If you ever visit the castle of Elsinore of Denmark, the guide will remind you that around A.D. 1200, the king of Pomerania built Elsinore Castle and also another fortified castle across the Skagerrak Channel in what is now Sweden. He thought that with these two bastions, one on each side of the channel, he could control entrance to the heart of Europe. The castle at Elsinore still stands, the one in Sweden is gone, and the Pomeranian king's name is forgotten—at least by me. But on the day of your visit, you can pick any day, tourist buses will be lined up for blocks, bringing visitors to that spot. Why? Because a man by the name of William Shakespeare chose to immortalize Elsinore Castle in his play Hamlet. The power of the pen outlasts the power of the sword. Sparta had the strongest army in ancient Greece, but its site is rubble. Athens with its Parthenon and its Mars Hill, where much of the thought that undergirds Western civilization was conceived, still draws millions of awe-inspired visitors.