Sayonara Sweden, Delightful Denmark

Well, I made the trip from Goteborg to Fredrikshaven on the ferry with no problems. Then found the train station, good connection to Aalborg, and found my hotel. The hotel was close to the station, reasonably nice, and no problem with reservations. I think Norway and I had some sort of problem relating to my hotel stays.

I like the town of Aalborg. a nice little downtown section with a lot of really old buildings to give it atmosphere. And for a change these are truly old ones, some dating form the 16Th century. In nearly every other place I've been, there is a qualifier on the order of "reconstructed/rebuilt after the devastating fire of XXXX". For some fortunate reason, it appears that Aalborg managed to miss all the major conflagrations.

It's also the first town of any size that doesn't have any organized bus and/or walking tours of the city. The TI has a really nice booklet written by what appears to be one of the town historians. It serves as an excellent tour guide. Lots of cobbled streets, narrow lanes, and half-timbered houses to see. A 1/2 timbered house is one with large vertical timbers (think RR tie) spaced perhaps 4 ft apart and horizontal timbers about 3 ft. apart, with the gap between timbers filled with soil/bricks/etc. Hope that describes it adequately. They are prevalent in areas with little forest land.

Denmark is notably different than Sweden and Norway. Low rolling hills with lots of farming, as opposed to much more hilly and mountainous terrain in N and S. N and S had a lot more trees and lakes, as well. Leaving Goteborg, I saw a number of small, rocky islands as we headed out. Not so approaching Denmark. The harbor just appears, with no advance indication, other than seeing land on the horizon.

Saturday I went to the local Art Museum. It's pretty much all Danish artists, and most of them 19Th century on. You know what that means. Impressionist and beyond. Can't say I found anything that impressed me tremendously. Other than the building itself. It was designed by Aalto, the same fellow who laid out the town of Rovaniemi in Finland. I liked the building here better. All white walls, light colored marble floors, and lots of diffused natural light from windows in the high walls and ceilings. Really nice lighting for an art museum, and a nice building to be inside.

Near it, on a high hill, is a 105 metre tower, with an elevator to the viewing platform. As I said, on a high, STEEP hill. When I got to the elevator, what do I find? A small sign saying there is s problem with the elevator, and it will be out of order for some time. The view wasn't too bad, but would have been much better from 105 metres higher, unobstructed by trees,

Today, I checked on transportation for several future planned activities. I'm getting pretty good at interpreting the timetables. Fortunately, The numbers are the same, and I can recognize the cities. And I can usually make out which days are Saturday and Sunday. More on the plans when they happen.

Also went to the town museum, which would have been a lot more informative if the descriptions were in English. One thing I learned, there was a really big cigar and pipe tobacco plant here. Seems they got their tobacco from Brazil, Java and Sumatra. There's something that you've always wanted to know, isn't it?

Associated with it, but in a different local, is the remains of a 13Th century church, discovered 3 metres under the ground when they were excavating for a new building. And they continued with the building. Just cleared out the remaining earth around the church's foundation, built a roof over it, then the building. So to see the ruins, you take an elevator down to it. It always amazes me that so much of our history is buried so deep. Just doesn't seem that so much dirt could pile on top of something over the centuries. Turns out that's only about 0.2 in.per year, but where does that come from. Must be a hole somewhere about 3 metres deep, don't you think? Or maybe from outer space, brought by aliens. If so, the world is growing each year by 0.2 inches.

Trivia time. Still don't seem to be able to make eye contact with folks in this part of the world. And in the places I've been recently, I sure haven't come across many Americans, or anyone who speaks English as a primary language, for that matter. Guess I'm somewhat off the beaten path. When I become famous (I've given up on rich) don't build a statue of me. I've seen far too many with pigeons or their residue perched on the heads.

Geography lesson: this part of Denmark, Jutland, is an island for the northern third . I thought there was a river dividing the city of Aalborg, but it turns out it's a fjord that runs from one coast to the other.

On to Monday. Had a really great day today. Several weeks a go, I was told about an abandoned lighthouse on the west coast of Jutland, and decided it if I could find it, I'd go there. It was supposed to be about 8 or 10 K from the nearest bus stop, so it would be an all day adventure. Turns out that's not the case. The bus stops about a 15 minute walk from it. The bus ride there took about 2 hours. Since I'd planned for an entire day, I walked out to the lighthouse, admired the lighthouse, sand dunes, wind and sea, and then went back to the bus stop, and continued north to the little seaport town of Hirtsalls.

Very nice, about 7000 people, and a working fishing port. Think Pismo Beach, if you're from CA, otherwise, think ..... About three to one ratio of fishing boats to pleasure boats in the marina. Also a ferry terminal for ferries to Norway and England. Very pleasant to walk around in. And a nice beach. I wish I'd known that, I'd have brought my bathing suit. As it was, I waded around in the North Sea for about a half hour.

Tomorrow, I head on out for Arhus. I'll be there for about 4 days, with at least one day trip tentatively planned.