Diary of an adventure to Eastern Europe.. Part 3- Frederiksborg Castle and the Little Mermaid

The next day we were off to Hillerod - a 2 hour drive away from the city to visit the Frederiksborg Castle. It started to drizzle on our way but it didn't dampen our mood... we were all excited to go and take shots... Rain or Shine....

The Frederiksborg Castle is a castle in Hillerod, Denmark. It was built as a royal residence for King Christian IV, and is now known as The Museum of National History. The current building replaced a previous castle erected by Federick II, and is the largest Renaissance palace in Scandinavia. The palace is located on three small islands in the middle of Palace Lake and is adjoined by a large baroque inspired garden.

The Palace courtyard

The Palace Church also known as the Chapel of Orders serves as a local church today, and is a part of the museum on the premises. The coats-of-arms of recipients of the country's royal orders, are displayed on the walls of the church.

As well as the magnificent rooms, such as the Chapel, the Great Hall and the Rose, the Frederiksborg Museum houses Denmark's most important collection of portraits and history paintings. It also has significant colletions of decorative art, furniture, porcelain and glass, textiles and photography.

Then the group went off to see the most talked about scenic spot of Copenhagen ... The little Mermaid....

The statue of The Little Mermaid sits on a rock in Copenhagen harbour at Langeline. This small and unimposing statue is a Copenhagen icon and a major tourist attraction. According to our tour guide, the statue was commissioned in 1909 by Carl Jacobsen, the son of the founder of Carlsberg, who was fascinated by a ballet about the fairytale in Copenhagen's Royal Theater and asked the prima ballerina to model for the statue. Edvard Eriksen, a sculptor created the statue and was unveiled on August 23, 1913.

The Copenhagen City Council are planning to move the statue to Shanghai for the duration of the Expo 2010 ( May to October ).

That evening ... we went to the pier and boarded DFDS Crown of Scandinavia for an overnight trip to Oslo.

Diary of an adventure to Eastern Europe.. Part 2

Landed at 7:00am at the Kastrup International Airport, Copenhagen. The weather was chilly ( at 14C ) and... it was DRIZZLING!!... I told myself... BAD NEWS!! my first day and the weather was not cooperating with our group. We all boarded a bus with our tourist guide to have a morning city tour and lunch ( since our hotel rooms won't be ready till after lunch)...

As we neared the city... we encountered so much traffic. There were too many bicycles on the street since it was rush hour and people were on their way to work.

 Another problem was the draw bridge was up to give way for the boat to pass...

The Stock Exchange building.

Our first stop was the Copenhagen Opera House. They innaugurated it on January 1, 2005. The opera opened on Holmen. The opera is the new venue for operas and ballets, with state of art facilities. The entire project was a donation made by the A.P. Moller and Chastine Mc Kinney Moller Foundation.

The winter residence of the Danish Family is known as Amalienborg. It is made up of four almost identical rococo palaces built around an octagonal square, which were originally built by four noblemen in the years 1750 - 1754, on land granted to them by King Frederick V. The Royal Family lived on Christianborg until 1794, when it burned down. The Royal Family decided to buy four palaces and named them Amalienborg, moved in and lived there.

The Royal Guard, an elite force of the Danish Army, has as its main purpose the protection and security of the Queen. Every day at noon, the guard replacement marches into the square and commences the change of the guard. Each guard has a two-hour shift, in which he is to alternately stand in front of the very distinctive guard house or march back and forth in front of the palais to which he is assigned. After the two hours, the replacement is marched out from the guards' room, located under the colonnade to the South of Amalienborg (except of course at noon), and is relieved.

Next to Tivoli Gardens is the Town Hall Square. The town hall was built in 1892-1905 and was designed by Architect Martin Nyrop, who was in part inspired by the town hall in Siena, Italy.

Our lunch was at Copenhagen Corner.

Our lunch was good. The only bad experience I had was..... We HAD TO PAY for OUR WATER ( which is 5 EUROS for a 1.7ml )....and when we complained they told us that SCANDINAVIA has potable water.. therefore no need to buy bottled wate.... but JUST to make sure... I still bought my bottled water all though out the trip.... 


After lunch we headed for a free afternoon shopping. I went to have some money changed and to my surprise... I found out that in COPENHAGEN they do not accept EUROS or DOLLARS ( unless you are using your credit cards )... They said.. they ONLY accept DANISH KRONERS...


We went to the Pedestrian Street for a free afternoon SHOPPING...... Their main department store was ILLUM.

Diary of an adventure to Eastern Europe.. Part 1

I had decided to join my travel group on another adventure .... this time we were headed for Eastern Europe. I was all geared up for this travel... I tried to travel as light as possible .... I had a suitcase and one hand carry which I placed my camera and 3 lens ready to take some shots of my adventure.

A week before our departure the our tour leader , Annie Inciong, was telling us to make sure we bring warm clothes and a folding umbrella ( in case it rains ) ..... since the temperatures of  Scandinavia and Moscow were already dropping to 8 degrees and we should expect it to drop a little further in the evenings.

I left for the airport early that day ...  to allow enough time for check-in, traffic along the way and to ask for a good seat on the plane.. since we were 34 in the group it will be a madhouse at the airport. Thank God ... I was given an EXIT AISLE seat... As I was in the lounge waiting for the rest of the group ( 15 came all the way from Surigao the day before )...made small chat and I discovered this was our first time to be travelling to Eastern Europe.

Officially opened on the 28th September 2006 to replace the aging Don Muang airport, Bangkok's new Suvarnabhumi international airport is actually in the nearby Samut Prakan province about 25km to the east of Bangkok.

As scheduled our plane left on time from Manila to Bangkok to catch our connecting flight to Copenhagen past midnight.