Denmark

A few months back EasyJet (the local cheap airline) was having a winter sale for very cheap flights to Copenhagen. I've always wanted to visit Denmark, so we booked our tickets for 17GBP! It was cheaper for Ben to have his own seat than to pay for him as a lap child! We got up at 4:30 in the morning to get to the airport and make our flight. It went really smoothly (besides it being practically impossible to stop Ben from kicking the seat in front of him).

We got in and rented our car without incident and the kids instantly spotted McDonald's for lunch. The wonderful thing about McDonald's is that you can order in any country - the menu items have the same names everywhere, so if you're hungry and don't want to fight language barriers, McD's is a blessing :)

  

 We stopped in Odense to break up our long drive up to Aalborg. It was crazy to have so many bicyclists get in front of us as we waited at the signal.

 We went to Hans Christian Andersen's house and museum while in Odense. It was neat to learn about the author of so many modern fairy tales.

 

 These are H.C. Andersen's artwork. He used a pair of normal scissors to cut out these amazingly intricate cuttings.

 A painting of H.C. Andersen. Even the storm drains had beautiful intricate decorations.

We got to Aalborg and my Auntie Doris' cousin Freddie met us to help us get all settled and find a place to eat. He was so wonderful! The next day he took us on a tour of Aalborg. I was particularly interested in Aalborg because my grandmother's parents were from there.

 Aalborg castle

The architecture in Denmark was so beautiful.

 This building was built by a wealthy merchant, Jens Bang, in the 1600's to show off his wealth.

 Inside is now a restaurant and on the walls hang badges from many ships that have docked in the harbor.

 The story goes that Jens wanted to be on the local council but was never allowed on, so on the side of his building overlooking the town hall he had this face carved sticking it's tongue out at the town councillors.

 The Town Hall.

 The monastery that is a retirement0type home now.

 Out side the monastery.

 Everywhere there are benches with blankets for people to sit and be warm. This one was outside a women's clothing shop and I presume this is for the husbands to chill on while wives shop. Aren't these Danes brilliant? :)

 The church and below, inside. Sorry for my skiwampus photo... It was really beautiful!

 Next we visited the Museum of Aalborg which is below the city streets. You take an elevator to get down. It's a really neat exhibit because they've excavated the ruins of a monastery that used to sit on that site and the ruins are all in place. The above photo is a cross section of the many layers that had been built on that site. There are layers of building, bones and refuse. It was so interesting to see it like that!

I couldn't believe how much the walls were bowed.

In the afternoon Freddie and his wife Jette (pronounced yet-uh) invited us up to stay in their beach house in Skagen at the very top of Denmark and the continent! That afternoon we played on the beach near their home and had a lovely dinner.

 

 

 This is Fia.

  Sunday morning we walked to an awesome park.

 

A little later we drove to where the two seas meet and took the tractor ride to the very end. It was neat to see the waves from the two seas coming from different directions and crashing together there.

 Our lovely hosts, Freddie and Jette. What a lovely time we had with them!

Sunday afternoon we started the long drive back to Copenhagen. It was another beautiful day with breathtakingly gorgeous scenery and skies.

We stopped along the way in Aarhus to visit Den Gamle By, a Danish village that has been re-created by moving old buildings from all over Denmark there. You can walk into most of the buildings and they have them set up as they would have been hundreds of years ago.

 Sadly, these fake ones were the only aebleskivers that we saw in Denmark.

 

 I thought that this yarn dyeing building was fascinating.

 I loved this floor with wooden bricks. It's so neat to see the tree rings. Also, this door hinge was very cool you had to pull and turn the ring to open the door.

 It was the door to the Mintmaster's Mansion, the grandest building there. It had a very cool interior from the 1700's.

 It's really neat to experience the history. I love places like this!

 We still had a few hours to drive back to CPH and entertained ourselves with Danish signage along the way. Middlefart got a good (immature) laugh out of us. Wouldn't want to live in that stinky place :)

 We couldn't read this sign, but it was part of a series that started off with a frowny face that had a distance on it and that continued until it turned into a smiley face. We think it was counting down the km to the end of road works. I felt much happier with the road works knowing that the sign makers (at least) felt frowny like I did about it :)

 The sound of silence. Hallelujah!!

 This is the amazingly long bridge into Zealand (Sealand), the island that Copenhagen is on. There are two parts and this was taken halfway though the first bridge with the second in the distance.

 This was another sign that gave us a good immature laugh. Fartkontrol apparently means speed control. Pretty great word though!

