Denmark 2009

It was now time to begin the longer legs of the rest of our travels in 2009 as we landed into Copenhagen, Denmark.  Callan had advised us to make sure we took a tour early in our time in this city using one of the boats travelling the canals around the city.

It was excellent advice because after checking into the hostel and going for a walk around the streets of the city, we were both feeling somewhat underwhelmed by Copenhagen, but after an excellent tour on the canals, our feelings had changed.

Canal tour boat in Copenhagen

This is a very elegant and relaxed city in our view blessed with some world famous sights like...

The little mermaid

cafes in squares and on footpaths...

Copenhagen is similar to Amsterdam, not just because of the abundance of canals but because of pushbikes, lots and lots of pushbikes and allocated 'lanes' for people to use.  We hired some pushbikes to see more of the city, mind you it was a little embarrassing when getting passed constantly.

Trying to copy the locals

In and around Copenhagen are many historical buildings, including a few castles like:

Fredensborg Palace... the home of the Queen of Denmark

Gardens of Frederiksborg Castle

Holgot the Dane in Kronborg Castle

But Copenhagen was just the start of our time in Denmark as the map below shows.

Road trip through Denmark

We rented a car in Copenhagen and started our road trip through the country and you quickly learn that Denmark is flat, very flat, in fact we visited the highest natural destination in the Ejerbjerge hills which was 170m high.

During the drive we also crossed the longest combined bridge in Denmark at 13.4kms long but a little embarrassing when our credit car didn't work whilst exiting and other cars started queuing up behind us.  A man appeared out of the roadway somehow and fixed the issue without a single horn blast from behind us.

We stayed in a few towns for a few nights each as we headed towards the north of Denmark, but a favourite was Ribe, a small town of ~8,000 people and the oldest town in Denmark and about to celebrate 1,300 yrs of existence in 2010.

The very quaint and old Ribe, Denmark

We learned much about Ribe and Danish culture whilst on their 'Night Watchman' tour through the town late into the afternoon.  

In many of the windows of the oldest buildings in the town, there were small mirrors angled out to the street, reputedly to allow residents to observe the comings and goings of each other.

We now also understand why the Danes like smaller rooms with lower ceilings in their homes and why their restaurants or bars are also typically fairly small.

They value a sense of being 'cosy' where they live and relax and from what we saw in Ribe it was easy to see how this tradition commenced.

Our drive included travelling through some very beautiful countryside and stopping by equally wonderful lakes like this...

Rob was also keen to visit the Danish town of Skagen located in the north of the country.  She was keen to see the town named after the brand of watch she loves, mind you, Skagen watches are now made in the USA, but the visit did give us the opportunity to stand at the very top of Denmark looking out at The Skagerrak.

This is a strait running between the southeast coast of Norway, the southwest coast of Sweden, and the Jutland peninsula of Denmark, connecting the North Sea and the Kattegat sea area, which leads to the Baltic Sea.

The very north of Denmark and The Skagerrak

We dropped the rental car in Hirtshals near Skagen in order to catch our ferry bound for the town of Kristiansand in Norway, so until then... go well!