Borgs, Borgs and more Borgs - Danish Castle Day 21-Feb-16 - Part 4 - Fredensborg

Our second castle of the day was Fredensborg slot. It is the Danish royal family's Autumn residence and one of their most used residences. The castles was built in 1720 and was named Fredensborg (Peace's Castle) to commemorate the peace treaty between Sweden and Denmark.

The castle consists of a main palace, octagonal courtyard surrounded by servants wings and stables.  It is surrounded by extensive gardens.

Fredensborg palace

Most of the palace was off-limits and when we arrived, there was an army van present as well as a guard arrayed outside the main guard house.

The Palace

As we watched the guards standing, the lead suddenly turned and called out a command.  The soldiers snapped to attention and presented arms and the ones with instrumented began to play.  Then a black car drove from the palace and was quickly joined by an unmarked black car with security personnel.  We weren't sure if we were allowed to take pictures or video so I got a hastily videoed shot and we stayed out of the way.

As we were leaving, Kris asked a soldier what we had seen and he said that Queen Margrethe II of Denmark was leaving the residence to go on holiday to Norway.

So that was our brush with royalty.

The guards playing as the car goes past.

We then explored a small amount of the gardens and took some photos of some of the buildings in the town.  There were many old buildings and the town had a quaint older town feel.

Signpost for the gardens

Stream in the gardens

Path in the gardens

A tower that we initially thought was part of the castle (its not)

"Charming"

Thatched roof cottages

The local Aldi where Queen Margrethe picks up her groceries

Fortunately no parking fine this time!  We did realise that we had only visited two of the five castles we'd planned on and it was already two o'clock.  There was one more close by but the other two were over two hours drive away.  We could either rush the next castle and try to make the others or cut the trip short.  I didn't want to do a four hour round trip if it was going to be dark and we couldn't see the castles, so we decided to spend some time at our final castle, Frederiksborg, and then head home.  We could come and do the two other castles next trip.