Mary_Fran

We will be arriving in Copenhagen on May 10 and will be picking up a rental car at the airport to drive to Arhus for a 3-night stay, returning to Copenhagen for 3 nights. We want to see Kronborg and Fredriksborg Castles. My question is whether we should drop the car off at Copenhagen airport on our return from Arhus and plan to visit Kronburg and Fredriksborg castles by train, or whether we should keep the car in Copenhagen an extra day so we can drive to the castles instead of train.

Will we see as much by train, so the hassle of parking and driving in Copenhagen should be avoided, or is driving to the castles easy enough and does it offer flexibility that the train doesn't?

Any experiences, thoughts?

Mary_Fran

Just a warning: I'm going to keep nagging until I get some advice!

Erin464

I have never driven to either castle, but I have taken the train to Kronborg castle (in Helsingor), and I assure you that it is very easy. The train going to Helsingor is a regional train and you can find more about it at www.dsb.dk (there is an english link on the left-hand side). The train ride there takes about an hour (if I remember correctly), is fairly inexpensive, and the route is very scenic. I would assume you would see the same scenery by car though.

As for Frederiksborg castle in Hillerod, I have never been, but I am fairly certain that you can get there by the S-Train (S Tog) - this is one of the city trains and you can also find information on the trip on the website I provided above (I just looked and it says the trip takes 40 min. and costs approximately $12 Cdn).

Bottom line? If you have the car already, you might as well use it to go to the castles. However, as I said, taking the train instead is both easy and inexpensive. Helsingor is small and a car is not needed. Also, if you are planning on touring around Copenhagen, you deffinetly don't need a car! If you want to drop the car off at the airport, you can always take a train into the central station (Kobenhavn H) and catch either the regional train (to Helsingor) or the S-Train (to Hillerod) from there.

Hope this helps!

Mary_Fran

Erin,

Wow. Replies like yours are what makes this site so great! Thank you!

The train sounds like the way to go, but if anyone else out there has done sightseeing by car outside Copenhagen but lodged inside the city, I'd love to hear your perspectives.

PalQ

Trains are the way to go to both. Hamlet's Castle - Kronborg is a short walk from the Helsingor (Elsinore in English) train station and at Hillerod from the station you take the short stroll into the town center and then hop a boat that goes across the lake to the castle (or you can walk around the lake, not that far). Investigate the cheap regional train passes that cover the greater Copenhagen area - the click cards where you click the number of zones for each destination - cheaper than regular tickets. I did both in one day - took train from Hillerod to Helsingor. But with Helsingor you can also combine a visit to Louisiana, the stunning Sound-side outdoor statue park, which is also on the same Copenhagen-Helsingor train line - Humlebaek station is a short walk to Louisiana. Or on the way back to Copenhagen from Helsingor you could get off at the stop for Baaken, at over 400 years old the world's oldest amusement park - kind of like Tivoli, but free, with neat free entertainment and a more old folks attractions- short walk from station and surrounded by vast deer park.

Mary_Fran

Another wonderfully helpful reply! Thanks, PalQ! I loved your Berlin report. Did you post one on Copenhagen as well?

I'd love to have your take on the area.

PalQ

No i haven't but i love Copenhagen - i have written about Christiana, the Free City in the center of Copenhagen that is currently under threat of being demolished - very interesting place if still there - one of few extant hippie communes from 1960s - took over old military base by squattors who have morphed it into quite a city - one of the restaurants in highly acclaimed.
But yes Copenhagen is very very nice!
Thanks for your nice comments.

PalQ

Some thoughts - a great trip from Copenhagen by rail and ferry is to do the Round the Sound trip where you train from Cope to Malmo, Sweden, crossing the impressive new bridge/tunnel over the Ore Sound, with sweeping views from the bridge part - change trains in Malmo and go to Lund, one of the finest cities in Scandinavia and home of the famous Lund cathedral and university of Lund, one of Sweden's premier schools. Then train up to Helsingborg, Sweden thru farms redolent of Minnesota, and take the train ferries that run constantly over to Helsingor, going right by the Hamlet castle that juts out into the Sound. and then rail back to Copenhagen along the Sound - total travel time about three hours. If you had a Scanrail or Eurail the whole route would all be covered in full, even the boat - without it may cost about $40-50 but a very varied experience. For a shorter experience just day trip to Lund, just over an hour from Copenhagen.
There are lots of neat trains in the Copenhagen area - one goes from Hillerod (i think) to Gilleleje (sp) a cute fishing port famous for its fish sandwiches - this is a quaint interurban train - old fashioned one or two car train and from Gilleleje the train (Gillejebahn) goes along a gorgeous unspoilt coast to Helsingor, with a stop right by the castle before terminating at Helsingor's mainline station.
As for Copenhagen i enjoy: Christianshavn - the area around Christiana - cute port area, canals with lots of pleasure boats, neat spiral-towered churches, the Carlsberg Brewery tour - not a tour any more but an experience - the old brewery buildings at the famous Elephant Gate, featuring huge stone statues of elephants, are so quaint - inside is an exhibition of Carlsberg beer history and some works of art. The Carlsberg Foundation, which controls the now United Breweries of Tuborg and Carlsberg, is a great patron of the arts and has funded art museums in Copenhagen and has a stash of nice art here. and of course Nyhavn, another cute canal-port area in the town center and the Little Mermaid - the Danish Marie Antoinette for her penchant for losing her head every now and then. At last report she's still intact. And lots more interesting neighborhoods in this fascinating town. Come in July for the Jazz festival and the town really hops. In Arhus you can drive out to see the Bogman - a preserved corpse thousands (?) of years old of someone found in a bog and now englassed in the open-air museum just north of Arhus - the name of the museum escapes me but there are nice trails down to the Sound and a fine beach.

