Summer of Discovery 2024 - Denmark (26 June - 14 July)

The first thing we noticed arriving in Copenhagen was that it wasn’t as cool as we had expected, the sun was shining and it was a brilliant day.  With our newly purchased ‘Copenhagen Card’ we didn’t need to buy tickets for the metro so found our way to Amagerbro stop and our AirBNB for 4 nights.

We walked along our ‘main road’ and alongside an enclosed waterway to the inner harbour.  Initial impressions are wow, very clean, loads of bikers (42% of Danish bike to and from work) and lined with harbour baths and places where everyone seems in beach mode, although in the built up, concrete lined city.  The water is super clear (this is apparently the cleanest harbour in the world and very swimmable), and the surprise was the topless and nudist sunbathers spotted throughout.

 

We headed to the canal by Christiansborg Palace, where we caught a canal tour.  It covered the loop around the Palace as well as some time on the inner harbour passing many sites including Geifon fountain, the Opera house, many beautiful buildings, the round bridge and a trip through the canals of Christianshavn.  The trip was well worth it to get our first glimpse of this beautiful city.

Day 2’s focus was Roskilde which has a long history, dating from the pre-Christian Viking Age, and its two main attractions - the 1275 UNESCO Cathedral and the Viking Ship Museum.  The remains of the five ships (1030-1040AD) were recovered from the fiord in 1962.  The originals were deliberately sunk around 1070 in order to block the most important fairway and protect Roskilde from enemy attack.  They are now known as the Skuldelev ships and full size replicas of them all are also on site.  Some great learnings and an impressive sight.

Next was the quite stunning Roskilde Cathedral (1170AD). The Cathedral's royal monuments commemorate an outstanding series of royal burials that have occurred from the 10th century until the present time (more than 1,000 in total). 

Back in Copenhagen we headed to the 17th century Nyhavn waterfront canal (Copenhagen’s Viaduct).  The Nyhavn canal, which is an icon in Copenhagen and was built by Swedish prisoners of war in the 17^th century.   We walked the canal admiring the buildings for which it is famous and afterwards we crossed the main canal, found a supermarket and then joined the locals sitting on the canal side enjoying the atmosphere and sunshine. 

Next out of town excursion was Frederiksborg Castle.  Originally built over 29 years in the early 17th century by King Christian IV, all but the chapel was destroyed by fire in 1859.  By this time Christian IV was broke so it was through public donations and a major benefactor (owner of the Carlsberg Brewery) that the destroyed section was rebuilt.

To this day all Danish Kings and Queens are anointed here and it’s beautiful.

Heading back to the station the heavens opened and we got stuck in very heavy rain, which was a bit like Asia – quick to come on, heavy and short. 

Back on track and another train ride to Kronborg Castle.  Originally built between 1574 and 1585 by Frederick II and all but the chapel was destroyed by fire in 1629.  Ironically its reconstruction was funded by Christian IV, the same King that years later could not afford to reconstruct his own castle.

Laid out much more simply and more like it may have been in the day, it was easy to imagine how they lived.  One of the final rooms we entered was the Grand Ball room, in its day the largest in Northern Europe.

We finished our visit here by walking around the outside, between the sea and the ramparts, getting great views of the castle and Sweden just across the channel. 

Our last full day in Copenhagen it was time to close out the final things on our list, starting with the 1907 version of Christiansborg Palace.  The version we see today dates back to 1732 however it was originally the 1167 Bishop Absalon's castle and the 1369 initial Copenhagen Castle, both of these ruins sit beneath the current Palace.  Great views from the tower.

We saw the 1606 Rosenborg Castle from the outside and whilst there got to see the Royal guards matching in to close out the morning.

 

The afternoon consisted of a visit to the National Museum to see the Viking exhibition, where some fantastic Viking relics are housed, followed by Tivoli Gardens, which was  established in 1843 and is the third oldest operating amusement park in the world.  Amazing place that would be easy to lose an entire day in.

Before we left Lesley managed a dip in the canal while we enjoyed some more 'local time'.
Copenhagen has been amazing and there is so much to see and do here regardless of your interests.  Also a lot of fun is the college students celebrating their graduations - a very big thing here! 
Highly recommend it.

The next day we collected our ride, Renault Clio, that will become our main mode of transport for the next two weeks.  Off to Mons, Borre - another island in the Baltic Sea.  The drive took around two hours, and we pulled up to our new lodgings in the countryside, which is all very picturesque and surrounded by wheat farms. 

 

Møns Klint is a 6km stretch of limestone and chalk cliffs along the eastern coast.  Some of the cliffs fall a sheer 120m to the sea below and it's surrounded by woodlands and pasture, lots of greenery.

Straight down 477 stairs to the beach.  We were able to walk along the beach admiring the cliff faces from below.  The beach was covered in stones, a combination of white chalk, grey pebbles, flint and black rocks, a lot of them looking like bones.  What goes down must go up, and at the end of this section of beach we climbed the 495 stairs back to the top. 

