Enjablog

Our last full day in Denmark, we spent visiting castles! First stop: the Fredricksborg Castle. There was a castle with a museum inside, but the big draw was the enormous gardens. We spent almost an hour just wandering around looking at the different designs in all the sections of the garden.

Helsingor, Hamlet’s castle, was more of a fighting castle. They had a moat, an embankment, and cannons — like they wanted to keep people out and made sure people knew it. Walking in the main gate, they had speakers embedded in the hills around the cannons and they had horses galloping by with voices yelling in battle. It was a little unexpected.

That night, we had dinner in and enjoyed some of the beers Sune and Ian had picked out earlier in the week. Then had a quiet evening and got packed up to leave in the morning.

Our second to last full day in Copenhagen, we spent site-seeing downtown.  First stop was the Botanical Garden:

From there, we went to check out the Rosenborg Castle, but decided we didn’t want to pay to look inside.  Instead, we took a stroll through the King’s garden.

The National Museum has free admission on Wednesdays, so we stopped in to check out a couple exhibits. We weren’t interested in everything, so it worked out well.

We picked up lunch at a deli with Danish open sandwiches and found a bench to do some people watching. From there, we caught a bus to get to the Carlsberg Brewery. Spent the early afternoon there, enjoyed our beer samples, and then headed back to get ready to go out for dinner.

We had dinner in this nice restaurant outside of Freetown Christiania. They have a casual atmosphere with daily menus incorporating fresh ingredients, so they’re hand-written and different each day. Very good food!

After dinner, we took a walk around Christiania. I’ll stipulate that this area was different. And that was part of the reason Sune wanted to take us there and show us the “funny houses.” There was a main area where they had a wide variety of, um, plants available for sale. It was their own style of botanical garden.

Christiania… is a self-proclaimed autonomous neighbourhood of about 850 residents. From an official point of view, Christiania is regarded as a large commune, but its relation to the authorities has a unique status in being regulated by a special law, the Christiania Law of 1989 which transfers parts of the supervision of the area from the municipality of Copenhagen to the state.

Christiania has been a source of controversy since its creation in a squatted military area in 1971. Its cannabis trade was tolerated by authorities until 2004. Since then, measures for normalising the legal status of the community have led to conflicts, and negotiations are ongoing.

We took a stroll around Christiania, walked up an embankment, and made our way across a bridge and around a trail. I have very few pictures from this part of the day because there were a lot of signs prohibiting cameras in this area and while the enforcement of their rules may have been questionable, it just didn’t seem like a battle I wanted to take on.

After our walk, we made a stop for some coffee and hot chocolate and then headed back for the night.

We saved a day just for shopping. Ian doesn’t really fit clothes in America, so we figured since we were visiting the country with the second tallest population in the world, they might have something for him. After spending an hour going through a department store, we pretty much gave up hope. They did have slim fit shirts and shirts with longer torsos, but they either weren’t broad enough in the shoulders or his arm couldn’t fit through the sleeves.

So we spent the rest of the morning walking around Copenhagen and window shopping. Well, window shopping until I saw this super cute dress:

On the way back, we stopped by the Copenhagen Cemetary to visit Hans Christian Anderson’s grave. There are many other famous people buried there (Niels Bohr, Caspar Frederik Harsdorff, Søren Kierkegaard, Hans Christian Ørsted just to name a few), but we didn’t go searching around for all of them.

We made a stop at the Post Office and a candy store after that. And then I baby-sat while Ian and Cassia went to the gym. We had a quiet dinner in that evening and got caught up on the World Cup.

The next morning we got off to a nice, lazy start. Cassia and Julia slept in, so the rest of us had breakfast (muesli, 3 different kinds of milk products, fruit, eggs, fresh breads, and 2 different jams). Talking with Sune’s father before breakfast, it seems that they’re not always so fancy. This was mostly for us; they usually have cereal and fruit for breakfast.

While everyone else took some down time after breakfast, Sune took me next door to show me around the dairy farm his parents used to own. They retired last year, moving into the retirement house his grandfather built on an adjacent lot. The farm was sold to a neighboring farmer they’ve known for decades, so it was ok for us to just go poking around.