PalQ

A funny thing about Helsingor to me was that the main street was lined with tobacco and alcohol shops - appealing to the Swedes who flock over from Sweden where booze and tobacco are highly taxed and hours to buy booze are greatly restricted. Don't know if this is still the case but was interesting!

Snoopy

Keep the car. Getting from the train station to the castles in both cases is a pain in the rear if it's raining. Actually, it's only 500 meters or so from the train station to either castle. Both castles have parking fairly close in.

Also there's more to see than just those two castles in the area. Using the train you'll spend time getting to the station and waiting at the station. With a car, when you get tired of one castle, just go to the next. Kronborg is an easy drive north of Copenhagen either by the coastal road (the Danish Riviera) or by the motorway heading north. Fredriksborg is also fairly easy to get to either from Copenhagen or from Helsingor.

You can also stop at Fredensborg castle which has beautiful grounds set alongside a very pretty lake. Esrum Kloster is also worth a stop, on the opposite side of the lake from Fredensborg. And the coast is only a little further north -- Gilleleje and Liselje are worth a stop just to see the beach.

Keep the car.

tower

Mary Fran:

Train for sure...we took the train last year, from Norreport station to Hillerod, spent three hours visiting the fantastic castle, hopped the train to Kronborg and then took the train to Humelbaek to spend the rest of the day at Louisiana (don't miss it!)..the train from there back to Copenhagen is a 30 minute run. I strongly recommend the Ibsen Hotel in Copenhagen..great place, walking distance to the Stroget...owned and managed by an all-women staff.
Stu T.

ira

Hi MF,

A car in Copenhagen is going to be more of an impediment than a help.

You can very easily visit both castles by train.

Mary_Fran

Thank you all so much for sharing your thoughts!

I note that there is a ferry dock at Arhus. Do you know if it's possible to take the car by ferry from Arhus to Helsingor or environs, and, if so, how long it takes and what the approximate cost would be?

GeoffHamer

Mols-Linien (www.mols-linien.dk) run ferries from Århus to Kalundburg or Odden.

Mary_Fran

Thank you for that link. It appears that we could get a "Red" ticket for a one-way crossing for 460 DKK for the 65 minute crossing, or approximately $73.55 for the crossing. Does that sound right?

Have any of my fellow Fodorites made the crossing? Is it a pleasant and scenic experience?

Nikki

We kept our car while in Copenhagen two years ago and it was fine. Driving in the city was easy. We parked in a lot with long term meters across the street from our hotel to save money over the hotel lot (although if you do this, make sure to put in enough change- we ended up with a parking ticket).

We drove rather than trained the circular route described by PalQ through Helsingor, with a ferry from Helsingor to Helsingborg, Sweden and an overnight in Lund, returning to Copenhagen by driving over the new Oresund bridge/tunnel.

The very short ferry ride between Helsingor and Helsingborg was packed with Swedes who filled their cars and vans with booze from the many stores in Helsingor, as PalQ described.

Annam

I remember in Helsingør watching pedestrians pushing dollies stacked with cases of beer onto the ferry to Sweden. My cousin said it's not so much the prices or the taxes as the fact that they keep track of the quantities you buy in Sweden and there are limits over there, apparently.

PalQ

Big Swedish brother is watching you it seems! Alcohol stores also have short hours and may be closed on weekends and at night - used to be and beer sold may be low-alcohol only. Maybe draconic Swedish booze laws have changed, maybe not. Ditto for Norway, where booze prices are astronomical - if heading north from Denmark stock up.

crefloors

I was in Copenhagen just after Christmas. I did NOT drive, but the city is NOTHING like Paris or London. It is much less croweded and most of the cars are mid-size or regular size, so I think driving would be pretty easy, so you might want to consider keeping the car. Lots of bikes though.

crefloors

Oh, I know what I was going to say..we were also in Sweden and when we were picked up at the airport in Stockholm, our driver had to breath into a face mask..a breathalizer before he could start the van. He had to do this every time he stopped and turned the engine off. There are very strict laws regarding alcohol..the buying and using of it...in Sweden.