Danish Manor Houses and Skagen's fascinating landscapes and artists

June 4

A little quieter day today. Dave has a gig playing luncheon music with a pianist for a 75^th birthday being held at a nearby historic manor house, Gammel Estrup. The main house, castle really, comes complete with moat, and gardens and out-buildings, all brick. The stables/mews alone stretch more than 100 meters. For centuries, it belonged to a family of gentry who owned seven other similar manor house operations. No longer owned privately, it was restored and furnished and opened as a museum. While Dave played, we explored the castle. It looked like a great place to live (if you were hoi poloi) on a day like today, but I wouldn’t want to be there on a cold wintery day. Portraits showed some strange looking faces in the family; sort of like dressed up Ozark inbred folks. Highlights were the Giraffe-neck piano, and the Alchemists hidden workshop in the basement of one of the towers .

We and AnnaLise had time to drive to the coast town of Ebeltoft to see the historic tall-ship Frigate Jusland, a huge ship now drydocked and used as a museum with interactive displays and mannequins throughout showing how the sailors lived.

When Dave was done, we drove into Randers for a little walking tour. All shops shut at noon on Saturdays. Dave says the Danes would rather have time off than work in stores. Not a bad idea, actually. Lots of cobblestones on the streets and some buildings built as early as 1630’s. The town has a nice central square where we took a photo of Dave and AnnaLise in front of the town hall where they were married. Walking is thirsty work, so of course, beer was next on the docket. Dave took us to one of his favourite musician haunts, and we have to recommend two beers: Danish Fynsk #16 and Belgian Leffe, which Mike thinks is one of the best on tap beers he’s tasted.

The best part of the meal tonight (at home) was the dessert! A Danish specialty usually reserved for Christmas…. A bed of melon slices topped with ice cream, covered in fire roasted figs with caramel sauce………mmmmm……...worth ruining any diet for! Next time in Randers, we bought a tin of these figs.

June 5

Skagen is our destination today. A map of Denmark resembles a funny little elf-man with a pointy cap and a bulbous nose (nasal drip are the islands just to the south). Skagen is at the northern tip of Denmark, about another 2 ½ hours from the unpronounceable Trolyskovvej (Trolls Forest Way). The North Sea and the ………..Sea (the water between Denmark and Sweden) meet here and have formed the world’s longest sand spit. We timed our walk out to see the sunset from the northern tip; there we watched terns catching their last fishies of the day. No green flash, but lots of great colour. Saw our first Eider ducks, as well as a beautiful little Yellowhammer singing his heart out: a little bit of bread and no cheeeese.
Our hostess tonight is the lovely and gracious Charlotte, a friend of Dave and AnnaLise. She rents a few tourist rooms in her home, and luckily they were empty and available for us. Every house in Skagen is brick or painted a warm orangey yellow, with brick-red tile roofs. The roofs are unique in that they add cement under the ridgeline tiles and the outside two rows of gable-edge tiles to resist the very strong winds. Then they paint this mortar bright white. The gardens are great…lilacs and roses are out right now. Oh, and on the road in we enjoyed vast tracts of lupins in the verges, as well as wild roses, like the Alberta roses but a deeper colour and bigger blossom. The lupins made us think of Merrie and Pierre’s Thunder Bay property.
The harbour docks are full of fishing boats that look like they could weather the foulest storms. The front decks are completely covered over so that waves will be deflected. The space under the rounded, solid shell cover has a stove & chimney, presumably to act as a de-icer.

We ate a typical Danish flat fish dish at a café on the docks, but peeked into an old historical building-turned-restaurant that was festooned with copies figureheads from the bows of famous ships, most of them wrecks.. Everything from prim-looking women to pirates and mermaids. Fantastic!


We like the Danish breakfasts. They’ve got a great rye bread… with NO caraway, that is thick and seedy and dark, sliced thin in small moist square pieces. For toppings, they lay out plates and packs of sausage, deli ham, cheeses, picked herring (curried mustard variety - our fave), tomatoes, cukes and a mayo with veggies spread. Oh, yes… also eggs, coffee, juice. I can go all day on this!
Skagen is Denmark’s favourite summer vacation destination. The dunes and beaches are good for lolling and swimming in high summer. The area has attracted numerous artists/painters over the years, and their works are beautifully displayed in the Skagen Museum.

The Skagen artists are kind of like our Group of Seven in that both group found a common love of remote natural areas.

When we got home to Trolyskovvej Hobbit house, AnnaLise made a farewell dinner of the Danish national dish,Frikadella and sausage with new potatoes and sausage.