Cassia and Sune were married in the church opposite the farmhouse, but had their reception in the garden. Ian and I missed their wedding, so it was cool to see where they had all the festivities.

After we investigated all the changes to the farm over the past few years, Sune took me to see the waterwheel nearby.

By the time we got back, everyone was ready to head out to Flensborg, Germany. Julia got to stay with the grandparents for the afternoon, while we did some site-seeing. We stopped by a beach, the cathedral, had lunch at a cafe, and found a cute little rum shop.

After some window shopping, we decided it was time to head back. We stopped by a store right before the border to pick up some supplies — alcohol is much cheaper in Germany than in Denmark. We had a quick dinner with Sune’s parents before heading back to Copenhagen.

We made a trip to visit Sune’s parents in the rural mainland of Denmark. Along the way, we passed Middelfart, the town where Ian’s grandmother grew up. We didn’t stop, but I was able to get a picture of the sign on our way past.

We made it to Sune’s parents’ in time for lunch: a mix of traditional Danish sandwich makings, new potatoes dug up that morning, and scrambled eggs.

From there, we left for an afternoon in Ribe. This was another town dating back to the Viking Age. We visited the Cathedral, went up the tower to see the town, and also saw the totem pole marking the flood lines from the many times the city had flooded. Ribe also has a viking museum, but we ended up saving that for next time since we would have had to rush through to see everything before they closed.

We stopped in a cafe for some coffee (hot chocolate for me!) and people-watching. The cafe was in a really old building with doorways that have long since settled, so I took some pictures inside before picking a table outside to enjoy the weather.

When we got back, we had an Independence Day snack. Nanna got out the American flag from Cassia and Sune’s wedding (they merged 3 nationalities and many more languages at their wedding) and we had fresh bruschetta and champagne.

Nanna cooked up a wonderful meal for us for dinner: roast beef, ham, duck, 2 different kinds of potatoes, asparagus, cauliflower, and fresh breads. We discussed what we saw in Ribe (though, I’m sure she’s been there dozens of times) and our plans for the next day. For dessert, we had fruit and ymer, a Danish soured milk product that is a cross between yogurt and buttermilk. Nice, refeshing end to a filling meal.

After dinner, I took a walk around Skodborg. I brought some carrots with me to feed the neighbor’s horses, saving some for when I finished my walk as well. I wandered up the block trying to get a better view of the windmills. I ended up following the sunset until I got out to a main road and figured that was as much as there was to see in that direction.

I turned back and took pictures of the interesting flowers people had in their gardens. I also really enjoyed the variety in the houses. A lot of the houses had a year written on the side indicating when it was built. Most noteworthy: there were no cookie cutter, model homes here!

I walked up to the school, passing the grocery store, the building formerly serving as the train station, and the cellphone/internet place. The sports fields by the school had a gate closed and locked in front of them… but no fence. So if you wanted to use the field, you could just walk around.

I walked back to finish spoiling the horses and they ran right up expectantly. One of them even neighed loud enough when he saw me that Ian heard him from inside the house.

As I was heading inside, I heard some rustling in the gravel near me. I looked around… and waited… and finally saw these little frogs crossing the path. Cute, but the horse seemed uninterested. So, finally headed in for the night.

We spent a day in Roskilde, a city dating back to the Viking Age. The Roskilde Festival was in town this weekend, but was sold out, and, kinda wasn’t where my interests were.

We visited the Roskilde Cathedral, built in the 12th and 13th centuries. Royal tombs spanning over a millennium are buried here. The architecture here is very interesting because royalty was buried here over many centuries, so as additional wings were needed, they were built and decorated in the style of the time, incorporating Gothic and Romanesque features.

The Viking Ship Museum, Vikingeskibsmuseet, was one of my favorite museums to visit. We started in the reconstruction exhibit, where they show how they resurrected the ships that were deliberately sunk in the waterway to prevent enemy attack by sea. These ships were later replicated and on display in the harbor.

