Sweden and Denmark

We are having a wonderful time in beautiful Scandinavia!

We spent 5 days in Stockholm, seeing such sights as the royal palace, the Vasa museum and Skansen park. The latter is a wonderful place for people of all ages. There is a zoo, beautiful gardens and fountains, a historical village with houses and shops from 100 years ago and people demonstrating glassblowing, pottery etc. We also took the hop on - hop off bus on two of it's routes in order to see as much as possible of the city. Our final activity was a 2 hour cruise through the canals and waterways of Stockholm. The city is partly on the Baltic Sea and partly on a lake, so the cruise goes through locks to move from one to the other. Everywhere there is water! Hiking trails and parks line the waterways and people kayak, sail and motor all over. Spring had arrived and the trees were all newly decorated with leaves which made a lovely scene. We found some great places for dinner with traditional Swedish food as well as some modern options. The Swedish meatballs and salmon were delicious, as was the herring (at least Jon thought so!).

We took the train from Stockholm to Copenhagen on a bright sunny day which really enhanced the journey. The Swedish countryside was green with cultivated fields and dense forests. The farms had neat houses and well kept outbuildings, and many had horses grazing in the fields. A very idyllic picture. The train was extremely comfortable and the personnel helpful in getting all our bags on and off the train. We even took brief naps!

Copenhagen is another city surrounded by water and filled with canals. On our first full day in the city we took a canal tour. It lasted about an hour and at times we had to lean over in the boat because the bridges we passed under were so low! There are some fantastic new buildings built along the water, including the Maersk shipping line's gift to the city, a $300 + million opera house. Also on our first day we went to the famous Tivoli park and had a delightful time. I even talked Jon into going on the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale ride, which is similar to the "It's a Small World" ride at Disneyland. After it was over, he said it wasn't that bad! The gardens were beautiful, with tulips blooming and swans (Denmark's national bird) swimming and nesting. That day we also visited the Danish National Museum. We were especially interested in the prehistory and Viking parts and spent most of our time in those areas. Danes are very proud of their Viking heritage and we enjoyed the tie-ins with what we had learned in Ireland.

The next day we walked to Rosenborg castle, about 8 blocks away. It is part of a lovely park and was home to some of Denmark's most important kings. Christian IV, perhaps the most remarkable, chose to die there because it was his favorite. The treasury and crown jewels were spectacular! From there we walked to the Danish Resistance Museum. It tells the story of Denmark's occupation during World War II and the resistance movement that grew as the war went on. There were many Danish heroes who relayed messages, blew up railroads or hid or transported Jews to Sweden. It was very inspiring and very well done!

On Friday we picked up a rental car (with GPS!) and drove to two nearby places of interest. The first was the Viking museum at Roskilde. I wish that we could have spent the day there! We saw scale models of ships, remnants of recovered ships, demonstrations of naval skills such knot tying and rope making that were done as they were around 1000 AD. and films describing Viking life. We know them as terrorizing robbers and destroyers but northern Europe sees them as spreaders of the culture of the day and traders as well. They also settled in some areas, mingled with the local population and founded cities.

From there we drove to Karen Blixen's home in Rungsted, north of Copenhagen. She wrote under the pseudonym Isek Dineson and two of her best known works are "Out of Africa" which is really a memoir and "Babette's Feast" which is one of our favorite movies. We had been to her home in Nairobi, which is also a museum, and we looked forward to seeing her home in Denmark. Her life story is quite sad; much of it is told through photographs, letters and video of interviews that she gave late in life. She was a remarkable woman.

We kept the rental car (a great VW Golf, Albert!) and on Saturday drove to the home of new friends of ours, Karin and Stig Friis. It took 2 1/2 hours to get there and we were able to see a lot of beautiful scenery on the way. We had met Karin and Stig in a restaurant in Florence at lunch. The tables were close together and we began talking. They are both involved in education in a broad sense and we found many things to talk about. We emailed afterward and they invited us to stay with them when we came to Denmark. We accepted their invitation on Saturday! They were terrific hosts and we hope they will visit us in Seattle so we can repay them properly. They served us a lovely lunch of traditional Danish foods, took us on an interesting drive around their area through farmland, small villages and to the beach, and made a delicious dinner that evening. We talked the whole time and until 10:30 that night! In the morning we had breakfast and then went our separate ways since they had plans with other friends and we had other places to see. We drove to Legoland, which was a LOT more fun than I thought it would be! What a creative, entertaining spot for the whole family! We wandered around through the various areas, had lunch and then headed off to the city of Odense to see Hans Christian Andersen's home and museum.

He was another Dane with a sad childhood but whose creativity refused to be contained. In case you don't remember, he wrote "The Little Mermaid", "The Tinder Box" and "Thumbelina", among others. "The Ugly Duckling" most clearly presents his philosophy of life: being born in the barnyard doesn't mean you can't grow up to be a swan. His life in a nutshell. When we got back to Copenhagen, we turned in the car and prepared to leave the next day for the island of Aero.

Aero is where we are now. It is a lovely little island just 9 miles by water from Germany. It is the sunniest and warmest place in Denmark and a very popular vacation spot. Many Germans as well as Danes come here. Bicycles are the most common means of transportation since the island is very flat and, except for the wind, easy to travel around. There are many bike routes. This morning Jon and I rented bikes from our hotel. Neither of us had ridden a bike in at least 50 years so it took some courage for me, at least, to get on and try to go. After some practice, we started out and were gone for about an hour. That was enough. Boy, those seats were hard! And my thighs are not in as good a condition as I thought they were! The wind kept blowing me sideways and sometimes we were on roads with cars. But we made it with no accidents. In the afternoon we took the bus to a town at the other end of the island and enjoyed the scenic tour. As luck would have it, a group of 10 year olds got on the bus too and a "there's one in every class" Johanes sat right in front of us. I took his picture - an experienced teacher will only need a glance to know what I mean! This is a maritime community and we visited a very good maritime museum before coming back on the bus.

Tomorrow we travel back to Copenhagen via ferry then bus then train. We are meeting Jessica's sister-in-law Nelly who is there on business - a wonderful coincidence! Then on Thursday we fly to Brussels and stay overnight before heading to Bruges the next day. From there we go to Amsterdam where we join our last organized tour, a four week river cruise. I'll write more from Amsterdam.

Here are some photos: from the top left: (sorry about the repetition of the first two) me on the bike, scenery from our bus trip on Aero island, fries at Legoland, Jon on his bike, Stockholm as seen from our water tour, the "little mermaid's little sister" from Tivoli in Copenhagen, a salvaged Viking ship from the museum at Roskilde, our friends Karin and Stig and the lego fries again (some day I'll figure out how to delete duplicate photos!)