Alittle late night packing and off to airport at Billund for a Ryan Air flight to London.

From the Big City to the Troll Forest

June 3^rd.

The train station is a great place for breakfast - lots of good, relatively cheap eats, which we shared with Dave in one of the cafes. As we belted ourselves back into the car, ready for the  day’s excursion, Colonel Klink says, “Have you seen my bag?”……. followed by, “Holy …!” and a look of horror on his face as Mike realized that he had just left his bag in the busiest train station in Europe, where we had already been accosted by a young vagrant beggar! Mike resurrected his sprinting skills while  Dave and I pondered possible next steps. What was in the bag?…. Oh, only, wallet, cell phone, binoculars, passport,….in short…his life. Next option… long walk off a short pier. But, amazingly, there was a smile on his face as he returned to us, confirming that the clinking sound we heard as he walked was caused by supposited  horseshoes…he had found two old guys sitting at our former table. They had placed the bag on a chair and seemed to be calmly waiting for a panting, stricken, babbling owner to appear.  Mike said the worst part of the experience was knowing that from now on, every move he made would be prefaced by questioning.  “Have you got your ..... and your.... etc?”

The sun was shining, and it was a perfect day for a canal cruise. Yes, thousands of tourists do it, but it really is a beautiful way to see the buildings of Copenhagen from the water. We got seats in the first two rows, and had great views. Palaces, churches, fountains, the Opera House, the library, quaint old buildings crowding the edges of the canals, people picnicking among the old wooden boats, low bridges…. All of it beautiful.

 Our excellent guide said everything in three languages, danish, english and german.
"Keep your heads down".   Had to say it early enough get through all three languages and maybe answer a few questions before the bridges came up.

 The Opera House

Under the guide's arm, the old brewery (1605) and the ultra-modern new library

It's nickname is The Black Diamond

We watched the reflection of our boat as we sailed by

One of several old Lighthouse ships, this one converted to a restaurant

Definitely a land of water and islands.

Leaving the city behind, we hopped into Dave’s Kia Rondo and headed toward Randers. Even the industrial buildings show Danish design flair as we left the outskirts, and then the countryside opened into well tended fields of barley, golden canola and wheat. They were mostly little farms on gently rolling hills. Between the islands of Sjaelland and Fyn (SHAY-lind & Fyuhn) is the 2^nd longest suspension bridge span in the world. It used to be number one until a longer one was built in Japan (ichi ban). The drive was about 3 ½ hours to get to Dave and AnnaLise's place in the Troll Forest, or Troldeskov, near Randers, where they live on the edge of a park in a heritage thatched house built in about 1700. The approach road curves through a forest of twisted trunked trees… straight out of Hans Christian Anderson. So quiet.. Nothing but birds and bees.!

Great home-cooked Danish dinner tonight of roast pork with crackling and sugared potatoes.. Yum. Followed by a bit of house-music with Dave on violin, his friend Henning on guitar, and Eva and AnnaLise singing Danish folk tunes.

Dave calls it Hobbit House in the Troll Forest

 

 

 Django Reinhardt

Stephane Grappeli

Thursday in Copenhagen and Christiania



no  luggage?  SAS gives you a black zip case with toiletries and matching T-shirts

June2^nd

If today is Thursday, this must be Copenhagen! The streets are quiet after the party last night, and because today is a holiday in Denmark, most stores and restaurants are closed. Sure is quiet. We bought our morning coffee at the local 7-11, and then bought take-out Danish open-faced sandwiches from a little hole-in-the-wall place run by an Asian couple; the wife spoke only Danish.

Today we have a date with Anneluus, my friend who lives in Sweden, and who was the founder of my ladies’ salon orchestra, Wine and Roses. Our hotel, City Hotel Nebo, is basically across from the central train station. (Also basically in the red-light district… but that doesn’t seem to be a worry). So we agreed to meet her in the station. What a station.. Huge open building with vaulted high ceilings supported by curved and carved timbers. Very impressive.

                                                 Small ball of dried, rolled tea grew to a bouquet 


On the opposite side of the train station are the world-famous Tivoli Gardens, and that’s where we and Anneluus headed for our visit. Tivoli Gardens does have gardens, but it is mainly an amusement park, with a huge midway, restaurants ranging from coffee stands to gourmet dining, stages for music and shows, most of which are open and free. We spent $40 for coffee and crescent cookies, and had a great catch-up with Anneluus. She’s looking great, has created a new Wine & Roses band in Sweden, and is very happy that her legacy of W&R in Victoria is continuing to thrive and play.