In the outdoor area, they had displays about Viking ship design and construction, explaining the Nordic clinker-building method. They also had a row of trees, representing each type that might have been used for shipbuilding. The harbor had about a dozen replicas on display on the water. And they also had some tours available where you actually go out on a viking ship that the participants have to row.

Inside the main museum building, they had the original ships that were resurrected from the fjord and exhibits on the history of war at sea. They also had an exhibit on Havingsten fra Glendalough (Sea Stallion), a 30-m warship found in the fjord. The ship was replicated and set out on a 45-day journey from Roskilde to Dublin, documented by Timewatch. The purpose was to “test and document the seaworthiness, speed and manoeuvrability of the ship on the rough open sea and in coastal waters with treacherous currents.”

We got back pretty late in the afternoon, so had some down time before heading to Nyhavn (New Harbor) in downtown Copenhagen to see some of the nightlife.

Our first day back in Copenhagen, Ian was finally able to get to a gym. While he, Cassia, and Julia were off doing their thing, I went for a run to explore the city. I didn’t have my camera on me but I did record my route afterward:

I got a little turned around because I turned early on one street to avoid construction, and then turned the wrong way when I got back to the cross street I meant to turn on. Fortunately, I brought my map with me! I would’ve been hosed if I had relied on Ian and my algorithm for getting back (go down [street we can't pronounce, a.k.a. "Main St"], turn right at [other street we can't pronounce, a.k.a. "7-Eleven St"]). Oh, and there were three 7-Elevens that I saw on Main St. Not sure how many more there were if I had explored in the other direction.

Melissa (Ian’s cousin) & Fredrick arrived soon after everyone got back and cleaned up. They were in town for the day on their way to their week-long travels across Europe. We all headed out for lunch at Pussy Galore’s Flying Circus.

After lunch, Ian and I headed back to do some laundry and take naps while everyone else went out to do some shopping. Front-loading washing machines are fantastic. Definitely want a front-loader when I need to buy one.

We spent the evening in Tivoli doing some site-seeing and watching the free Friday night concert (Fredagsrock). Dicte, a favorite of Sune’s, was playing that night.

We spent our last morning in Iceland visiting the Cathedral that you can see from across the city.  Looked around inside, went up in the tower for an overhead view of the city, and then out front to the statue of Leif Erikson.

It started to rain, so we took a car tour of the Southwestern coast. 

We made a stop to feed Julia and were attacked by some birds while we hung around outside and eventually just took cover in the car until we were all ready to go.

Made it to the airport with a slight delay in the flight and were back in Copenhagen that night.  Had Danish hot dogs for dinner, which had toppings similar to Icelandic toppings, plus pickles, but the hot dog were really narrow, and was about twice as long as the bun.

After finding out it would take 90 minutes to drive to a town that could get us on a 4-hour, ~15km, bus ride to get to a location that would allow us to hike 2 hours to get close-ish to Eyjafjallajökull (which is covered by a glacier, so you can’t see much anyway), we decided we should do something else the next day. Oh, and it’d be super expensive.

Reykjadalur was recommended to us by the night clerk at the hotel. He told us it was a favorite of locals, so we gave it a try. We hiked out about an hour and got to a hot river where we could take a dip. Over the years, people have piled rocks strategically along the river to create dams where little pools could form, decreasing in temperature moving downstream.

Ian and I wandered around a bit and found where 2 rivers interesected to feed the stream. One was a hot river and one was cold, so you could stand in the pool with your feet in water differing by ~60 degrees.

When we got back to town, we decided this was a good day to try some Icelandic hotdogs. After some effort, we were able to find Bæjarins Beztu Pylsur, the most popular eatery in Iceland.

The casing was much more elastic than American hotdogs, more like sausage casings, but were similar in flavor to hotdogs. The big difference was the toppings available. They had ketchup, sweet mustard, fried onion, raw onion and remolaði, a mayonnaise-based sauce with sweet relish.

After hotdogs, the group split up for the afternoon. Cassia, Sune, and Julia went shopping in search of an elusive Icelandic sweater. I headed over to the National Museum for free Wednesdays! And Ian got some quiet time back at the hotel.

