No, this is not Legoland. No matter how good those fellows are with their little plastic bricks I don't think they could actually build two full scale palaces, a couple of Baroque gardens, nor a couple of Romantic gardens. I realized I needed to capitalize those two names else you may have gotten the wrong idea.

This was Friday, and yes, you may recall that I said Friday was going to be Legoland. Before you think me a heartless bastard who betrayed his children by giving them the false hope of an adventure playground and then subjected them to MORE castles, just hear me out. Noah had, unfortunately, woken with a migraine Friday morning and was in no state to be going anywhere. Jake was offered the opportunity to go to Legoland anyway, however he felt that it would not be the same (which is likely true as there are rides and, as previously noted Jesper and I are not fun with rides), so declined. We then discussed other options and Jake elected to chill out for the day. So, one young gentleman sleeping until he no longer hurt and the other curled up with a book meant that Jesper and I had the opportunity to get out and do something with just two of us. This actually ended up working out really well, as it gave Jesper and I some good time together to talk about all sorts of fun topics without boring the heck out of everyone around us. Yes, we talked about work.

So, with the blessing of them both and assurances that they would be in touch should they need anything (ya, right) Jesper and I headed out into the world to see what we could see.

And this is what we saw.

Oh, by the way, if there are reasons other than this that make you believe I am a heartless bastard then please do send me a note and I will do my best to confirm or deny.

This is Fredensborg Castle. It is in Fredensborg and is one of the royal residences. I didn't knock, but Jesper, and a few signs, assured me that no one was home and that I shouldn't play the role of Goldilocks today.

It does though have lovely gardens much of which are open to the public, so we wandered around them.

Parts of the gardens are Baroque style, so they are well sculpted and big on symmetry, such as the above, which is the view from the palaces back door. This was the first Baroque garden I have ever set foot in, and was really pleased to have been able to do so. I've mentioned before how much I like symmetry, and I've been wanting to see this sort of thing with my own eyes for many a year.

There were lots of things like this.

Now, the number of times I have seen pictures such as the one below on the internet and wanted to be there and feel the greenness of it all..., well, it happens a lot. Innevitably one of those "45 most stunning places in europe" photo montages that get posted to Facebook every twenty minutes seems to have one of these shots in them.

This one is mine.

All mine.

This is Frederiksborg Castle. Notice I am remembering to include the all important "s".  It was a palace built for Christian IV in Hillerod, Denmark, and I believe is the largest Renassiance Castle in Scandinavia.

We're kinda far from it right now. That's because we came by way of the garden.

See, garden.

Big garden. Frederiksborg boasts an enormous Baroque garden that makes the one at Fredenborg look like the parkette at Dundas and Sorauren.

Okay, that may be a bit to obscure a reference, even for me. Well, not for me, as I know exactly what I'm talking about. Just think "really small".

Here is a model of the Baroque part of the garden, just to give you a sense of scope.

The top is where I took the first garden shot with all the water in it. The shot directly above is one of those two squares a little below the middle of the model. Those four quadrants by the way are the royal emblems of various monarchs.

The shot of the castle below was taken at the cross section of those quadrants, on a bridge that spans the water way connecting the big pool at the top with the lake/moat thing at the bottom. Still lots of zoom on the lense too.

It was a big garden.  And that's just the Baroque part.

This is the fountain that graces the courtyard of the castle.

And this is a view of said courtyard.

And this is some of the Romantic garden at Frederiksborg. I mentioned it at the top, and am finally getting to it. Romantic Gardens are "made" to look natural. This one is doing a pretty good job of itself.

Imagine all the brooding one could do. All the Shelley that could be read. Sit nestled at the base of an ancient tree and question your heart. Look deep into the shadows that beckon you to the forests edge and ask yourself what your deepest desire truly is. Look out over the still waters as a lone swan drifts silently by and reflect upon your lifes journey.

Or do what we did and head back to the car and go look at really cool viking long boats.

This is a recreation of the viking long boat Havhingsten fra Glendalough, or the Sea Stallion from Glendalough. It was built and is docked at the Vikingeskib Museet in Roskilde. Nearby in the museum are the remains of the original ship that it is modelled from and four other ships, discovered in 1962 during excavations in Roskilde Fjord.

In short, these are cool.

Havhingsten was built by vikings already in Ireland in 1042. They know this from the wood. Incidently, it's the viking settlement in that area that grew to become Dublin. The ship is about 30 metres long, and yes, sailed and oared it's way across the Atlantic between Ireland and Denmark. They proved this nicely by rebuilding it in as traditional a manner as possible and with as close to the same types of woods and other materials as they could and then taking the same voyage.

That is rope. Seal rope. There were many different types of rope and rope materials used in a viking ship. Yes, I learned about rope. I'll save you that one though so you can learn it yourself when you visit Denmark.

Now, this is one of the actual viking long boats that was recovered.

As is this.

Five in all, but I will not show you pictures of them all here. Wait for a year and I'll have you over for a glass of wine and you can see them along with the other 20,000 photos I'll have by then.

No?

After this Jesper and I headed home to discover Jake still chillin' and Noah feeling somewhat better, so we settled in for dinner and a few games of Uno. I apparently am not good at Uno. Given the rules and structure of the game I am not quite sure how someone could be good at Uno, but apparently I lack that certain je ne sais quoi. In any language.

This had been Friday, which meant that the next day was Saturday, which meant that it was time to bid farewell to Jeanett and Lasse and thank them for the kindness and hospitality they had shown us during our stay, for which we are all, very, very grateful.

Not Jesper though. It's not that he wasn't kind or anything, or that we weren't grateful to him. Nope, Jesper had offered to drive us to Orebro, Sweden, our next destination. We made the trip in about four hours. I have concluded that I like BMWs.

A quick coffee at my Aunt Karen and Uncle Per's house and then off again went Jesper, leaving us in the caring hands of my family, and to begin the next month of our adventures with them.

Jesper had been inviting me to visit him in Denmark ever since we first met years ago on that project. It has taken me deciding to take a year long trip to get to Denmark and spend 10 days with him. Foolish. There always seem to be more reasons not to do something than to do that same something. Generally though, I'm finding the reasons not to, while bountiful in their quantity, lack genuine quality when put to the test, while reasons to do something, though they may be few, are the best reasons of all.

Friendship is one of those reasons.

So is the openface sandwich.