DANISH MEMORIES

                                 Interesting Denmark
                             

When biking in Denmark, almost without exception, all of our rest/pit stops were at churches. The restrooms were well stocked and very clean. This seemed a bit unusual to me, but the guide knew where all the facilities were located and there was no rigmarole in searching for a key or roaming the grounds to find the common room. It was really nice and much appreciated!

            We ferried among many islands and biked on the islands of Sealand, Fuen, Areo, Langland, Lolland, and Falster over paved paths, streets, gravel, through forest, through many wheat fields, along the sea, and  up and down lots of hills. 

            We rode many kinds of ferries. The largest carried big trucks as well as trains. There were four train tracks on the loading deck. The ferry berthed where the land tracks ended at the end of the pier and the trains just rolled onto the ferry. It was an interesting operation to watch. The smallest ferry was a hand pulled one and an interesting one was the postal ferry.

Kirke means church. We visited many centuries-old churches. Many had frescos hundreds of years old. We saw the oldest fresco in the country, painted in 1120, over the altar at LyngeKirke. Most of the churches were originally Catholic. Reformation came to Denmark in 1530, and now most of the churches are Lutheran. In Texas we look for water towers; in Denmark one looks for the church tower which is always on the highest part of the church grounds. Chevrons in alternating colors are common from floor to ceiling in the graceful arches in gothic churches.

We stopped at Hesnaes, a quaint, charming and uniquely Danish village, to view all the thatched roof houses. Some of the homes even had thatched sides. The thatching was very thick but needs to be replaced fairly often and really is quite a fire hazard.

            We biked through the forest along the Baltic Sea. We stopped at the General’s teahouse. A couple of kilometers inland  there was a manor house. The owner, a munitions manufacturer,  made a lot of money and built the teahouse so each day he could visit it  and have afternoon tea while gazing out over the Baltic Sea.

            The Little Mermaid statue, a gift to the city in 1913 by brewer Carl Jacobsen, is quite small and sits on a stone in shallow water a few feet off shore. She is about a quarter mile from the palace.

            It is always fun to watch the changing of the guard at a palace. I’ve been fortunate to observe the one at Amelienborg Palace in Copenhagen on each of two visits.