We had 30 minutes to get to Klintholm Havn (the harbour) for our 1 hour, 40 minute boat ride.  The cliffs looked good from the top and from the bottom looked great, but close up from the sea they are spectacular.  At their highest point (on walk 4) they are 128m above sea level.  

We had one final box to tick on Mon, visiting a couple of the Neolithic dolmens or Burial Mounds.  The first was the impressive 3,300-3,200BC Kong (King) Asgers Hoi, and the second Sprovedyssen.

Sightseeing complete, next up came the 180km drive to our next destination, Odense.  A point of interest on the way was the Storebaelt Bridge (Great Belt Bridge), joining the islands of Zealand and Funen.  The bridge is 18km long putting it amongst the longest in the world and the 5th largest suspension bridge (impossible to photograph!). 

We drove directly to Egeskov Slot (Egeskov Castle), originally built in 1554 and renovated in 1883 to its current look, is a mix of Gothic and Renaissance styles.  It is one of the best preserved moated castles in Europe.  The castle is occupied by the 9th generation of the same family.

Of note, inside the many rooms over four levels, are the beautiful water heaters in almost every room, the animal trophies (sad but a point in time) 😠, the 1895-1965 toy collection and the impressive knife and axe collection as well as the beautiful huge timbers used in the loft.

An easy start to the following day we headed out at 11.20am to walk into town and visit the modern Hans Christian Andersen Museum, which opened in 2021.   We spent a couple of hours walking through the exhibits reliving his life journey, fairy tales and visited the house where he was born in 1805.  The house, in the poorest area of Odense at that time, was built in the late 1700's and shared with six other families.

From here we visited first the 1867 St Albans Church, and then the Odense Cathedral (St. Canute's Church).  The Cathedral has had a church on this site for 900 years and is where King Canute IV was murdered in 1086, when it was St Albans Priory.  Between the two we saw the impressive statue of King Canute IV and while in the Cathedral we were able to visit the crypt and view the King's remains.

Next up is Ribe, Scandinavia's oldest town (700AD).  First visit was the Hex Museum (the story of the persecution of Witches).  We spent a couple of hours listening to the stories of the ridiculous practice to rid the world of this 'evil' and worked our way through the well presented exhibits.

Upon leaving we soon became in awe of the beautiful old buildings, including Weis Stue, built in 1600 where we dined.  We visited Our Lady Maria Cathedral (Ribe Cathedral). This is the site of the first Christian church in Denmark (855), and the current structure was built over it in 1150 and restored between 1880 and 1914.  Inside the interior is quite simple but holds a beautiful pipe organ and at least a hundred tomb stones.

We also visited the Ribe Viking Centre.  The exhibits are all based on archaeological excavations in Ribe and the whole centre is a recreation of the town that may once have been, including people going about their business as they would have over 1,000 years ago.

We had decided to spend some time in the old town before leaving Ribe, so drove into town to walk the beautiful old cobbled streets and admire the 300-500 year old buildings.  Ending up back at the Cathedral we climbed the 246 steps to the top of the 1333 Tower.  The views at the top were worth the climb.

We shouted ourselves a waffles and ice cream lunch on the way back to the car.  Tonight is a pit stop in the lake district on our way north and we arrived at our campground unit at 4.30pm.  We went for a walk down to the lake to close out our daily steps, however the cold and rain made short work of that.

A longer drive today we reached our first destination, Rubjerg Knude Lighthouse, one of North Jutland's major tourist attractions.  Fighting to stay upright, we arrived at the lighthouse and were able to climb to the top.  The wind gusts were threatening hats, glasses and small children from being blown over.  The North Sea was raging and the entire scene is very dramatic.

The lighthouse has an interesting story.  Originally positioned 200 metres inland, and turned on in December 1900 it stands 23m tall and sits 60m above sea level.  Just over a century later it was at risk of falling into the North Sea, so in October 2019 it was moved 70 metres further inland.

When back home we popped into a local tavern.  It was very local, had live music with regulars having a dance and a bit of fun.  Gary's first order was 'lost in translation' and we started with two non alcoholic beers 😆.

The next day we were off to Grenen, a spit on the most northern tip of Jutland/Denmark, where the two seas Skagerak and Katteget (or North and Baltic) merge and break.

After checking out the WWII German gun emplacements and walking along the spit, we arrived at the northern tip of Denmark just after 2.00pm.  We took the mandatory photos of the seas colliding (freezing water), and a selfie before starting the walk back.

We also visited 1747, 46m tall, Det Gra Fyr (the Grey Lighthouse) and climbed the 208 stairs to the top, allowing sensational views up and down the Baltic/Kattegat coast.

