

Inside the Astronomical Clock

Tuesday, April 6, 2010 (Part 1):

Our touring schedule was seriously disrupted on Easter Monday, and so we woke up on Tuesday absolutely determined to have a much more productive day. Our first stop, and one of my favorite stops of the day was the Old Town Hall Clock Tower. Two features of the Town Hall are particularly notable. They are the astronomical clock on the outside and the tower itself -- which is open for climbing to the top.

As mentioned before, the Town Hall and the side of the tower with the astronomical clock was directly across from our hotel. This clock is one of the most well known features in all of Prague. The clock was built in 1490. It tells time, but it also has as astronomical clock that indicates the amount of daylight in each day as well as which month on the zodiac calendar is prevailing. Finally, it also indicates the day and month of the year.

From 9:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m., on the hour, the clock puts on a bit of a show. Four characters (statues), two on each side of the clock -- representing vanity, greed, death and lust -- start to move. Death rings a bell, and two doors above the clock open and the 12 apostles, six in each window, process past the windows. This hourly show draws crowds all day long

, and throughout the day, tourists stop to have their photos taken in front of the clock.

We had read in our guidebook that there is also a chapel in the Town Hall that is worth seeing, so we found our way to the second floor and discovered that we had to pay a separate admission fee to see it. Well, we were there, so we went ahead and paid the extra kroner.

What we did not know was that, in the room next to the chapel, we would be able to climb a small flight of stairs and see inside the room behind the clock where the 12 apostles await their hourly parade. This was really cool, and there was no one else around so it made our

viewing seem extra special. You can't see these figures very well from the street when they appear fleetingly at the windows. But from the inside, through a glass viewing door, we were only several feet away, and we could see them in great detail. What a treat!

Good King Wenceslas

Monday, April 5, 2010 (Part 6):

As I've already said, you can hardly walk 50 yards in Prague and not encounter an image of St. Wenceslas -- whether it's a statue, or a painting or a stained glass window. We saw him on the Charles Bridge. And we saw him in St. Vitus Cathedral. And we saw him in just about every other church that we went into.

We also found him painted on the sides of buildings. And there was one building in particular in the Town Square that featured a great painting of St. Wenceslas charging victoriously forward on a horse.

St. Vitus Cathedral

Monday, April 5, 2010 (Part 5):

The centerpiece of the Castle complex is St. Vitus Cathedral. Construction on this Cathedral began in the 14th Century and was not completed until the 19th Century! It is a massive church and contains some beautiful stained glass

Perhaps the most well known part of this church is the chapel devoted to St. Wenceslas -- whose image can be found all over Prague. St. Wenceslas is definitely a favorite son of the city.

Prince Wenceslas ruled for only a very short time in the 10th Century. He was murdered on the orders of his brother, Boleslav. As the story goes, he was murdered by paid assassins as he was about to enter the church for morning mass.

The Royal Palace within Prague Castle

Monday, April 5, 2010 (Part 4):

The Prague Castle complex is a huge collection of buildings, and we did not go in to all of them. But one of the places we wanted to see was the Royal Palace. Portions of the Palace were built at different times, with the earliest section having been built in the 12th Century. The rooms are all extremely large. There were few furnishings in any of the rooms, so we learned of their historic use from information sheets that we found in each room.

And it was in the Royal Palace that I was fooled by the jewels on display. In the main hall, there were several large glass cases that contained a crown, a scepter and an orb. We were a

ble to get really close and I started taking some pictures. Then Katherine pointed out (based on the information in our guide book) that these jewels were fakes! How ridiculous. Who wants to see fakes? I don't get it. And I was embarrassed that I had been so excited about the pictures I had taken. Silly me.

One of the rooms in the Palace had a really neat ceiling decorated with the crests of the clerks who worked in here, in the rooms where the "land rolls" were stored. The land rolls, as the name suggests, recorded property ownership, and they were among the most important records maintained by the ruling government.

Golden Lane

Monday, April 5, 2010 (Part 3):

Finally, we arrived along the outer wall of the Castle complex, and we started an up-hill trek to reach one of the entry points. We entered the complex on the lower, eastern side and found ourselves in an area called Golden Lane. This is a street filled with cottages originally built in the 16th century for the guards of the Castle. We walked up a flight of stairs at one end of the Lane and were able to walk through the second floor area where we found a display of medieval armor and armaments.

