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.