We finally pulled up to the hotel around 9:45 and were exhausted but poor Rob still had to return the rental car as we had no place to park it and wouldn't need it for the rest of the trip. It took a while to get checked in a shuffle sleeping kids up to the room and all the stuff out of the car. He left for the airport return about 10:30 and it was a harrowing trip for him in which "he almost died." He put the address into the GPS from the Avis receipt which took him the opposite direction from the airport, so when he "got to his destination" that was obviously not correct, he hightailed it (very fast, I understand) back to the airport with a few wrong turns and parked it and ran up to the counter a few minutes after it was supposed to be closed but thankfully it was the only counter with a worker still there and the window half shut. He then had to navigate his way through the metro system (all in Danish) and had to make a change of trains before he finally made it home at midnight. Poor guy. We are so lucky to have him to do these harrowing things for us!

The kids woke up bright and early (of course), so we got up and had a delicious breakfast at the hotel before setting off for some sight seeing. I need to stop and say how amazingly delicious Danish breakfasts are! Such variety and so delicious! We had the best breakfasts on any travels that we've ever had. Yogurt, fresh breads, Danish cheese, Danish butter, cereals, sliced meats, fruit, pastries, juices, bacon, eggs, and on... Mmm, my mouth is watering!

 We started off by walking to see The Little Mermaid statue in the bay that is a memorial to H.C. Andersen, who also lived in CPH. There was a lone swan swimming in the bay that I joked was the Swan Princess to keep LM company (both his fairy tales).

After a stop to deliberate where to go next and to throw rocks in the moat of the Kastell we headed to the Amalienborg Palace. Just when we were almost there, Grace realized that she had left her camera back at our last stop. So Rob ran back to get it and I just pulled over next to a building to get out of the middle of the sidewalk to await his return. There were Palace Guards marching up and down the street that we were almost to the corner of and they kept looking at us. Finally one of them started talking to me in Danish, but switched to English when I asked for it (everyone speaks at least a little English there - it was so nice!). He told me that it was not permitted that we be within 1.5 meters of the building that we were leaning on. Apparently it was the palace of the Prince Regent and I had no idea! Plus he was in residence at that time, so the guards were extra vigilant. So we quickly moved to the middle of the square to wait for Rob. The palace was so different that I'd expected. It is made up of 4 huge buildings surrounding the square with a huge statue of Frederik V on horseback.

 Next we went to the Marble Church. It was really beautiful and had an incredible painted ceiling inside.

 Carved stone elephants? Love it!

 Next we visited Nyhavn which is a canal with brightly colored buildings along the sides. So beautiful! While there we went on a boat tour. I had no idea that so much of CPH is accessible via canals. The Danes are water loving people! It was also Danish Liberty Day (May 5) which they celebrate as the day that they Germans un-occupied Denmark. It was neat to see all the Danish flags flying!

 Amalienborg Palace is in the foreground with the Marble Church in the background.

 In the main square there was some construction but instead of ugly construction walls, they'd had an artist set up an installation of these colored doors so would could play with them to make an image. Here's the kids and Rob's best smiley face.

 We had hot dogs from a street vendor. They put the condiments into a hollowed out half baguette then stick the dog in. It was brilliant because you don't get messy and it was way more delicious than a normal bun.

We spent much of the rest of the afternoon wandering down the Stroget pedestrian shopping street. Of course we had to make a stop at the flagship Lego store. Legos were invented by a Dane and the original Legoland is in Denmark.

 

  Lego CPH

Our next stop was the Copenhagen Cathedral where Bertel Thorvaldsen's Christus and Twelve Apostles are displayed. The church was really nice, not overly decorated and the focus was on the statues. I felt the Spirit really strongly as we sat there appreciating Thorvaldsen's work and marvelling at the beautiful statues. Rob and the girls had a really sweet moment kneeling at Jesus' feet and talking about him.

 The pictures aren't the best. I felt a little dumb taking photos in the church.

 

After dinner we  stopped by Rosenborg Castle which was right behind our hotel. Another beautiful example of ornate Danish architecture.

 We loved this heart bush :)

 Our hotel 

Tuesday morning we enjoyed another delicious Danish breakfast then headed to the airport on the Metro. In the airport they had these wonderful free little carts to transport kids and cabin luggage through the airport.

We had a fantastic time in Denmark. It is the happiest country on the Earth and I believe it! Everyone was so friendly and happy. It seemed like if we looked a tiny bit lost there would be some nice person to help us find our way. It was also funny because everyone looked really familiar to me - like our friends the Lassen family :). I also loved window shopping. Danish design really is amazing. We had a fantastic time!