Helsingør (Elsinore) and the Øresund Sound Dues

Here is a photo of the Kronborg castle in Helsingør - it's nice, isn't it?

Photo taken by tobixen - position: geo:56.041313,12.621216 (geohack) - 2018-08-24 15:48:34 localtime - CC BY-SA 4.0 - full quality

Some history first ... it's a narrow 4 km gap of sea between Helsingør and the now Swedish town of Helsingborg. Before the Kiel channel was built, pretty much all merchant traffic between the countries west of Denmark and the countries east of Denmark had to pass here, and Denmark controlled both the sides of the sound. In 1429, the King decided to collect a toll from all foreign ships passing. This gave a quite significant income to the kingdom - but not without costs; quite some lifes were lost due to wars, and Denmark and Norway lost quite some territory over the centuries - possibly some of the wars could have been avoided if it wasn't for the Sound Dues? In 1814, Denmark lost Norway to the Swedes - in a treaty not recognized by the Norwegians. We got some months as a self-declared independent free sovereign state, and we're still celebrating the 17th of May 1814 as our national day. But I digress. The Sound Dues ceased from 1857, with the bigger seafaring nations paying a one-time fee as compensation. Brazil never paid, officially Denmark gave up collecting the debt in 2007.

While the Sound Dues ultimately may have come with a high cost for Denmark, the town of Helsingør has benefited a lot from it. I think that today Helsingør has quite much of a charm due to the many old houses and the Kronborg castle. There are also nice museums, but we haven't gotten around to see them - we will for sure return. We've briefly been to Helsingør once before on a quick day-stop on our way to Copenhagen, we got to enter the castle then, but as it was already 16:00 when we came there, everything was closing.

This time we were supposed to meet my sister-in-law and her family in Copenhagen, they had borrowed the boat for two weeks. When we came to Copenhagen, they hadn't left Helsingør yet, so we decided it was better for us to take a train to Helsingør rather than wait for them in Copenhagen. I was a bit slow to open up the camera app as we arrived to Helsingør - we had already been walking a bit and eaten breakfast on a café before I remembered to take pictures. Here is some church ... Sct. Mariæ Kirke.

Photo taken by tobixen - position: geo:56.036464,12.612462 (geohack) - 2018-08-24 12:31:40 localtime - CC BY-SA 4.0 - full quality

Photo taken by tobixen - position: geo:56.036628,12.612358 (geohack) - 2018-08-24 12:31:49 localtime - CC BY-SA 4.0 - full quality

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Another nice street with nice buildings, Groskenstræde. Came to think, it doesn't look much extraordinary on the picture. I suppose some of the charm here is that ... we don't have streets like this or buildings like this in Norway, most buildings are made from wood, and they are rarely really old.

Photo taken by tobixen - position: geo:56.037254,12.611713 (geohack) - 2018-08-24 12:33:38 localtime - CC BY-SA 4.0 - full quality

Photo taken by tobixen - position: geo:56.037895,12.611234 (geohack) - 2018-08-24 12:35:35 localtime - CC BY-SA 4.0 - full quality

A nice small park

Photo taken by tobixen - position: geo:56.038715,12.612223 (geohack) - 2018-08-24 12:38:26 localtime - CC BY-SA 4.0 - full quality

Photo taken by tobixen - position: geo:56.038894,12.612353 (geohack) - 2018-08-24 12:39:13 localtime - CC BY-SA 4.0 - full quality

There is some local diesel train going quite frequently - I checked it up, the total distance is some 30 km, and it spends a bit less than an hour on this distance. In the central parts of Helsingør there are many crossings and the train is going very slowly. My middle son refused to use the "train"-word, this was a "tram" - despite the fact that the Norwegian word ("trikk") was made to reflect that a tram is an electric vehicle ...