After heading back into town and unable to find a carpark we decided to check out the neighbouring town, Hojen (famous for sunsets), where we found a wine bar, Vin & Cider Bar, to have a quiet drink with a little jazz to set the scene.  Back in Skagen we checked out the harbour and restaurant scene in that precinct.  It was a lovely sunny evening, which included treating ourselves to a restaurant bottle of South African Chardonnay, and then home for a nightcap.

Travelling again our next destination was 226km south, at Aarhus.

A couple of stops on the way, the first at Rabjerg Mile (Dune).  It is the largest moving dune in Northern Europe (up to 18m per year).  We spent 35 minutes here in awe of its sheer size and oddly it's not alongside the sea, which just seems weird.

We then went to Lindholm Hoje (an historic burial ground and settlement, as well as an excellent museum).  The stones here mark burials and cremations from the Iron Age 300AD to the Viking Age late 900s.  These stones, discovered in 1889, had been covered/protected by up to four metres of sand and were not excavated until 1952.  Today only a portion of the entire site has been excavated so size is estimated and interestingly the Fiord near here was the Viking staging point for raids on England.

In Aarhus the following day we planned our excursion to Mols Bjerge National Park for the afternoon.  We drove 47km to the National Park and first walked the 3km (return) to the remains of the 1313 Kalo Slot (Castle).  The ruins were worth the walk as was the 500m raised causeway.  We then completed a 4.5 km loop through nature, and discovered these super tiny, cute frogs (the big ones would only have been 15-20mm).

On to our next stop we arrived in historic Ebeltoft (1313) at 5.00pm and walked the old cobbled streets.  The old town is super cute and well preserved.  The oldest house here dates back to 1550.

We also passed the impressive 1862 Frigate Jylland (warship).  The wooden warship is the largest of its kind in the world and is a huge 102m long, 2,455 tonne and was originally fitted with thirty 30lb cannons.

Our next destination was Faaborg with a detour to Jelling to see Denmark’s famous rune stones.  We arrived in Jelling and got a surprise as there is a whole site here and a museum.  This is the most interactive and creative museum we have been in, and we spent a good couple of hours immersed in 10th century Jelling.  The key Viking characters in this story are the 1st king of Denmark, Gorm the Old, and his son (2nd king) Harald Bluetooth.  It turns out this whole site was their kingdom and it's believed Gorm the old was originally buried in the north mound and later moved (13^th century) to beneath the 12^th century stone church within the site.

The smaller rune stone erected by King Gorm was dedicated to his wife Thyra.  The larger and more impressive of the two was erected by Harald and is 3 sided, 2.5m high and weighs 10 tonne.  On each of the three faces the inscriptions claim his right to be King and tell the story of how he converted all Danes to Christianity in the second half of the 10th century.

The drive to Faaborg was much more interesting than it has been elsewhere as we ducked in and out of forests, a few small hills and winding roads.  Our accommodation just outside the town is beautiful, dated 1729.

That evening we went into town and checked out the old town and Marina opting for traditional Danish burgers and a beer for dinner. 

We decided to spend the next day on the island of Aero.  After wandering Svendborg’s old town (the old towns are everywhere), we caught the ferry and arrived on Aero just after 2pm. 

Aero is where Danes go for summer though after walking the town, doing an hours bus ride to see some of the island and walking the 1km over to the colourful old beach houses, we struggle to understand why, coming from NZ and our summers.  The town is super cute though and very old.  We also managed a dip in the sea before the ferry back.  

After listening to the All Blacks game on the radio, we are on route to Slagelse, with a pit stop at Trelleborg Viking Fortress, one of Denmark's most important monuments from the Viking Age.  Harold Bluetooth's gigantic circular fortress from around 900 is the most well preserved fort of its kind. 

The museum here houses the only recovered Viking shield (905AD) to exist in Denmark and the number of artefacts they found at the site is impressive.

We arrived during a week long festival, and a wedding, so there were many people dressed like Vikings and the festival goers were camping and living the Viking life.  It bought the place to life and provided a real feeling of what it may have been like 1,000 years ago.

Denmark has been quite the surprise.  Not really sure what we expected, giant sand dunes for example, but the country has been lovely to experience, and we certainly got our fix of Viking history (will be watching the Netflix series again now!).

The highlights were easily Copenhagen, which is a fabulous inner city and region, Mons Klint and Ribe.

The car was a godsend, as much like New Zealand some things worth seeing are a little off the beaten track and we ended up driving 1,950kms.  Now we are off to new country number two, Finland.

What we will remember about Denmark:
Vikings
Castles and Palaces
Cathedrals
Wheat, wheat and wheat
Copenhagen canals
Copenhagen ‘beaches’ and casual nudity
Bikes and cycleways (everywhere)
Polite drivers and 130km speed limit
Flat geography (highest point 172m)
Really old and beautiful buildings
Half-timbered houses