At the end of Golden Lane, we descended a staircase and found ourselves at the Dalibor Tower. This grim 15th century tower was originally part of the Castle fortifications but came to serve as a prison and is named after one of the first inmates. This was a very sad space. The prison "cells" were miniscule and it took little effort to imagine how horrible the conditions must have been.

Easter Monday in Prague

Monday, April 5, 2010 (Part 2):

Our sightseeing in Prague got off to a rather rocky start. It had been our plan to start out by seeing several churches in the area of the Town Square and then to tour the Jewish Quarter. Well, you know what they say about "best laid plans." We were foiled by the fact that Easter Monday is a holiday in much of Europe. Consequently, things were CLOSED. We walked up to four different churches and

could not get in to any one of them. We also found the Jewish Quarter to be closed -- something to do with the Passover holidays being longer than we thought they were.

And so, we started heading for the Castle. To get from Old Town to the Castle (which is an area called Hradcany), we had to walk over the Charles Bridge. This is a great Bridge that is limited to pedestrian traffic and is lined with dozens of really interesting statues. The Bridge is fully of activity, including musicians (usually several different groups), dancers, caricaturists and street vendors. It's a fun place.

Once getting to the other side of the river, and before walking to the Castle, we detoured to the Wallenstein Palace. We were unable to get inside the Palace (built in the 16th century and today used as the home to the Czech Senate, but the gardens were open.

One of the focal points of the Wallenstein gardens is an area call the "grotesquery" which consists of two walls (maybe 40 feet tall) built into a corner that were built to imitate a limestone cave, covered with

stalactites. And tucked into the nooks and crannies of these walls are a wide variety of animals and grotesque faces and other items. The fun of the wall is to try to pick out these "hidden" items.

Also in this garden, we enjoyed walking around a pretty reflecting pool (with a statue of Hercules in the center), and we encountered several peacocks!

On to Prague

Monday, April 5 (Part 1):

After two days in and around Copenhagen, on Monday morning, we got up very early and took a taxi to the airport where we boarded a plane and traveled to Prague, in the Czech Republic. Since we had such an early flight, we arrived in Prague relatively early and were at our hotel by about 11:00 a.m. That meant that we had much of the day left to begin our sightseeing in this beautiful old city.

Prague is a large city, and it is relatively unique within eastern Europe because it escaped much damage during World War II. Consequently, many of the old, old buildings in this city have been preserved. As we drove from the airport

into the city, it struck me as very modern and cosmopolitan, and I began to wonder where the old parts of the city really were. And then I saw it. The Castle rose up on the landscape. It sits on a hill and looks down on the Vltava River, on the opposite of which is the "Old Town" and "Jewish Quarter."

The Castle complex is really something. It's so old!!! And it's huge. And it looks just the way you would expect it to look. But the way it dominants the landscape is what is perhaps most remarkable about it.

Our taxi drove us to within about two blocks of our hotel -- which was in "Old Town." We only got that far because Old Town is a no-driving zone, which is kind of nice. So we set out from our taxi with our suitcases in town and started to make our way to find our hotel. When we found it, we were delighted. I booked this hotel on the internet, and I knew very

little about it except that it was in Old Town and near the town square. Well, it wasn't just near the town square. It was directly ON the town square. The picture here shows our hotel as seen from the very top of the Town Hall. It's the yellow building in the center, and our room was the one with the two windows on the top floor.

We were staying at the Grand Prague Hotel. It was very nice. And it was located directly across from the Old Town Hall. And then it got even better. Our room was on the third floor (the top floor), in the front (facing the town square) and directly across from the astronomical clock! What a coup! We were very pleased.

Hillerod - Katherine's "Home" Town

Sunday, April 4, 2010 (Part 3):

Frederiksborg Slot was our one "touristy" stop on Sunday. The rest of the day was devoted to visiting with Katherine's host family. They were going to be meeting us at their house, which is not a very far walk from the castle. Luckily, when we emerged from the castle, the rain had let up. Thank goodness! We made a quick stop at the local bakery to pick up some cakes for dessert, and then we walked about 10 minutes to Katherine's "home" this semester.

I have been looking forward to writing about Katherine's host family. They are delightfully warm, gracious and friendly. The parents are Steen and Charlotte. Steen is a financial auditor and works with pension plans. Charlotte is a designer of all sorts of interesting things (like wedding dresses, jewelry showcases, and advertisement spreads). They have two daughters. Sophie is the eldest and is about to graduate from their equivalent of our high school. She is 18 or 19. Caroline, the youngest, is 15 or 16 and a tournament badminton player. Both the girls are very pretty and fair-haired. And they are very tall (like their dad who I think is at least 6'5").