Photo taken by tobixen - 2018-08-24 12:39:48 localtime - CC BY-SA 4.0 - full quality

Photo taken by tobixen - position: geo:56.039314,12.612756 (geohack) - 2018-08-24 12:40:27 localtime - CC BY-SA 4.0 - full quality

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Photo taken by tobixen - position: geo:56.039321,12.612758 (geohack) - 2018-08-24 12:40:37 localtime - CC BY-SA 4.0 - full quality

The Krongborg castle.

Photo taken by tobixen - position: geo:56.039981,12.614071 (geohack) - 2018-08-24 12:44:21 localtime - CC BY-SA 4.0 - full quality

I assumed there was a blue flag beach here ... eventually I came back later to swim with my middle son, but the beach there was quite small, I think the blue flag belongs to the marina.

Photo taken by tobixen - position: geo:56.041275,12.615876 (geohack) - 2018-08-24 12:48:02 localtime - CC BY-SA 4.0 - full quality

Kronborg from the sea. We tried to get back to that beach, me and the two youngest. However, before we got there it started raining a lot, so we headed back home ...

Photo taken by tobixen - position: geo:56.041877,12.620383 (geohack) - 2018-08-24 14:31:36 localtime - CC BY-SA 4.0 - full quality

Krongborg from the sea, second attempt on getting to that beach ...

Photo taken by tobixen - position: geo:56.039096,12.615117 (geohack) - 2018-08-24 18:12:43 localtime - CC BY-SA 4.0 - full quality

Some playground

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Photo taken by tobixen - position: geo:56.039066,12.61511 (geohack) - 2018-08-24 18:16:25 localtime - CC BY-SA 4.0 - full quality

Photo taken by tobixen - position: geo:56.039066,12.61511 (geohack) - 2018-08-24 18:16:27 localtime - CC BY-SA 4.0 - full quality

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Those ships belongs to the maritime museum. I believe I've seen the lighthouse ship Gedster Rev somewhere else ... probably in Nyhavn, Copenhagen ... and certainly not outside Gedster. :-)

Photo taken by tobixen - position: geo:56.038265,12.615768 (geohack) - 2018-08-24 18:32:36 localtime - CC BY-SA 4.0 - full quality

Photo taken by tobixen - position: geo:56.037784,12.615189 (geohack) - 2018-08-24 18:35:46 localtime - CC BY-SA 4.0 - full quality

Photo taken by tobixen - position: geo:56.037784,12.615242 (geohack) - 2018-08-24 18:35:50 localtime - CC BY-SA 4.0 - full quality

More church ... still the Mariæ. There is another church in the same neighbourhood, but my phone went out of battery before we approached there.

Photo taken by tobixen - position: geo:56.036479,12.613226 (geohack) - 2018-08-24 18:45:04 localtime - CC BY-SA 4.0 - full quality

Some artwork on the street, this one depicting the change from the Catholic church to Protestantism. A bit later we found another artwork depicting the Sound Due ... it was also great, but my phone went out of battery.

For those of you old enough to remember when Shakespeare published Hamlet, this story unfolded here in Elsingore, and there are statues to be found both of Prince Hamlet and King Hamlet. Again, my phone was out of battery ...

Photo taken by tobixen - position: geo:56.036411,12.613268 (geohack) - 2018-08-24 18:45:17 localtime - CC BY-SA 4.0 - full quality

Photo taken by tobixen - position: geo:56.036529,12.613247 (geohack) - 2018-08-24 18:45:22 localtime - CC BY-SA 4.0 - full quality

The beach at the other side of the yacht harbour

Photo taken by tobixen - position: geo:56.043689,12.613639 (geohack) - 2018-08-25 07:44:21 localtime - CC BY-SA 4.0 - full quality

Old workshop buildings made into a "cultural workshop" as well as a food market.

