DAY 16 - FREDENSBORG PALACE - Monday 9th May, 2022.

 Another beautiful day today and our first day without the children being home for most of the day.  Pete and Steve both took the boys to daycare this morning and then Steve and I were going to pick them up this afternoon around 3pm.  We are still looking at picking them up early so that we are gradually introducing them to longer days at Daycare.

Today we decided to go for a drive and check out the gardens at Fredensborg Palace.  Fredensborg was not quite a half hour drive from Pete and Maria's and we thought that it was close enough for us to be able to go, have a good look at the gardens and be back in time to pick up the children around 3pm.

Another lovely scenic country drive

 

 

Cherry trees out in full bloom

 

 Again we set our GPS to Fredensborg and took off on our adventure.  There are that many countryroads over here that all lead to the same spot and we enjoyed again the magnificent countryside. Fields and fields of vibrant yellow canola flowers,  stunning cherry trees out in full bloom.  Even if we never hopped out of the car it would have been a good day.  

We arrived at Fredensborg mid morning and initially had a bit of trouble finding a car park.  In the end we doubled back through town passing the most beautiful park that was just a sea of vibrant colour, as the spring flowers were all out in bloom.  We ended up finding a car park at the enntrance to Fredensborg Palace but doubled back to check out the park and photograph some of the flowers.

Our first glimpse of Fredensborg Palace.

Fredensborg Palace in all it's splendor..

Springtime - the best time to visit Denmark...

Constantly see jet lines across the sky in Denmark...

Once we had found the car park it was time to head back and check out the beautiful flowers in the park near the palace.  Fortunately we didn't have a time limit on our park here and could park all day. 

Lots of cobbled streets  and footpaths in Denmark

Stunning tulips in bloom

They have some pretty unusual statues in Denmark also

These gardens are so much prettier in real life...

The cherry tree blossoms were incredible

This week we are feeling a little bit more like tourists.  Our previous visits to Denmark have seen us mostly spend time in Copenhagen itself so we are enjoying having a car this visit for our whole trip and taking off to explore more of the Danish towns and countryside.

Steve and I in front of Fredensborg Palace

With the park as our backdrop...

Once we had a good walk around the little park and taken a zillion of photos we headed back towards the Palace.  We knew that we were visiting too early in the season to be able to wander around the the main palace gardens.  Appartently at the end of July and early August, their rose gardens are open to the public and they are a sight to behold.  Maybe on a future visit we might be able to see these...

Fredensborg Palace though also has a very interesting history.   The palace is located on the eastern sore of Lake Esrum, and it is the residence that is used by the Danish Royal family as their Spring and Autumn residence.  It is also the site of important state visit and events in the Royal Family.  Apparently it is the most used of all the Royal Family's residences..

Fredensborg Palace, or as it translates into “the Palace of Peace” got its name as a commemoration of the ending of The Great Northern War in 1722, when the palace was built. The palatial complex was gradually constructed through the 1700s. It was designed by the best Danish architects of the time, J.C. Krieger, Nicolai Eigtved, L. de Thurah and C.F. Harsdorff. The palace and the palace garden as an entirety exemplify the French baroque style – and therefore the palace is often referred to as Denmark’s Versailles.

The palace complex consists of a small, almost square , one and a half storey high main palace with dome and lanterns.  It i positioned exactly at the centre of what is know as the "hunting square", s number of straight intersecting paths in a game hunting reserve.  During a hunt it is permissible to shoot freely straight down the long path, which radiate out from the centre.  The dome hall measures 15 x 15m and ha a height of 27m.  The sumptuous room features stucco by C.E. Brenno and a plafond by Hendrick Krock.

In front of the main building was placed an octagonal courtyard encircled by the single storey servants' wing, called Red Wing.  It is the only red building at Fredenborg Palace, and it has open half timbers under a red tile roof.

East of the octagon were the riding ring and the long tables building. 

Further to the east and adjacent to the main palace was an Orangery and the one storey building called Margrave House.  The Orangery which was equipped with huge glasshouse windows, was connected to the main building by a small secret passage, so that the Royal Family and the courtiers could walk to the chapel without getting their feet wet.

The palace chapel is in the middle of the two buildings, and ha an exaggerated copper pire a pilaster-decorated facade facing the riding ring, and a heavily carved gable featuring a bust of Frederik IV.

On the other side of the church is the Courtiers Wing, residence for the court's clerk and members of the Royal Household.  This section of the palace was built from 1724-1726, and introduces elements of the Dutch Baroque style and Rococo.  The palace was extended throughout the 18th century, however the main structure of the palace has remained unchanged since its inauguration on 11 October 1722, the King's 51st birthday.

