Denmark, Last Days and What We Loved

The last couple of days we were in Denmark we wanted to visit places where our ancestors were from.  We did not come prepared enough with information, and I wish that we had had more time to do this sort of stuff, but you can only go to so many churches and look through so many cemeteries before the kids start to say, "We'll just stay in the car this time."  In any case, we got a picture in front of each of the village signs, and went to the churches, and looked at the graves.  There were very few graves from the 1800's or later.  They move them out, and move new ones in.  They have records on some of them, but again, we were not prepared with enough info.  We just basically looked for family names, but didn't find any.  Oh well, it was still cool to be in places where my great, great-great, great-great-great (and so forth) grandparents were born, lived, and died.

 

 

 

 

 

I loved the classic white churches. These are the kind of churches that my dad remembers seeing a lot of on his mission, although we didn't see that many in the more populated areas.  And I have never seen such immaculately kept cemeteries, with the short hedges, and a plethora of flowers - so pretty and peaceful.

On our last night in Denmark we stayed in Hvalso in a farm house.

The family who owned the place was in the house to the left, and we were in the one on the right.  They were such a great family!.  Our kids played with their kids for hours, and were even invited to their soccer practice (which was in walking distance of the house), where they were included just like the other kids.  They got to pet the horses/ponies, and even help a little with some farm chores.  It was great. 

The next day, our last day in Denmark, finally was sunny and warm.  Sunny and Warm! We drove back to Odense for our last tourist stop - The Hans Christian Anderson House and Museum.

 

 Above is the house he was born in, from the outside, and below is the street/neighborhood.

 Inside the museum - here's Joe pretending to be interested.

 

 

I was very interested to learn about his life, but my favorite part of the museum was the room that had his artwork - his drawings and the paper cut-outs he was known for.  I was impressed by what I saw, and surprised that he never illustrated his own works.  I should have gotten more pictures, but I did get a shot of this screen.

It's kind of hard to tell in this picture, but this screen is a collage (front and back) that he made - pictures that he cut out from magazines and newspapers.  In each section he said he tried to include a poetic idea or a historical representation.  It was absolutely beautiful. 

If you ever go here, I would suggest you also go to the building right next to the museum, which is totally geared towards the kiddos, where they can dress up and act out all the stories.  It was not open when we were there (it's only open on the weekends).  It costs as much as the museum, but I heard it's pretty fun.

After the museum we were actually driving towards home, and leaving Denmark behind.  It had been such a great week, and the sun was finally warming us up, and we didn't want to leave.

Okay, things I loved about Denmark, other than the specific thing/places we visited.

The one word that comes to mind when I think of Denmark is GREEN.  That place is green everywhere.  Joe and I had actually talked before about how green we thought Germany had stayed during the winter, but after coming back from Denmark it almost looked brown. 

I've been looking through all our pictures as I've been working on the blog posts, and NONE of them do the place justice.  None of them.  Look at that picture above.  You can't even tell how crazy green it was right there, which is what inspired me to take that picture.  Just go there.  You'll see.

I loved all the thatched roof houses, not just in the folk village, but on actual houses that people actually live in.

We even saw a house being newly thatched, which Dad said he'd never even see before.

 

I love that Cora had one camera, and I had another, and my dad had another, so we got LOTS of pictures.  By lots, I mean Cora took over 800, I took  over 600, and dad took over 300. It was interesting to see what different people focused on.  We were constantly capturing pictures of each other taking pictures ;)

 

 

 And I like all the selfies I discovered of Cora :)

So I had plenty of pictures to choose from when doing these blog posts.  To be honest, though, I mostly used the pictures that I took myself ;)

 

I loved how there were swans and ducks EVERYWHERE we went. 

We bought a book of Hans Christian Anderson stories while we were there, and we spent some time reading the stories, including the ugly duckling.  It's always fun to be in a setting where stories are inspired - like reading Cannery Row by John Steinbeck when we were living in the Monterey Bay area, or driving through the woods here in Germany and thinking about some of the Grimm brother stories, like Little Red Riding Hood, or Hansel and Gretel - you see what the author was seeing, and it effects the way you feel about the story. 

