17 October – 18 October

The spirit of Canute

Days seem to alternate between perfectly sunny and purely miserable in Denmark this time of the year. Yesterday we drove over to Odense on Funen, the central island of Denmark. It was a shocker - glum and grey at the best, pelting rain at the worst. A perfect day, however, to visit the mortal remains of that great Dane, King Canute, 'Knud' to the locals. On a day, probably much like we experienced yesterday, the Great King was murdered, along with his brother, (so legend has it) while kneeling at the altar of a nearby church. You can see Canute and his brother, Benedikt, in open coffins in the crypt of the Cathedral. Now you might think that we are a little morbid? Well you might be right. Nothing interests us more than a good shriveled-up 2000 year old bog man or the odd set of skeletal remains. We once drove miles out of our way in Italy to see a skeleton dressed in a nun's habit! But there's nothing strange about us!!!? As proof, we also visited Hans Christian Anderson's house, a remarkable museum dedicated to the man and his life and times. Despite the fact that Hans high-tailed it out of there when he was 14 and later denied that he had been born in a corner of this very house, as is claimed, the people of Odense celebrate him in many ways, one of which is to make the traffic walk and don't walk signs representations of the man, complete with cane. It seems that Hans was a bit of dandy and quite vain about his appearance.

Revisiting Odense and environs today was a totally different story. The sun was out most of the day. Not abandoning our search for more grave sites, despite the beautiful day, we visited the Viking Ship grave “ Ladbyskibet”, just outside the small village of Ladby. The site is unique in Scandinavia (or as the self-effacing Danes might say, 'almost' unique). Vikings either burnt their dead leaders on ships at sea or buried them, ship and all! Nothing remains of the chief or prince who was buried in this ship, as grave robbers took the body and most of the artifacts buried with the chief. They did, however, leave the bones of nine horses and four dogs for us to see today! What is special about the Ladby site is that the ship's impression is still in the ground, buried under a funeral mound. You enter a specially constructed cave around the impression to view it 'in-situ'. The timber has long since disintegrated, leaving only the mould, nails, anchor and, of course, the bones of the animals.

A farmer discovered the remains of the ship in 1934 and the decision was made to leave it in place. Later in the day we returned to Odense for another walk around the city. It's amazing how different a place can look in good weather!

Driving through the Danish countryside, one cannot fail to notice the hundreds, possibly thousands, of huge, white, wind generators. Some people see these generators as visual pollution. We don't mind them at all. They, in fact, have a strange fascination for us. We can't help but imagine them as the 'Martian Machines' that featured in Orson Welles' War of the Worlds.

We leave Denmark in a couple of days. Tomorrow we plan to catch a movie, clean up and re-pack, ready for the next phase of our trip. We pick up our camper-van in Amsterdam on 22 October. Our stay here has been less hectic than has been the case in many of our travels. We have had time to 'potter' about some small cities and towns that we would otherwise have 'flown' through on a motorway.

Denmark is a very small country with less than 6 million people. You can drive across it before morning tea and traverse the total length before lunch, but it is a lively place with obvious wealth and an enviable life style, if not climate! What has probably surprised us most is the rich history of Denmark from the Vikings to periods of almost great power status in the 15th and 16th centuries. They even took the Germans on over territorial disputes in the 1840s and again in the 1860s. They lost on both occasions of course, but you have to admire their spirit!

A closing comment on Scandinavia as a whole. It is just amazing how much 'stuff' is made locally. We went through the kitchen utilities drawer in our rented house. Vegetable peelers, knives, plastic spoons - all made in Scandinavia. Mostly in Denmark. Haven't these people heard of China? Given the cost of things here, probably not. On the other hand, you have to admire their, 'buy local' mentality. One has to wonder though, how long can it last? With a combined population which is less than Australia's, they are up against it competitively, unless they heavily protect local industry.

13 October – 14 October

“Wonderful Wonderful Copenhagen”


Not sure where the song came from, but the 'Wonderful Wonderful Copenhagen' theme rolled through our heads as we walked all day through this beautiful city. We have been here before, but perhaps the weather wasn't as nice and so the impressions may have been muted. We arrived early as mentioned in the previous entry and were greeted with bright sunshine. Our second day was a little overcast but bright enough to appreciate the grandeur of this, the largest city in Scandinavia. Amazingly for a city of around 1.5 million, there is very little traffic congestion and driving around the centre of the city is no problem at all.

