Catching Up: Marselisborg

Way back in August, I spent an afternoon with Lilja and Maxwell walking through the Queen of Denmark's gardens at her home in Aarhus, which is known as Marselisborg. Don't worry, the gardens are open to the public whenever she isn't in residence! (See below.) It would be like President Bush opening his ranch in Crawford to the public whenever he's in DC. (I wouldn't hold your breath waiting for that to happen, however.)

Marselisborg is just a short walk from our apartment. (The Queen is practically our next door neighbor!) As you can see from the sign below, the gardens are open year round from 8 AM to 9 PM during the Spring and Summer and 9 AM to 4 PM during the Fall and Winter.



Here's the entrance to Marselisborg. Those gates are really impressive.



Walking up the road from the gates leads you to the Queen's summer (and Christmas) home.





I would have knocked on her door to ask for a cup of sugar but the only reason I was standing so close to that door is because the Queen wasn't home!



There were lots of neat details surrounding the house, including several guard stations and lovely wrought iron fences covered in roses.





The gardens are very beautiful and filled with some pretty funky sculptures, several of which give the environment a vaguely NC-17 kind-of-feel.









Here are two shots of the garden situated directly in front of the door and driveway of the house.





That garden leads you to a path which takes you to another part of the gardens. (Note: the Queen's gardens are quite extensive and my pictures here won't be able to convey exactly how big they actually are.)







Speaking of big, we discovered a rather large urn that has its own special spot in the garden. I can just imagine the story behind this urn. (Note: I'm completely making this up...)

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Scene: Queen's Dining Room. The Queen is quietly enjoying her lunch of pickled herring with curry sauce on top of buttered rye bread. (This dish is hugely popular here in Denmark; I've tried it and its actually quite good!) The butler arrives with some news.

Butler: Your Majesty, the Principality of Liechtenstein has sent you an urn in appreciation of your recent visit there.

Queen: Oh, that's nice. Well, put it with the other urns in the drawing room.

Butler: I'm afraid that won't be possible your majesty.

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Near the urn is a rather quaint gazebo that the kids liked running into and out of while screaming "Papa, Look!!" over and over again.



All of this walking around the garden had worn poor Max out... he found a suitable place and then promptly collapsed.



But Papa needed to kill more time that afternoon, and so with one hand holding Lilja and pushing Lilja's stroller, and the other hand dragging Max, he managed to get everyone to a nearby park where both kids perked up and played on the playground for the rest of the afternoon.





Hope you enjoyed this trip through the Queen's gardens!

Ken