After our days in Århus with daughter Ingrid and her family, and the detour out to Fanø, we are heading back east. To Sjælland and the long, narrow peninsula Sjællands Odde. Our son Øystein, his wife Silje and their almost two year old daughter Vida, have rented a summer house here, and we have been invited to visit for a few days.
We arrived late last night, settled in, had a good night´s sleep, spent the morning with Vida, and when she had her afternoon nap, I walked down to the sea. I love the sea, the colours, the smell, the waves, the stones and the sand, the fauna. Can spend hours there, just breathing.
This plant is edible. I did eat it, but did not bring it back to the summer house to cook it for dinner. I am not sure that the others would have been as keen on it as I was, lol.
After spending the morning in Christel Seyfarth´s yarn store we were ready to explore more of this time island which is situated almost right out in the North Sea. Christel found a map and told us where to drive and what to see. Like not taking the road while driving south to the small village Sønderho, but drive along the beach, just like everyone does.
Sønderho was filled with these typical old Danish houses, and I couldn't get enough of them. I really find them so charming, and in my dream I find myself living in one of them :-)
We walked around for a long time, and I took loads and loads of photos, and when it was time for lunch, we found a lovely little place which Christel had told us about. The weather was nice and warm, so we sat out in the garden, so it was only after the meal, when I needed to go inside to the toilet, I discovered the real treat.......
.......a museum with old, blue tiles from the area.
A few months ago I did not know where to find the island Fanø. Well, I knew it belonged to Denmark and I knew it was the home of the knit artist Christel Seyfarth. I also knew that the island had lots of old, charming houses. Then, in June, I met Christel at a knitting festival not far from Trondheim. I even interviewed her, for a video I was making for the festival.
You can watch the video here.
After our days in Århus, Terje and I were to head over bro Sjællands Odde, actually just a quite short ferry ride away. But I persuaded Terje that instead of the ferry we could drive "around" and then visiting Fanø would be just a short detour. Well, Terje has worked with roads all his life and he loves to read maps, so I really could not cheat him. But the understood that the "short detour" meant a lot to be, so off we went.
Our first stop on the island, well, second actually, the first one was for coffee and cake :-), was Christel´s yarn store. She knew we were coming, I knew she would be there waiting for us, and since we were early we were almost the only customers, which meant that Christel had time enough to show us around, and to talk knitting.
Before arriving I had decided I wanted to buy yarn and pattern for one of Christel´s lovely shawls. Now the difficult task of choosing came.
Here you see Christel with one of them. No, it is not the one I bought.
Christel is the founder of Fanø knitting festival, now called Nordby Wooldays Fanø. Now I have a deram to go back to Fanø for the festival.
I could have spent all day in the shop. But this was only part of our "short detour", we wanted to explore the island before leaving it. I bought my kit and we said goodbye to Christel.
Ingrid, Marius and the boys wanted to spend the day in the amazement park, Tivoli Friheden. "This is not for us," I said to Terje, "let's go to the botanical gardens instead." Ingrid overheard what I said and told me that there would be more than enough flowers for me at Friheden, actually there was a Flower Festival going on there.
We changed our mind of course, came with them to the park and had the most lovely day. No carousels for us, but walking around, enjoying the flowers and the live, sitting down with coffee and cakes, meeting up with the grandkids here and there, more flowers, and more flowers and more flowers.
Do you want to follow us around? Ok, here we go.
A greenhouse for two, I would love that in my garden.
What about a green hair wash?
A group of Danish garden artists had designed gardens around the park. Here is Claus Dalby´s White Garden.
Every flower its own jar. Great idea.
A greenhouse with a double bed. Green leaves as curtains. Well, I am not quite sure about that.......
Our day in the park was a happy, blessed, perfect one. Unfortunately, the next day a fatal accident took place, where a 14 years old girl died.
We have arrived in Århus, Denmark, where we are staying in an AirB&B for a few nights together with our daughter Ingrid, her Marius and our two grandsons, Leander and Milian. All morning today have been spent downtown, the boys are not too keen on shopping and busy streets, but downtown Århus has a gem for children, a huge play part in different sections outside the main library.
Later we went to the beach and tonight Ingrid and Marius will go downtown again for dinner while we will stay at home with the boys.
What to do when you have a day to spend on the Danish island Fyn? The options are many, so very many. We asked friends, we searched internet and travel books and in the end we felt almost desperate, there were so many things we wanted to do.