We walked the city all day doing, we think, about 15 – 20 klms, poking our noses into private courtyards and side alleys. Hidden away in these nooks are some quiet corners of what remains of old Copenhagen. You can bet the locals know about them, but you won't find them in the guide books. Half-timbered houses in shades of ochre, some over grown with brambles, took our fancy particularly. Sure we also saw the most over-rated attraction in Europe, the “Little Mermaid” and a few palaces, churches and grand gardens, but it is the little treasures you find wandering about the back streets (sometimes lost?) that are most memorable. We knocked on the door of the Amalienborg palace, but Fred and Mary weren't home, so we didn't get to share a beer with them. Bugger! Maybe next time. Unfortunately also, as it was Monday, most of the museums were closed so, as we were booked into this house in Jutland, we missed them. AND we want to know where our free Internet has gone!! Not even a signal here – what is the world coming to?

Heading off today, we had one of the nicest days, weather-wise, so far, so warm that we were down to T-shirts. It took us most of the day to do the 300 odd klms from Copenhagen to our new 'digs' just outside Kolding (close to Middelfart – which took Paul's fancy) in Jutland. Autumn is further behind again. Trees are half green and half gold, still waiting to break out into the riot of colours we saw further north. We have a full week here in a small Danish village. A bit of a rest will be good but, given our usual frantic pace, we doubt that we will stay put. After all, we can do day trips to most of Denmark from here and probably a fair whack of northern Germany as well! So why sit about?


15 October – 16 October

Self-effacing Danes

Gorm the Old, the father of Harald I the Bluetooth, is buried (at least part of him is) under the floor of the 11th Century church at Jelling in Jutland. Gorm the Old died sometime in the first part of the 10th Century.

The zenith of Viking plundering had long passed by this stage of history. The hapless inhabitants of Britain banded together to fight off the Norse raiders, so sources of easy loot had become rare. So Gorm and his subjects had become farmers, although they still fought amongst themselves just to keep in 'trim'.

After his father's death, Gorm's son, good old Bluetooth, who had recently 'seen the light' and become a Christian, moved the grave of his heathen father from the Viking burial mound, which remains outside the church, to consecrated ground at the (then) new church in 950 AD. The important part of all this is that, using modern DNA techniques, the couple of bones, excavated from beneath the church in modern times, that were thought to belong to Gorm, were confirmed as being those of an ancestor of the current Danish Royal Family. So, in 2000, with much pomp and ceremony, the Danish Royal Family, re-buried the bone (s)? of their ancestor under the floor of the old Jelling church.
Bet none of you have ever heard this fantastic story? The reason probably is that the Danes are so “self-effacing”. They are said to totally under-rate themselves. Believe it, they do! Can you believe that, in the centre of Copenhagen, a billboard extolling the virtues of the local beer, Carlsberg, reads: “Carlsberg, probably the best beer in town.” How's that for a 'hard sell'? There are many examples of this sort of stuff. One of the guide books describes Kolding Castle in Jutland as .. “almost awe inspiring”.

In the past two days we have started our in-depth study of Denmark. Sadly, the weather has been less than perfect, but we have seen some extremely interesting little towns like Christiansfeld, (a Moravian town famous for its honey cakes, as well as for having the largest church room without supporting columns in Denmark – bet you didn't know that either – self-effacement at its best!!) Sonderborg and of course Ribe. Aside from the rain, we have seen some interesting sights like the Viking Museum (Ribe), the very interesting Sonderborg Slot (castle) and, naturally, the 'Bog Woman' (450 BC) in the church at Vejle. Scoff if you will at the Bog People, but we are off to see more of them tomorrow, when we hope to see the head of the Tollund. Man; that's all that's left of the poor old fella as his body decomposed once it was dug up; as well as Grauballe Man – yep, all of him.

For the un-informed, a bog person has been preserved by the action of tar that forms naturally in 'bogs'. Many have been thrown into the bog as sacrifices. What do they look like? Imagine a cadaver modelled out of dried licorice!