The National Museum was mostly history of Icelandic culture. Each time period had a main display that showed an artifact that played a significant role in their history. Since I had only an hour before they closed, the people at the info desk recommended I focus on those and look more in depth at the exhibits for the time periods around the items that caught my interest. Definitely worked as a good strategy for me.

After the museum, I finished up my postcards and headed into downtown Reykjavik to get them mailed off. The people at the post office were very friendly and told me a bit about their postal system. They have teams of carriers for each region, typically delivering mail within 3 days of send date. The rural carriers deliver mostly to intersections, so all residents on a rural road would have to go to the junction to collect their mail.  Occasionally, routes will be closed due to weather, but most of the year, they are able to access the populated areas.

The international stamps I bought for outside the EU were pretty cute too. I got frogs and waterfalls — and they were old-timey where you have to moisten the stamp before it will adhere.  I then got into a linguistics discussion with the other teller and a French woman until the post office closed.

I spent the next hour slowly making my way back to the hotel, taking pictures of pretty much anything that caught my interest.  Some of the buildings and statues only had placards in Icelandic, so I looked them up later.

I made a stop in the Kraun Design Gallery because they had a picture of yarn outside and I wanted to know what it was.  They had a photo exhibit of Iceland’s role in WWII, a yarn exhibit that was closed for the day, and a super-expensive arty store.

After that, met up with everyone else to have dinner at Fish Market.  The food was fantastic, but the visit was a bit odd.  We didn’t have a reservation, so they said that we could have a table, but would have to be done in an hour and a half for a reservation that was scheduled.  We agreed to the terms, were seated, and put our orders in.  We got our appetizers relatively quickly, but then waited an hour before our waitress came to tell us our entrees were getting started.  This was about 10 minutes before our deadline, but the restaurant was still relatively empty.    We explained the agreement to the waitress who was completely uninterested.  The hostess eventually came out and let us know that we were not going to be held to the deadline.

We spent the day at Landmannalaugar. There were hot springs and interesting landscapes, but more bugs! Again, they didn’t do anything to us, but they kept swarming our faces and getting in our ears and noses.

We had dinner at Caruso, an Italian place, following a recommendation in the tour book. I had salted cod there that was seasoned and not overwhelmingly salty. And some really good veggies, which seem to be rare in the country. Food was pretty good and the portions were quite filling. Our waiter here had, what sounded like an American accent, but not quite and we couldn’t figure out what kind of accent he had. So we finally asked him where he was from — LA, but he was picking up an Icelandic accent.

Did some souvenir shopping after dinner and called it a night.  Got some Icelandic wool for the knitters in my family and mittens for myself.  *SO* excited for winter!  The mittens have separate hand and thumb partitions that flip up, so I can type on my phone and keep the rest of my hands warm!

We started our day off walking around Reykjavik, parting ways mid-morning so Ian and I could visit Vikin, Iceland’s Maritime Museum, and everyone else could go to the National Museum.

On our way to the museum, we saw a sign indicating hard hats and steel-toed boots were required to go down a side street. It seemed that Reykjavik had a dry dock! We were able to get a closer look later from the other end of the street that did not require safety gear.

We spent about an hour in the museum learning about the history of trawling and then another hour in Óðinn, Iceland’s decommissioned Offshore Patrol Vessel.

Definite highlights were having the tour guide tell us about all 3 Cod Wars and pointing out that the gun on the ship was built in 1898. Oh, and Óðinn was decommissioned in 2006.

We met up with Cassia, Sune, and Julia early afternoon to head out to Þingvellir and learn about Viking parliament! We saw the law stone, which was lost due to earthquakes, but a flag was placed in the approximate location and stadium seating was available to listen to the speakers.  The continental drift between the North American and Eurasian Plates (which cause the earthquakes) can be clearly seen in this region.

For dinner, we tried some “authentic” American-style dining at Grillhusid.  The burgers were pretty adequate, but their “cold slaw” was not cole slaw.  They claimed it was mayo and sugar, but it tasted a lot like whipped cream.  Weird. And Ian’s meal was somewhat noteworthy for how old his potato looked, like it had been baked, frozen for months, and then re-heated. So, if you’re looking for low-end dining in Iceland, go for the fries.