 

Instead of eating out at restaurants, we usually went to little grocery stores each day to buy our food.  When we were in Hvalso our last night, we looked up the closest Aldi (a grocery store) on our GPS, and followed the route it chose for us.  It turned out to be quite the little drive.  Down a dirt road, through a field, then through the woods, over a creek, lots of pheasants, etc.  It was such an unexpected and pleasant drive (it was just Joe and I and Cora), and we took some pictures.

 

Here are everybody's favorite things in Denmark:

Cora - The Little Mermaid - and she LOVED smelling the ocean again

Joseph - Frederiksborg

Madelyn - The Hans Christian Andersen house/museum

Alex - The very first house we stayed in (the Ikea house), because of the playground and the loft. (when I asked him what his favorite thing was that we saw, he said "the bedrooms".  I said, "you mean in the castles?".  He said yes, but I don't know if that's what he actually meant, or if he was just distracted by the TV he was watching at the time I asked him).

Joe - the castles, especially Frederiksborg

Ruth - The Little Mermaid and seeing the paintings of Christ by Carl Bloch

Dad - Visiting places where our ancestors came from, and seeing the Christus by Bertel Thorvaldsen in the Copenhagen Cathedral

Lynn - All the Green and the beautiful cemeteries

 

The End.

Denmark, Day 4 & 5 - Castles

After we left Copenhagen we drove up north to Helsingor to visit Kronborg Castle (built during the reign of Frederik II, 1559-1588).  Actually, it's redundant to say Kronborg Castle, because borg means castle in Danish.  Shakespeare made this castle famous when he used it as the setting for his drama "Hamlet, Prince of Denmark".

Yes, this castle closed at 4pm too, but we knew that ahead of time and made sure that we got there with plenty of time to tour it. Yay us!  We were glad to spend some tourist time IN DOORS on this very cold day.

I'm just going to leave a bunch of pictures here.  No need to explain rooms and furnishings, other than to say royalty is......well, how many dining rooms does one really need?

 

 

 

The souvenir shop was kind of fun, full of overpriced Hamlet/Shakespeare themed trinkets.  They had magnets of Shakespearean love quotes ("Did my heart love 'til now? Foreswear, it sight! For I ne'er saw true beauty 'til this night." and "I love you with so much of my heart and none is left to protest.") and insult quotes ("Scratching could not make it worse...such a face as yours" and "I would challenge you to a battle of wits, but I see you are unarmed").  They had the cutest dolls of Hamlet holding a skull - I didn't get a picture, dang it.  Joe bought a hoodie with "To Be, or Not to Be" on it.

After we'd finished with Kronborg we drove along the Northern coast to Hornbaek, where we stayed the night at a lovely little cottage.

 Part of the sleeping quarters were out in, what looked like, this shed.  But it was actually nice inside.

The next day (which was thankfully a little warmer) we headed to Frederiksborg in Hillerod.  The oldest parts of the castle date back to 1560 and it's namesake - Frederick II.  The rest of the castle was built by Christian IV between 1602-1620. This was my favorite of the two castles that we visited.  Actually, along with the Little Mermaid, this was my top pick for things we did in Denmark, and I'll tell you why in a minute. 

 

 

 

 

 

 The very first room we saw inside was to display all of Christian IV's hunting trophies.

 If you're into hunting, I think this is a pretty cool way to display the antlers.

 These plaques (below) were for all of the knights who had served under the king.  There were special ones for heads of state, and there was even one for Eisenhower.

 Family Tree

 Seriously, how did they fight in this stuff?

 I want this trunk!

 There is nowhere NOT to look - walls, ceilings, floor - it's all covered.

 They had lots of clothes from the royals set up in this ballroom.

 

 

And now we're getting closer to my favorite part.  Here is the chapel inside the castle.

 There are still services inside this chapel each week.

 Below is the first bible translated into Danish.

Okay, here it is, my all time favorite thing - in the back of the church are displayed the paintings of Carl Block.  He was specifically commissioned to produce 23 paintings depicting the life of Christ for this chapel at Frederiksborg (1865-1879).  These are all the originals.

 

 

 

 

 
 I stayed in this room longer than anyone else, and then I went back for a second look.  I could have spent hours in that one room. How lucky are the people who get to have their church services here each week?!  No matter how gorgeous a picture is in print, it can never compare to seeing the original work of art in person and up close.  It gets me, all the way to my soul.  My favorite of all was "Gethsemane".

Can you feel it?

Up next will be our last days in Denmark, and will conclude our most epic Spring Break.