20th Oct - Traipsing North & East in Demark
Well we've had an amazing few days travelling around Denmark and seeing the countryside, although as many Danes will admit, the countryside is fairly bland in most parts. Mark and I drove 400 kms west and north to Alborg in far northern Denmark to meet up with a friend of Rebecca's (Scotland) called Lone. They met nearly 7 yrs ago and became great Yoga buddies, amongst other things, and Lone had been a great help already before we met her with suggested places to visit and great websites for researching Copenhagen's travel, design, art and fashion high points.
Tam, Lone & Mark
After reaching the city of Alborg (approx 250,000 people) we finally met Lone and she had managed to score her landlord's carspace for us for the 2 days which was wonderful. She grew up in Alborg although she spent several periods during her University studies in Dundee. She knows a heck of a lot about the history of Alborg and was a fantastic guide for us, walking around town and telling us the old stories. Lone's place was literally on top of the most central street in town (Bourke St Melbourne equivalent), three floors up with views of a 500 yr old convent next door and gorgeous 300 yr old Church spire.
Lone's apartment
The church outside her front door
Her apartment is amazing (and apparently extremely large by Alborg standards), it's nearly bigger than our house and she even arranged to stay at her parents new condo (about 10 mins walk away) so we could stay in her place for the 2 nights. I've never heard of that sort of hospitality before (but it was very much appreciated). After checking out her favourite cafe for a drink, we headed back to the apartment and Lone made us a beautiful and very authentic Thai soup which required both a fork and a spoon to eat it! We've got the recipe and it will definitely be something we do back home, and possibly a bastardised version on the trip (depending on availability of some ingredients). We polished off 2 bottles of Chilean wine, Sauvignon Blanc definitely the pick and then set up plans for the following day.
On Tues we drove north to the very tip of northern Denmark to a place for Skagen (pronounced Skane) which is normally very gusty by mid October but spectacular as that is where 2 oceans meet and you can see the clash of their various waves. Well, Mark and I have been living charmed lives as the weather was divine, sunny, pristine postcard blue skies and almost no wind. There was a small but still effective wave clash and plenty of people taking advantage of October week-long school holidays to see this popular fishing and holiday resort town. It seems that all the multi-millionaire Danes and Swedes have holiday houses there - bit like Portsea or Lorne. You know you've made it big if you've got a substantial home there. Prince Frederick and Princess Mary holiday there every year for 2 weeks as well as the rest of the actors and important people about town. Skagen is also known for its coloured houses (Skagen yellow) and the partly buried church.
Skagen yellow house & partly buried church
The meeting of the oceans at the very top of Denmark
We had booked one of the best fish restaurants to say thank you to Lone for her hospitality and enjoyed the meal at Pakhuset very much. After having a home-made ice cream and walking around the shops, Mark bought his compulsory art piece and we were all happy to drive back to Alborg.
We ended up crashing in front of a movie on DVD - Girl with a Pearl Earring with Tom Wilkinson and Scarlett Johansson and said goodbye to Lone.
Wed, we drove to Arhus through quite thick fog, which eventually blew off by midday into a glorious but cool day. We visited the much-renowned Arhus ARoS Museum which had a special feature including 'The Boy' and a feature of the Hans Christian Anderson 200th birthday celebrations. The museum had invited 64 artists to prepare any sort of work on what HC Anderson's stories and life work meant to them. These have been donated to the museum and Denmark. Separately, in 1986 (only 4 months before his death), Andy Warhol, had developed a serigraph on HC Anderson and some of his own print artwork from the late 1800's and this work is pride of place in the exhibition. The ARoS building is quite spectacular too, having been designed very recently by a Danish architect and being invited by the Guggenheim Bilbao museum (in Spain) to form a partnership, of sorts.
ARoS art and staircase
Finally, after wondering through Arhus town, we drove onto Egtved (a tiny speck in the middle of Denmark) to view some rather unusual landscape sculpture. It's a stark and rather unforgiving environment and the wind had picked up considerably by late afternoon. It seemed to add to the drama of the sculptures.
