Copenhagen, 1 June, Sunday

A Day trip to Sweden.....

Today's highlights can be summed  up briefly:

• a drive over the Øresund bridge to Sweden
• meandearing around the back roads of the southern Swedish province of Skane to Ystad
• return to Denmark via a car ferry
• lunch in Hamlet's "home town"

The 12km Øresund Bridge, built in 2000, crosses the strait between Denmark and Sweden.  A one-off crossing costs about $A65, but naturally, for the thousands of people who cross back and forth between the two countries daily, a season pass comes much cheaper!.  .

My photos here are not nearly as dramatic as the one heading this page, but it's awfully hard to get a decent picture from the passenger seat of a moving car!

below:: the new and old version of windmills!  Power generating wind turbines are so common in the landscape, even on the waters of the Øresund.

Our drive through southern Skane, to the south-eastern port of Ystad was prompted by my reading the Wallander series of crime novels by Henning Mankell, and watching it on TV starring British actor Kenneth Branagh.  The town and countryside here was so green and clean, I wouldn't have been surprised if the roads and houses were all washed daily, and the fences painted!

Ystad has some very old buildings, and at least one good coffee spot...

Another town with a literary background is Helsingør, back across the strait which separates Denmark and Sweden.  Helsingør was immortalised in Shakespeare's Hamlet as Elsinore, home of the Prince of Denmark. The local  tourist brochures refer to Helsingør as "Hamlet's home town". 

Just after we drove back across the strait of Øresund on a car ferry today, a storm loomed up from the north, adding some drama to the background of Kronborg Castle, where there are sometimes performances in English of the Shakespearian drama.

Helsingør has built a more recent tourist attraction - a 'boat' it bills as "Noah's Ark".  What Noah's connection is with the north of Denmark I have yet to work out.

Next: Copenhagen sightseeing