August 6thAfter an early morning, we finished our morning routines and left the camp just after 8am. Our plan was to head North to Denmark today but we had to stock up on groceries. We have been told by many different sources that food in the supermarkets is not very good (e.g. dried fish pudding), and that it is very expensive. So our first stop was a supermarket just down the road. After filling up the diesel we got on the road, and drove North. We made good time to the border. We stopped off in Flensberg, which is a small German city right on the border of Denmark. We wanted another supermarket to get a couple more things. Unfortunately we went to one which looked like a supermarket, but wasn't quite what we were after (it was a discount shop mainly full of clothes and cleaning products!), so we bought a couple of things there, then had lunch in the carpark. From there we did find a good supermarket and got the last few things we wanted. We crossed the Denmark border after about 10 minutes once we left Flensberg. After another 2 hours drive we arrived to the lovely town of Ribe, on the West coast of Denmark. Ribe is Denmark's oldest town. It was a beautiful sunny hot afternoon. Unfortunately our GPS not working properly so we had a bit of trouble finding our campground. We found an info point with a map on the outskirts of town, and got ourselves to a campground, which was really nice – it had a pool, lots of trees, and even a small children's zoo. We set up there, did hand washing, and got on the internet. After dinner we went for a bike ride into and around Ribe town. It is a beautiful, very old town with cobbled streets, built on a tidal river. It is also home to Denmark's oldest church. When we got back to the campground we had yoghurt for dessert, then went to bed at about 10:30pm.
August 7th
The fantastic days, weather wise, continued today. After a short run in around the river and the town, we got our campsite packed up once again and headed into town around 10am. Nothing seems to open in this part of the world before 10am, which is a little strange, given it is still light so early. Maybe it is because of the darkness in wintertime, not sure. Anyway, we went to the Viking Museum at Ribe which was really enjoyable. Ribe has been inhabited since at least 200AD, and there have been significant archaeological excavations, so there was lots of artifacts, and some were very well preserved (e.g. coins, glass beads, and crockery). The museum showed how Ribe evolved, and covered the period until about 1500AD. After close to 2 hours there, we walked into town and got an ice cream each. It was fantastic, especially as it was a nice warm day. They were called 'Giantvafflen' (giant waffles) – 2 scoops of icecream, a dollop of sticky marshmallow, soft serve icecream, a chocolate-covered marshmallow, and strawberry topping! After getting some bread rolls for lunch (although we were all full up on icecream), we left Ribe and drove East towards Copenhagen (Kobenhavn here). We stopped at about 3pm for a lunch break. At that stage we had left Jutland, and driven onto Funen, the middle of the three main islands of Denmark. Shortly after lunch we drove across a huge suspension bridge between Funen and Zealand. It was amazing. The bridge is 18km long. The main cables in the suspension were as thick as a small car! However it was windy, so driving it in Sven was a little difficult, but we made it over in one piece. At the other end was a toll booth, which we expected. However the toll was 215 Danish Krona, which is 30 Euro, or about $65 NZD, for a bridge crossing! Glad we only did that once. From there we continued on towards Copenhagen and found a campground 15km away from the city centre. It was a nice quiet campground, full of big trees, and close to the train line to get into the city, so we were happy with that. We had internet back, so we sat back and caught up on a few much overdue jobs, and had a relaxing evening.
August 8th
Today was exploring Copenhagen day. We were up and on the train by 8:30am, getting into the city just after 9am. After successfully finding the info centre for a map, we went about getting through our planned day. On first impressions Copenhagen looks like a fantastic city, very grand, with lots of great architecture, wide streets, and lots of parks / open areas. However it looked dirty near the train station, and did not smell very nice. I thought it smelt like stale beer everywhere we went. Anyway, our first stop was at the Hans Christian Anderson museum. Although not born in Copenhagen he lived here for a large part of his life. It was quite interesting. I did not even realise how many of the familiar fairy tales he wrote (e.g. The Little Mermaid, The Ugly Duckling, The Princess and the Pea, Thumbelina). They had a lot there in the museum with sets, and audio of the fairytales. Some of them had rather dark endings, which I think have been changed for a more child friendly ending.
We next headed to Amalienborg Palace, where there are in fact four mansions; home to the Danish royals (including Crown Prince Frederick and his Australian wife Mary – didn't see them today though). We watched the changing of the guard. We still haven't seen this at Buckingham Palace, so could not compare, but it was fun to see. The guards were wearing full uniform, including beefeater hats, in the scorching heat, and the formalities took about 20 minutes. We left, probably before they had fully completed the routine, and headed up the river. We had read in our faithful 'Lonely Planet' that there was a must see water fountain, the Gefion Fountain, and they were not wrong. It was great. It was based around a sculpture of Gefion (the goddess of ploughing in Norse mythology) ploughing the fields of Zealand with four oxen (her sons). From there we headed a little further along the waterfront to see the statue of the 'Little Mermaid'. There are lots of canals in Copenhagen, and the water looks quite clean. We saw some fellows jump off a jetty in the nick! From here we did some back tracking. At this stage it was about 2pm, and we were pretty hungry. Thankfully we came across a bakery and picked up a couple of Danish pastries which we took care of very quickly. One of the pastries is baked in a big circle, and you ask for a length of it (demonstrating with your hands), which they cut off for you. We had chosen somewhere to eat lunch, and got there at about 3pm. It was a nice bakery overlooking one of the canals. It was very big and impressive, with hundreds of delicious looking breads and cakes in the windows. We went to look at the hippie commune 'Christiania', which we quickly left – it was grotty, and we felt very out of place. From here we went to the Christiansborg Palace. This is now used as Denmarks parliament buildings. The buildings were good, but it the gardens and fountains we were really worth a walk around. At this stage my legs were starting to wear out – they don't last as long as Em's for touristing. We had seen a shop we both liked the look of (the Royal Copenhagen ceramics shop), so went there. It was a great shop to have a look around, and we ended up getting a flan dish here, as our item from Denmark. At 5pm everything closed, and that finished off our day really. We did not make it up one of the towers that we wanted to, but were not too worried. I'm not sure Copenhagen would have a great skyline, although we could probably have seen Sweden today because it was a beautifully clear sunny day. We made our way back to the train station and got on the train back to our campground. We had a small hiccup as we both thought for some reason that our stop was a stop further than what it was, so had to catch the train back one stop after waiting twenty minutes, but we made it back in one piece. We had a nice quiet, restful evening in.
By the end of the day our impression of Copenhagen had changed. The smell seemed to have disappeared, and we both really enjoyed it. It is my favourite city of the trip so far. It seemed to have a lot of character. There were lots of tourists around, but they seemed to be absorbed into the city, and it did not seem artificial. It was definitely somewhere we could have spent another day in, but we have to move on.
