6.7.2013
Olaf the Giant sleeps under Danish soil, waiting for the day when Denmark is threatened by foreign armies. Then, as legend tells it, he will rise to defend his land, great axe in hand.
We find him in the casements of Kronberg Castle, a dark undergruond warren used by soliders to withstand sieges from the Swedes. (Those Swedes seem to have been at it all the time.) Olaf is half awake when we find him, sitting with his head propped on his fist, as if he is about to recount the last centuries dream.
'I was sharpening my axe when suddenly I was surrounded by tiny Viking ships, which sounds cute but I knew something was wrong, and... oh, well I suppose you had to be there....'
We stopped at Kronberg Castle, which apparently served as Shakespeares model for Elsinore in Hamlet, in the similarly named town of Helsingor. The castle had a touch of Hamlet fever, mostly evidenced in the photos of Kenneth Branagh at the entrance, but thankfully it mostly focussed on the true history of the castle, which was just as interesting. Epic fires, Swedish invasions which Olaf failed to fight off, the imposition of ingenious taxes on ships passing through the nearby waterway which seemed devised solely to fund the decorating whims of a Frederick II's child bride.
Helsingor is about 40kms from Copenhagen, where we had spent the previous few days with the Great Dane himself, Emil (who is also known by his hacker name E-Gun, to be noted next time an Edward Snowden style controversy breaks out). Emil takes us on a cycling tour of the city, where we pass bronze statues of various creatures from fairy tales, and later takes us dancing at a bar named Pixie. I should have remembered from Emil's form in Australia that we would be walking home as the sun rose.
During our Copenhagen stay we cycle out to Roskilde. We pass on the way hip young indie music lovers who are also cycling, their bikes kitted out with old school boom boxes blaring Bob Marley. I suspect that they are making the terrible mistake of going to the rather obscure, not particularly famous Roskilde Music Festival, rather than the world-renowned attraction that is the Roskilde Viking Museum. Yes. We cycled 80kms to see a Viking Museum. There we see Viking ships that had been dredged up, and the new reconstructions made based on the originals, which had been sailed long distance in high sea. It looks cold enough sailing in these days of goretex jackets and thermal underwear. Matt decides, in the space of 10 minutes, on three career changes. He will be a shipbuilder. No. A blacksmith. No, a ropemaker. I suggest that perhaps he just wants to be a viking? No, he laughs. I'm too short.
'But they were malnourished back then. You would probably be normal.'
'Ok. I'll be a viking.'
I suppose it might be easier to exolain at dinner parties than the job description 'performance auditor'. And it makes a change from one of the few Danish phrases that he has learnt keeps repeating with increasing insistance, which translates as 'I am the King!'.
From Helsingor, we ride to Ebletoft (115km), Ebeltoft to Oster Harup (110km) and Oster Harup to Hjoerring (100km). For the first two days I curse whoever told me that Denmark was flat (and I'm now writing this in Norway with the benefit of hindsight, laughing at my ignorance!), but on the final day we fnid the Denmark of cycling legend. Dead flat, with a tail wind, and delightful little bakeries along the way quite happy to sell us more varieties of pastry than I have ever seen.
In Hjorring we stay with Pernille and Anders. Pernille, a runner, we met while she was studying in Melbourne. She takes us to the northernmost point in Denmark, at Skagen, were two oceans meet. There is clear delineation between the two, waves overlapping one another.
'So', says Pernille, 'we have come to the end of the earth'.
It feels a little like that, with ocean stretching endlessly beyond us. Travelling back down the coast, we continue the post-apocalyptical feeling, stopping at a ruined church dating back to 1200AD, and a lighthouse that is slowly toppling off a sanddune cliff into the ocean far below.
On then, to Norway.