The erection of the "new Court Chancery building" happened in 1731 and the black-glazed tile, half-hipped roof building is now known as the Chancellery House.  It butted up to the riding-ring on the southern edge.  

A major alteration to the original building was made in 1741-1744 when the roof to the palace's main building was elevated.  The slanted roof was replaced by a flat one, and a characteristically de Thurah sandstone balustrade was erected.    In 1751 the Orangery was also transformed into a residential building for ladies-in-waiting.

In 1753 the palace was extended again by the adding of four symmetrically-positioned corner pavilion with copper pyramid-shaped roofs to the main building.

In the 19th century, King Christian IX and Queen Louise used Fredensborg Palace to host annual family reunion.  Today Queen Margrethe uses Fredensborg as a Spring and Autumn residence, and it i the usual venue for her birthday celebrations every April.  Until her death, the late Queen Mother, Queen Ingrid used the Chancellery House at Fredensborg as her private residence.  The Chancellery House is now the Summer residence of Crown Prince Frederik and our own Aussie Crown Princess Mary.

Today the palace is often the setting for important events in the royal family, including weddings, anniversaries and birthday parties. Here heads of state on official visits are received, and foreign ambassadors present their credentials to the Queen. It has been a long-held tradition for visiting state leaders to inscribe their names on one of the window panes of the palace using a diamond pen.

It just so happened that the Queen was actually in residence today whilst we were there.  She was entertaining some foreign dignitaries and that is why the guards were on duty.  More about that later...

The back view of Fredensborg Palace

Unfortunately, we were unable to go into the palace and private gardens.  If you are in there in July and the first week of August though, they have guided tours which takes you through parts of the palace, the palace chapel, the private garden and the Orangery.  If you don't want to do the guided tour, you are able to enter the private gardens for free during this time also.  The surrounding palace gardens are open to the public all year round, so these are the gardens we explored today.

Fredensborg Palace’s garden is one of Denmark’s largest historical gardens. Long, straight avenues extend from the palace in a star formation, a characteristic of the gardens original French baroque style know from Versailles. Some avenues have recently been recreated, including Brede Allé which was opened in 2013 after an extensive restoration. There are numerous sculptures in the gardens which all tell a story. In between the avenues you find large forested areas with twisting paths dating back to the end of the 1700s and mid-1800s, where almost all baroque gardens were converted to the Romantic style.

There were guards on duty at the palace today..

During the reign of Frederick V, the palace gardens enjoyed their heyday. The king had his eye on France and Louis XIV’s pompous gardens at the Versailles Palace. Frederick V also wanted to have French Baroque gardens. He hired the French landscape designer N.H. Jardin to create beautiful gardens for the palace with which to impress the world. Avenues were laid out so that they radiated like a star from the palace.

Trees were felled and the gardens’ main axis connecting the palace to Lake Esrum was made wide. There was a beautiful view from the palace's garden room, from where the king and his guests could look out over the magnificent gardens that stretched as far as the eye could see out to Lake Esrum. The large, green lawns unfolded into the landscape with sweeping, curved boxwood hedges and linden trees aligning the avenues. It was pleasing to the king’s eye and an overwhelming sight for the king's subjects to behold.

Johannes Wiedewelt carved 67 sculptures for Fredensborg Palace Baroque Gardens.  He  grew up with voluptuous Baroque sculptures awash with detail and decoration. As a young man, he travelled to Rome to study Italian art. For four years, he made drawings and sketches of the city's monuments and studied the simple and harmonious ideals of classical art. 

When he returned to Denmark, Wiedewelt added new aesthetic rules to art and to his sculptures. Purity and simple lines – neoclassicism, as it is called. He created 67 sculptures for Frederick V’s gardens at Fredensborg Palace. The sculptures are scattered around the gardens. There are lions, obelisks and goddesses from antiquity. Wiedewelt was celebrated. He sculpted diligently for the king and nobility until he was well on in years.

However, Wiedewelt came to a sad and watery end. Reportedly, a ship loaded with marble that the sculptor had bought was shipwrecked. With the ship and the marble on the sea bed, the sculptor went bankrupt. One day in 1822, he disappeared and a week later his body was found in Sortedam Lake in Copenhagen.

Frederick V wanted to show the world that he ruled over the dual monarchy of Denmark and Norway.  He commissioned the sculptor Johannes Wiedewelt to create two magnificent national monuments for his new palace gardens.  Wiedwelt carved two sculptures of beautiful women to bestride the two 20 metre long marble monuments.

