A Visit to Elsinore, Hamlet’s town
Last Friday was a moving and memorable time for me. I met with my fellow nursing students for the first time since we graduated in 1975 at an old hospital in Copenhagen. I had feared that I couldn’t remember any of them but somehow I knew all of their names. You go through tough things as a student nurse a bit like soldiers and when we met we were “veterans”.
A feeling of brotherhood even though everybody has had a different experience. If you bother to use the Google translate button I have written the story of my education as a nurse here in a Danish post or you can see the pictures.
A view from the outside of the Konventum
To be close to the event my husband and I stayed at a conference centre in Elsinore. The listed building from 1969 was a school for the labour movement. It was a time where most buildings were ugly and remind me of the Soviet-style simple, rough and square. This one has some of these traits but is executed in fine quality, a showcase for the different crafts. Here a link in English about the centre now called “Konventum”. I have never seen a conference centre decorated with that many paintings and sculptures on walls and in corridors.
From inside of the Konventum
Before we went home we saw the 400 hundred years old castle Kronborg, famous for Shakespeare’s Hamlet that allegedly lived there. In the summer Hamlet performances can be seen at the outdoor scene in the inner court. This day it was windy and you needed your scarf and winter jacket. More about the castle here. This time we only saw it from outside.
Categories: Culture, Denmark, Design, History, Uncategorized
From one Heart to Another 
How I would love to see Elsinore. When I was in high school, all students read Hamlet. I don’t know about today. Your countryside and architecture is beautiful.
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I am so glad to hear this. We read Hamlet too which was very difficult for us. Hardly any do today. Elsinore is only fifty km away from Copenhagen
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What a magnificent place. 1. I loved the little sparrow. 2. The cat in a sweater 3 the brick seating in the theatre.4 All of it. Thank you for sharing.
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You are so funny. You wouldn’t like the big painting with the sparrow. It was full of something like traffic poles. But I liked the sparrow too and the brick stairs but not so much the clumsy building style from the 1960s
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Lovely to have a reunion like that and remember everyone. Great surroundings too. I studied Hamlet both in school and at university, saw it performed at a London West End theatre with Alan Bates playing the role. But I think an open air performance at the real castle would be better 😊
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That’s so much Clive to share that memory. The text was extremely difficult for me to read in English when I studied it many years ago.
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I bet – it was hard enough for us, and it was our own language!
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I haven’t had a single reunion since graduating from nursing school in 1979 and I feel bad about that now. We were close but we scattered like feathers, floating off into space never to return. What a lovely place to reconnect with your school mates. There is a special bond for those of us who have endured the intensive training and stress of nursing school.
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So true, I was so glad that I remembered all of their names and they gave me such a warm welcome. They had met for the 40th anniversary. Without the internet we had never found each other
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Wow. Awesome pics. I’m putting this place on my bucket list. Thanks for sharing your trip with all of us!
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Love ❤️ back to you
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How interesting, loved the sculpture, the sparrow, the self-portrait, the 2- dimensional frieze, but my favourite is the grand piano! Stunning and inviting. I loved the photos of Elsinore. I studied Hamlet 3 times, at school and university, saw the Olivier, Mel Gibson and Kenneth Branagh film versions, I have no idea how you managed to read it as a foreign language, although having said that, it was pretty much a foreign language to us too 😄
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How sweet of you to give me all this response on that post. Yes it was like reading Latin to us. But so satisfying to have been through that process of learning and trying to understand also the meaning of the play and the strange way adult people could behave
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Great tour! 🙂
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I’m quite the Shakespeare buff (theatre major) – so OF COURSE I read Hamlet. All of his work, actually, and was lucky enough to be able to perform in a few of his plays, tho’ never Hamlet. I was never an ingenue, so would never have been cast as Ophelia, and had left my first career by the time I was old enough to play Gertrude (Hamlet’s mother) – and I would love to have had a crack at interpreting that role.
I share your opinion of those Soviet-style boxy buildings, btw. How unfortunate that they will probably always be known for that “utilitarian” architectural style when so many of the buildings in Russia, pre-communism, are stunning and imaginative.
How wonderful of you to have the resources to travel – and how dear of you to share online. Thank you.
xx,
mgh
(Madelyn Griffith-Haynie – ADDandSoMuchMORE dot com)
ADD/EFD Coach Training Field founder; ADD Coaching co-founder
“It takes a village to educate a world!”
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What a beautiful place for such a reunion. I love the grand piano. I recently watched Kenneth Branagh’s film of Hamlet. It was excellent.
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I would like to see that. Yes, the grand piano reminded me so much of the Beatles and Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and that was from the time the building was made
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I just recently visited here! It’s such a beautiful place, loved exploring the history!!
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Thank you for commenting Emma Jane. Yes there is so much to see there
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