But thinking it all over again, the choice ended up being quite simple. It had to be Egeskov Castle.
Here we got both the amazing gardens and the interesting castle. For sure a very good place to spend a day (actually we could easily have spent several days there)
I took loads of pictures. Here is one from inside the castle, from one of the many collections. Being an avid collector (of many things) myself, I never get enough of admiring other collections.
Inside the castle was also Titanias Palace, a dollhouse designed by the British artist Sr. Nevile Wilkinson. Sr. Wilkinsons daughter Guendolen had seen a fairy running under the roots of a tree near their house, Guedolen felt sorry for the fairies having to live in caves, and her father built her this palace.
Who doesn't want a father like this :-) I am not sure why the palace is in Egeskov Castle now, I do remember having seen it on display in Legoland in Denmark when the boys were smal. I even bought a book about it then.
After breakfast today we drove Torgeir to the railway station, he was going back to Stockholm, while Terje and I continued southwards in Sweden.
Stopping for coffee along the roads when you are somewhere you have never been before, is always exciting. You never know what you find. It might be a petrol station with lukewarm coffee and stale pastries, or it might be a wonderful modern museum with a kind of gourmet restaurant.
Today was our lucky day. Coffee time came and we started to look for a blue sign with a white coffee cup, along the highway. At our first stop we had no luck, the place was kind of closing down and had almost nothing to offer. We decided to continue, and quite out of the blue (for us) a modern art museum with a gourmet restaurant materialised.
Unfortunately we had no time for the museum, but the lemon meringue pie was heavenly, and in the museum's gift shop my credit card got very hot.
We passed one bridge, then another, and soon found ourselves in Odense in Denmark, the city where H. C. Andersen was born.
Our hotel was close to the H. C. Andersen museum, and we had a nice walk there before dinner.
The Refugium where we stay these days, south in Denmark, has a lovely garden filled with fruit trees, apples and pears.
All the fruits are ripe now, looking lovely where they hang.
Tempting, isn't it :-)
So far I have not seen anyone picking the fruits, but birds and critters seem to love them.
My friend Terri, from Oklahoma tagged me on facebook yesterday, showing a picture of bags of ripe apples having on a fence and a text saying " In Norway people harvested their apples and hanged them in their respective fences so that the poor, the hungry, and the homeless avail fruits for free instead of letting apples to vaste. SHARING IS CARING."
I have not seen this done in Norway, neither is it done here, but Torgeir, our oldest son, who lives in Stockholm, Sweden, called me the other day asking for an apple pie recipe. "Are you going to bake?" I asked. "Yes, you see mamma, there are so many apple trees here where I live and now when the start to ripe, the owners of the trees pick apples, fill boxes and leave them on the pavements for everybody to take what they want and need."
Yesterday in Copenhagen. Today I took the metro out to the airport and from there a four hours bus drive to Løgumkloster, far south on the biggest Danish island, Jylland.
I am here for the conference; "Nordic Network Conference on Church and People with Disabilities"
We have a variety of talks, workshops, groups and more, and before dinner tonight we had a service in the beautiful Løgum Monastery Church. The monastery is not an active one today, actually it has not been since the reformation in 1536-1537. Before that cistercienser munks lived here. Today the church is a Lutheran church and the refectories is run as a center for education, connected to the church of Denmark
Just outside my window is a bell tower with 49 bells. It plays at set times during the day, luckily not through the night. I have my window open and love it!
I flew from Trondheim this morning, one hour and 30 minutes later I landed in Copenhagen, Denmark. I am on my way to a church conference over at Jylland, further west in Denmark, another island, but had to fly here, and decided to give myself som extra hours to me a one day tourist.
Temperatures had dropped in Trondheim when I woke up this morning, no doubt autumn is in the air. Not so here, still summer, well, at least what I call summer. When I had lunch, outdoors, at Nyhavn, a couple from Israel sat at the table next to me. They complained about the cold, I was sweating :-)
Shopping and crowds streets are not my cup of tea, instead I look for parks and gardens, and in Copenhagen they are easy to find. There I could sit down with a book, my knitting, enjoying the sun, watching people :-)
Tomorrow I continue to Løgumkloster and Løgum Refugium, by bus.......which makes me able to see quite a lot of Denmark.
All texts and photos by Britt-Arnhild Wigum Lindland
About me
About me
I am living in a red house surrounded by a blue garden near Trondheim, Norway. I love everydays and post about my steps through life. Britt-Arnhild's House in the Woods is open to everybody. Welcome over!
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