Photo taken by tobixen - position: geo:56.041248,12.614357 (geohack) - 2018-08-25 07:52:50 localtime - CC BY-SA 4.0 - full quality

Parts of the maritime museum is underground

Photo taken by tobixen - position: geo:56.039268,12.615099 (geohack) - 2018-08-25 07:54:15 localtime - CC BY-SA 4.0 - full quality

Photo taken by tobixen - position: geo:56.039127,12.615143 (geohack) - 2018-08-25 07:54:29 localtime - CC BY-SA 4.0 - full quality

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I've always thought of Helsingør as nothing but a town one had to go through to get to the rest of the Denmark. I've been through here in transit a couple of times without stopping, taking ferry across the straight - even took a railroad ferry here in my childhood. I always thought this place was missing a bridge, and I was quite surprised when they decided to build the Øresund bridge quite much further south. Due to that, as well as the toll on the bridge, the ferries here continues being popular. I read at Wikipedia that they are now planning a car tunnel between Helsingborg and Helsingør.

Photo taken by tobixen - 2018-08-25 08:02:32 localtime - CC BY-SA 4.0 - full quality

Is this crane for the railroad maybe?

Photo taken by tobixen - position: geo:56.035224,12.616314 (geohack) - 2018-08-25 08:03:39 localtime - CC BY-SA 4.0 - full quality

Train station - and a passenger ferry company.

Photo taken by tobixen - position: geo:56.034637,12.615978 (geohack) - 2018-08-25 08:04:52 localtime - CC BY-SA 4.0 - full quality

Photo taken by tobixen - position: geo:56.03461,12.615964 (geohack) - 2018-08-25 08:04:55 localtime - CC BY-SA 4.0 - full quality

I wonder a bit about this building, Øresund Toldkammer was demolished according to Wikipedia.

Photo taken by tobixen - position: geo:56.034049,12.614803 (geohack) - 2018-08-25 08:06:21 localtime - CC BY-SA 4.0 - full quality

The train station is a monumental building and heavily decorated, the inside is also grand. It looked a bit out-of-place when we arrived ... most people was leaving the train station through openings in the wall around the train tracks, some left through the 7-11 kiosk ... and then we seemed to be the only one walking the stairs in the grand train station building, which apparently serves no function at all except being grand. The train station building was built after the channel dues was terminated, I find it a bit weird that they've spent so much money on such a useless building after losing their major income stream.

Photo taken by tobixen - position: geo:56.034019,12.614825 (geohack) - 2018-08-25 08:06:30 localtime - CC BY-SA 4.0 - full quality

Photo taken by tobixen - position: geo:56.034011,12.614852 (geohack) - 2018-08-25 08:06:55 localtime - CC BY-SA 4.0 - full quality

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We saw many houses of the kind @gillianpearce would call "half-timbered" (more such photos further below). I know nothing about it, since it's very rare in Norway. At some of the houses the wood would be painted in the same color as the rest of the building, but this style (with darker color on the wood) is much more elegant.

Photo taken by tobixen - position: geo:56.033332,12.61026 (geohack) - 2018-08-25 08:31:43 localtime - CC BY-SA 4.0 - full quality

Photo taken by tobixen - position: geo:56.033348,12.610351 (geohack) - 2018-08-25 08:31:49 localtime - CC BY-SA 4.0 - full quality

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Photo taken by tobixen - position: geo:56.032974,12.609622 (geohack) - 2018-08-25 08:33:28 localtime - CC BY-SA 4.0 - full quality

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Photo taken by tobixen - position: geo:56.031806,12.608556 (geohack) - 2018-08-25 08:39:47 localtime - CC BY-SA 4.0 - full quality

A street market with various second-hand stuff. My wife spent quite some time looking around. I'm happy she didn't end up buying something, we have far too many things at home.

Photo taken by tobixen - position: geo:56.03181,12.608588 (geohack) - 2018-08-25 08:41:25 localtime - CC BY-SA 4.0 - full quality

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Selected photos available in original quality on IPFS QmVFzvNhtMsaWNQCVwoSNLnwKscUxoHdsS23LEJogdiJpS. All photos taken available in original quality on IPFS QmPaKWeGNuWBg4D1ihxQiRrokwAT1iS74F9RDLkjBRX63g. The CC BY-SA 4.0 license applies on both photos and article