Huge scultures at Egtved
We eventually made our way back to Copenhagen, pretty late and absolutely exhausted.
Tam, Lone & Mark
After reaching the city of Alborg (approx 250,000 people) we finally met Lone and she had managed to score her landlord's carspace for us for the 2 days which was wonderful. She grew up in Alborg although she spent several periods during her University studies in Dundee. She knows a heck of a lot about the history of Alborg and was a fantastic guide for us, walking around town and telling us the old stories. Lone's place was literally on top of the most central street in town (Bourke St Melbourne equivalent), three floors up with views of a 500 yr old convent next door and gorgeous 300 yr old Church spire.
Lone's apartment
The church outside her front door
Her apartment is amazing (and apparently extremely large by Alborg standards), it's nearly bigger than our house and she even arranged to stay at her parents new condo (about 10 mins walk away) so we could stay in her place for the 2 nights. I've never heard of that sort of hospitality before (but it was very much appreciated). After checking out her favourite cafe for a drink, we headed back to the apartment and Lone made us a beautiful and very authentic Thai soup which required both a fork and a spoon to eat it! We've got the recipe and it will definitely be something we do back home, and possibly a bastardised version on the trip (depending on availability of some ingredients). We polished off 2 bottles of Chilean wine, Sauvignon Blanc definitely the pick and then set up plans for the following day.
On Tues we drove north to the very tip of northern Denmark to a place for Skagen (pronounced Skane) which is normally very gusty by mid October but spectacular as that is where 2 oceans meet and you can see the clash of their various waves. Well, Mark and I have been living charmed lives as the weather was divine, sunny, pristine postcard blue skies and almost no wind. There was a small but still effective wave clash and plenty of people taking advantage of October week-long school holidays to see this popular fishing and holiday resort town. It seems that all the multi-millionaire Danes and Swedes have holiday houses there - bit like Portsea or Lorne. You know you've made it big if you've got a substantial home there. Prince Frederick and Princess Mary holiday there every year for 2 weeks as well as the rest of the actors and important people about town. Skagen is also known for its coloured houses (Skagen yellow) and the partly buried church.
Skagen yellow house & partly buried church
The meeting of the oceans at the very top of Denmark
We had booked one of the best fish restaurants to say thank you to Lone for her hospitality and enjoyed the meal at Pakhuset very much. After having a home-made ice cream and walking around the shops, Mark bought his compulsory art piece and we were all happy to drive back to Alborg.
We ended up crashing in front of a movie on DVD - Girl with a Pearl Earring with Tom Wilkinson and Scarlett Johansson and said goodbye to Lone.
Wed, we drove to Arhus through quite thick fog, which eventually blew off by midday into a glorious but cool day. We visited the much-renowned Arhus ARoS Museum which had a special feature including 'The Boy' and a feature of the Hans Christian Anderson 200th birthday celebrations. The museum had invited 64 artists to prepare any sort of work on what HC Anderson's stories and life work meant to them. These have been donated to the museum and Denmark. Separately, in 1986 (only 4 months before his death), Andy Warhol, had developed a serigraph on HC Anderson and some of his own print artwork from the late 1800's and this work is pride of place in the exhibition. The ARoS building is quite spectacular too, having been designed very recently by a Danish architect and being invited by the Guggenheim Bilbao museum (in Spain) to form a partnership, of sorts.
ARoS art and staircase
Finally, after wondering through Arhus town, we drove onto Egtved (a tiny speck in the middle of Denmark) to view some rather unusual landscape sculpture. It's a stark and rather unforgiving environment and the wind had picked up considerably by late afternoon. It seemed to add to the drama of the sculptures.
Huge scultures at Egtved
We eventually made our way back to Copenhagen, pretty late and absolutely exhausted.
posted by Most Liveable at 6:21 AM
2 Comments:
So glad you had fun with Lone, her apartment looks fantastic!! And Aalborg (note the spelling) sounds pretty cool too, just need to get the 3 of us over there soon...
The boy that you are standing in front of - looks like from the same artist we saw in Canberra a couple of years ago - Pregnant woman (don't remember the real name of the piece).
D, K, & Ethan
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