Inside Frederiksborg Castle, Denmark

With only one other tour group visible as the doors to the interior officially opened at Frederiksborg Castle our guide was keen to get us in first so we wouldn’t be held up and would have empty rooms as we wandered through the museum. As luck would have it everybody in our group who’d needed to have a pee had finished in time and our guide got his wish; a first for him, and something that made taking photographs inside the Danish castle all that bit easier.

The Chapel

The chapel in Frederiksborg Castle was the first area we ventured into. We entered on the balcony level and were taken around slowly in order that our guide could point out the main points of interest, those being the artwork on nearly every surface, the altar and pulpit, the organ, and the prayer chamber. While other parts of the castle had been gutted by the fire that swept through the building in 1859 the chapel had mostly escaped damage so most of what we saw were the original 17th century pieces.

The Audience Chamber

From the chapel we then headed to the audience chamber, a mostly bare room with at first only a single point of interest in the form of a piece of trompe-l’oeil artwork. This room encompassed some Baroque features into the other Renaissance style of decoration and our guide pointed out the motifs of the various kings of Denmark that adorned the walls and the base of the central dome.

Frederiksborg Castle Artwork

As we ventured through various other rooms and corridors in the musuem section of the castle we stopped a number of times to take a look at some of the artwork that had also survived the fire in the 19th century. It would be fair to say that beauty certainly is in the eye of the beholder and time has a way of changing what’s considered attractive.

The Great Hall

By far the most impressive room in the castle was the Great Hall. The hall was almost entirely destroyed in the fire of 1859 but architectural paintings allowed for a complete restoration by 1880. Having the large room practically to ourselves helped to picture just how magnificent a place it would have been for entertaining. A balcony for musicians along one wall and a fireplace at the far end of the hall with a table, chairs, and a statue were the only elements in the room allowing for the ceiling ornamentation, wall decorations and tapestries, and beautiful flooring to really be appreciated.

We gathered back in the courtyard after this (and were briefly sprayed with water from the Neptune Fountain when it suddenly activated and the wind caught the jets just right) before heading back to our coach for the next part of our full day excursion in Denmark. I snapped just a few more photos as we departed Frederiksborg Castle but for the pictures of the building’s exterior you can see my previous post: Frederiksborg Castle (Outside).

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