Fiolgade or Fiddle Street

Copenhagen has many pedestrian-only streets in it’s old area, where the streets are all cobbles and the buildings are brick and ornate. Normally filled with shoppers, they are quiet today, and great for window shopping and admiring the architecture. Thank you for lunch, Anneluus! We found an Italian side-walk café and listened to an old musician’s gentle accordion music as it wafted from the ancient courtyard nearby. 

1st Tivoli Orchestra Conductor

Jet-lag caught up to us a bit, and so we happily took a couple of hours to catch up in the afternoon. Our friend Dave was picking us up later to join him for his gig in Christiania.

Christiania is a ‘free-town’ within Copenhagen. Imagine a Lasquiti Island community in the middle of a large city. Not ‘fenced in’ physically, but the border is clear. The community started as an abandoned military site, taken over bit by bit, starting as a communal playground for the local kids in the 1970s. Many of the large old military buildings, some three stories high, have been divided up into apartments, and the smaller ones taken over by families. The roads are unpaved and the gardens mostly simple, neglected, or overrun. Shacks are here and there, dogs are everywhere, smoke is definitely in the air, and photos are discouraged on Pusher Street and in the ‘market’ which sells, I imagine, pretty much anything you need to do a little or a lot, of pot.

The concert was in the re-purposed Grey Hall, which was originally the riding arena for the military. Dave’s group, Djursland Spillemaend, has 8 players, and he and the lead singer/guitar player, Helge (HELL-yeh) are the headliners. Check out Dave’s Youtube page: flaminfiddler1

He’s a great fiddler, and works with many of the local musicians.  Tonight’s concert took me back to hippie days. It was a CD release concert for their album “Stay With Me Tonight”, and the locals loved it. The hall was filled with dancing women in flowing skirts, dogs and kids at their feet, smoke filling the air.

No catch-up on our jet-lag tonight. By our 3 a.m. lights-out time, the birds were singing and the dawn light was showing.

We're here! (And one more vote for West Jet)

Thank you, Avery, for the pleasant pick-up and trip out to the airport. Also for helping Mike with his final chore of resetting the screen door…..good to learn how, after ten years here.

We’re now at our ‘basic but charming’ hotel just a block from the Central Copenhagen train station. It’s been a long journey, but we made it. Our connections were pretty tight. An hour in Vancouver, a bit more in Montreal, and over two hours in Paris (where Mike got in a little birding at the shuttle stop- - Swifts! Apus apus). We were happy to have our bags checked all the way through to Copenhagen, thanks to the computer wizardry of the Air Canada agent in Victoria. Of course, every good trip has its quirks. Some slackers ’forgot’ to refill the plane’s water tanks at YVR, so on a four and a half hour flight to Montreal, they ran out of water half way through food service.  No coffee, no tea, no WC water.   Could have been worse…it might have been the fuel tanks they forgot to fill. 

Also that plane was over ½ hour late arriving  so, in Montreal, we really had to hustle to get to our Paris flight. Luckily, it was another AC connection, so they held the plane for us and several others. First thing we asked for was water. We should have asked for an upgrade to first class. What a plane! Boeing 777.  Spacious feeling, with high, curved ceilings, indirect lighting that changed colors and seats that were wider than any other streerage cabin we've been in.  The first class seats were all little pods that turn into beds, lucky guys.

Well, of course, our bags didn’t show,…maybe tomorrow. But we have the essentials and can buy whatever else we need and send SAS (Scandinavian Airlines) the bill.

Copenhagen is hopping tonight as it's the first night of a five day festival.  Not quite sure what it's about, but it involves a lot of friendly rule-bending and some strange behaviours not to be comprehended by those of our vintage.  Beer drinking in streets closed to traffic; some are not officially closed but are blocked by kids dancing beside inventive boom-box systems.  One was a re-worked bicycle frame that carried four car batteries to put out lots of hip-hop power.

The strangest thing we saw were teens and twenty-somethings, strolling down the street dressed as zombies.  Some were solo, some in small groups, and we encountered a few parades of 50 - 100, all heading to some party rendezvous.  Latex makeup and red colouring can create realistic horror on an already well perforated face.

Tomorrow's a National Holiday, involving some commemoration of Pentecost and the Ascension, as far as we could make out in talking to some Tuborg-hoisting stalwarts.

We're dining tonight at a pricey Macdonalds in order to use their free wi-fi. 

The architecture is amazing.  The use of bicycles exceeds even Japan.  And everybody can speak English with us, even though we're hearing only Danish when they're talking among themselves.

Weather's great...sunny, and 18, and windy.