Katherine is the fifth DIS student whom they have hosted, and she is so very fortunate to have been paired with them. They are just wonderful people and I thoroughly enjoyed our day together.

Steen and Charlotte met us at their house and then drove us about 30 minutes (maybe 25 miles) further north to the coast of Eckland where, last year, they built a summer home. They showed off their lovely home to us, and it struck me as classically Danish -- simple and clean. On the inside, everything is white and glass. The house has one central living space that houses a large family room, the kitchen and a dining room with a huge rectangular table. And there is a deck that wraps around the back and both sides of the house. The house is quite beautiful and very comfortable.

When we first arrived (following our house tour), we enjoyed a late afternoon snack consisting of tea, coffee and a wonderful coconut coffee cake that Charlotte had made. I must get her recipe. It was very tasty!

We then walked to the beach. It was only about a 10 minute walk. We approached from a very high cliff and walked down a staircase of maybe 50 or more stairs. The beach, in this particular area, was a bit rocky, but further along there are sandy areas where people lie out in the warm summer months. We enjoyed our walk along the beach and came upon a group of families who were tossing dyed eggs for their young children to chase after. It struck me as a rather odd custom, but the kids were having a great time -- as were their parents.

Finally, we enjoyed a wonderful dinner with Steen, Charlotte, their daughters, and their family friends, Inge and Bent. Dinner was lasagna, but it was made differently. It was more like a layered beef stroganoff, and it was very good. It had no tomato sauce in it, but many at the table made up for that by liberally applying a great deal of Heinz ketchup! [Katherine tells me they put ketchup on everything.] I passed on the ketchup, but I thoroughly enjoyed Charlotte's version of lasagna.

We had a wonderful evening, and then we were treated with a ride back into the city by Bent and Inge. This was an hour-long drive, and it was extremely kind of them to do this. It was very late, and it would probably have been a 90 minute t0 2 hour trip for us on the bus and the train.

Frederiksborg Slot

Sunday, April 4, 2010 (Part 2):

Frederiksborg slot is huge. It has an inner courtyard and the main castle flanks three sides of the courtyard. The fourth side is taken up by the front gate (with tower), stables and other working areas of the castle. We took initial refuge from the rain in the passageway under the tower above the main gate. Then we ran across the courtyard and finally were able to get in out of the rain.

The rooms of this castle are immense. The largest one took up an entire floor of one of the wings and was basically a ballroom. It felt like the size of a football field -- truly hue. Another large room was the banquet hall with a throne room on one end -- and once again guarded by a lion.

But the most magnificent "room" in this castle was the "chapel" which is as large as any church. It was quite spectacular. We toured it from the gallery level. And on that level there were hundreds of coats of arms on the walls as well as many oil paintings with Christian themes. The chapel also had a magnificent, very old organ.

The rest of the castle consisted of maybe 20-25 rooms of various sizes -- all large and with interesting pieces of furniture and decorative art. And most of all, there were tons of portraits of all the kings and their families and relations who passed through these rooms. Sadly, there were way too many names and people to remember.

I should also mention that one of the neatest features within the castle were the ceilings. They were all different and were made up of the most interesting patterns and designs. Some had sculptures. Others had large paintings. They were all beautiful.

There was no audio tour available at this castle, but this was made up for

because, in each room, there were printed sheets (in several

different languages) with detailed information about the original

purpose of the room, its furnishings and the paintings. Katherine served as our reader.

A Bit of Rain on Our Parade

Sunday, April 4, 2010 (Part 1):

Sunday (Easter Sunday!) was our day to travel outside Copenhagen to the town where Katherine stays with her host family. The town is called Hillerod and it's about 40 miles north of the city.

And so, our first activity of the day was to get ourselves to Hillerod. That meant taking the train. But, because a section of the track was undergoing construction, we started out on the train but, half way to Hillerod, we had to get off the train and board a bus which drove us to another train station (about 10 miles away). We then boarded a second train for the last 10 miles of our journey.