On the Norwegian monument sits an erect woman draped in robe, a diadem in her hair and a fur around her torso.  She points towards the Brede Alle and her manner is majestic and confident.  She is a little distant and cool, like the country she repreents, Norway.

Her Danish sister also sits erect on the Danish national monument. She too points towards the Brede Allé. She is magnificently dressed, draped in robes and wears her tiara in her hair which is tied up. She looks ahead guardedly and holds the national coat of arms to her hip.

 

The king, his distinguished guests and ladies in billowing dresses would walk out of the garden room and parade down the gardens’ avenues. There were no flowers, because their colours would conflict with the lavish and colourful costumes worn by the nobility. Frederick V commissioned the sculptor Johannes Wiedewelt to create eight giant sandstone sculptures for the Brede Allé: four war trophies and four abduction scenes from ancient mythology. The rest of the gardens were decorated with smaller sculptures that were arranged along the paths and on the green lawns.  

 

A special experience in Frederiksborg palace is the Norseman's valley where 70 sculptures of Norwegian and Faeroese farmers and fishermen are presented. The valley was comprehensively restored and re-inaugurated in 2002.  

This was a daring commission by Frederick V, since commoners had never before been exhibited in a royal garden. It was usually only ancient gods and goddesses that were permitted to adorn regal gardens.

The creator of the collection was the Norwegian post driver Jørgen Christensen Garnaas. In his spare time, he would cut small wooden figures depicting the people he met on his mail route. One day he was given a prestigious order. His wooden figures had come into the hands of King Frederick V who now ordered a set of ivory and walrus tooth figures to model a series of life-size characters depicting ordinary people. Sculptures of Scandinavia's farmers and fishermen were to appear in Fredensborg Palace Gardens.

It was a beautiful clear sunny day which means that the sky was little with jet lines across the sky.  This has been a bit of a novelty for us, as you don't get to see this often in Australia.  Over here we see it all day long and sometimes there can be everal white lines across the sky. 

We figured out pretty early on that someone was staying at the Palace as there were several windows open on the second level.  We wondered whether the Queen or Crown Prince and Crown Princess were in residence, and it didn't take us long to find out.  As Steve had come back for his nice long walk down to the lake, I noticed that there seemed to be a changing of the guards. 

Someone is in residence - the window of the palace are open.

I was very thankful that we had bought the good Nikon camera with us today so that I was able to zoom right in and get some shots of the change over.  We were a little disappointed that we missed the marching at the entrance to the Palace.   There was no way we would manage to get back around to the entrance before the ceremony was finished.

Changing of the guards

We spent a good couple of hours wandering around the garden and enjoyed the time very much.  The gardens are quite popular with the locals also who use the gardens for their morning exercise.  We also noticed other's there photographing as we were.  Once we watched the guard march off we started to head back towards our car as it was after 1.30pm.  It meant we only had an hour before we needed to leave to make sure that we were able to pick up the boys on time...

Beautiful walks and beautiful scenery.

As we got back close to the car, we noticed that the guards were still in the courtyard of the palace.  Steve hurried off to see if he could snap some photos of them whilst I waited near the gate.  Whilst he was in the grounds taking some photos, we suddenly heard this alarm going off and guards started running from everywhere.  One of the young guards came running down to the main gate and was not allowing anyone into the palace grounds.  Meanwhile Steve is already in there and I was wondering whether he would be able to come out...

We had no idea what was going on.  I got chatting to a group of folk, and it turned out that one of the men actually worked at the palace, and the other's with him were friends from England who had come over for his son's wedding.  I had previously spoken to them in the gardens and had often to take some group photos for them, and so we had met up again at the entrance.

The gentleman who worked at the palace went over to ask the guard what was happening and he indicated that he wasn't able to talk to him about it but did tell him that there had been a breach of security at the palace and the palace was being locked down..

By now I was starting to feel a little worried.  It was now 2.15pm and we had at least a half hour drive to get home to pick up the boys and here Steve was locked in the palace grounds, I was outside.  He had the car keys so I couldn't even get into the car.  I was at the fence trying to beckon him and get his attention to try and get him to try and come out before things really got locked down and people couldn't either come into the palace or leave the palace.

In the end he say me waving and made his way to the gate.  He wasn't stopped when walking out so we were rather thankful and we quickly got on our way so that we would be home in time to pick up the children..

That is the second day in a row that we have had some sort of out there adventure... Hopefully we won't have a repeat of this tomorrow.  Too much excitement..

We had a good run home taking  yet a different route home checking out more of the countryside.   The boys were really happy to see us when we picked them up and we spent the afternoon out in the garden with them.  We have had a great day out and managed to check another off our list of places to visit on this visit..