We arrived in Hillerod at about 11:20 a.m. And did I mention that it was pouring rain? Yes, it was pretty miserable out. But we persevered. Our immediate goal was to

get t

o Frederiksborg Slot -- a royal palace built in 1560 by Christian IV. This castle sits right next to the central commercial area of Hillerod. It also sits on a lake on one side and

is surrounded by

beautiful ornamental gardens on the other. Unfortunately, at this time of year, the gardens are not in bloom pretty and, of course, it was raining anyway so we were unable to spend any time exploring the gardens.

We proceeded to walk through the town in the direction of the castle -- in the

pouring rain. I had an umbrella from the hotel but it kept getting blown inside out by the strong winds. This greatly amused Katherine -- as she watched me struggle to get the umbrella back into shape. Well, this umbrella ended up thoroughly mangled. I think there were a dozen or more bent spokes. What a mess. I finally had to close it and tried instead to keep my head dry with the hood of my coat. By the time we got to the castle, we looked like a couple of

drowned rats.

I should mention that the entire time we were battling the elements to get to the castle, we were not even sure if it was open. It was Easter Sunday after all. But we were very lucky. The castle was open! Hooray! And I am so glad that it was. This was one fantastic place -- very much a highlight of this trip.

Day #1 Comes to a Close

Saturday, April 3, 2010 (Part 11):

This was an amazing first day of our vacation. We truly did see Copenhagen in a day. And in addition to the many sites that I have recounted here, we also (i) enjoyed Danish pastries in a bakery near Von Freisers Kirke, (ii) walked past the "black diamond" -- which is a beautiful black glass building that houses the royal library, (iii) walked around the outside gates of the amusement park, Tivoli (which is not yet open for the season), and (iv) enjoyed a wonderful dinner at a restaurant just around the corner

from our hotel, called Reinwald's. It was the perfect way to end a jam-packed day of sightseeing.

We did not get back to our hotel room until 10:30 that night. And we were exhausted. But is was a good feeling, and we slept very well that night.

The Danish Institute for Study Abroad

Saturday, April 3, 2010 (Part 10):

Katherine is spending her Spring semester studying at the Danish Institute for Study Abroad, or "DIS." And so, I needed to see where Katherine spends her "school" time in Copenhagen. From the way Katherine describes the school and her work there, I have the definite impression that she is being challenged academically. She is taking some really good courses, and she is getting a lot out of them.

The DIS facility is not showy, but it is very functional. Katherine gave me the nickel tour. We poked our head into several classrooms and I was able to see the study halls and break rooms where Katherine spends a lot of her time.

Spiraling Into View

Saturday, April 3, 2010 (Part 9):

When we started this day, there was one place that Katherine kept telling me she really wanted to see. It was a church in Christianshavn called Von Freisers Kirke, and it is rather unique because it

has a gold spire around which there is an outside staircase. Visitors can climb the outside of this spire to the very top. And, of course, we expected the views to be rather fantastic.

So, from Rosenborg Slot, we hoped on the train (or subway, not sure which) and traveled under the harbor to the Christianshavn. We emerged from the train only sever

al short blocks from the church. As mentioned previously, it was beautiful day, and apparently many others had the same idea about climbing the church spire to take in the views. We had to wait in a rather slow moving line. It wasn't even a very long line, but the staircase up to the top is rather narrow most of the way up and so the foot traffic had to be carefully regulated. I think we waited 40 or more minutes for our turn, but it finally came, and we headed up.

It was a fun climb -- maybe about 350 or 400 steps to the top.

Along the way, we passed several areas where parts of the bell system, including various bells, were stored. The staircase was an incredible mix of sections. Some were rather normal in height. Others were perilously steep and/or narrow and felt like climbing a ladder. We finally got to the part where we emerged into the daylight and found ourselves on a circular staircase that hugged the outside of the spire. It was a little bit spooky. If someone was afraid of heights, I could not recommend this activity.

What was really odd about this experience was that most of the people who were making the climb were NOT going all the way to the top. We were very surprised by this. Afterall, getting to the very top was our number one goal. And we got there. Katherine was ahead of me. She was able to stand of the very top most step -- which was probably less than 12 inches wide. I was about two steps below her. There was another couple

who was a few steps below us, and we asked them to take our picture. Sadly, the gentleman must not have been familiar with my type of camera. I realized much later that although it looked as though he had taken our picture, he must not have depressed the button enough. There was no picture to be found on my camera. Boo hoo! Oh well, we'll just have to go back some day.

Meanwhile, once having made it to the top, and with no one crowding up behind us, we took our time and enjoyed the views for a few minutes. We also took a lot of pictures (of course).