Glimme Travel Postcards

We headed over to the River Bar restaurant(pano), part of the hotel but in a separate building built on top of the river, for breakfast they had a small continental breakfast but also a hot breakfast menu. Breakfast was really nice the restaurant was pleasant, good hot food and the girls enjoyed  some cold cereal. Then we hopped in the car and headed out to Avebury. A stone circle that predates it’s better know neighbor, Stone Henge.

The weather was quite drizzly so we were on the lookout for any clothing shops where we might pick up a new jacket for Emma, her old one was a bit small and she didn’t really care for it, while Lizzie found it acceptable. So it was that we stopped in Marlborough, we spent some time stopping it to a couple of shops and found a great new Jacket for Emma and a couple of books in a book store.

Then we were back in the car for the rest of the drive to Avebury. I need to set the seen here a little. The roads we were driving on had been getting progressivly smaller particularly as we drove through some of the villages. It was a bit challenging to manage the oncoming traffic while balancing keeping Karen, who was navigating with the map we bought in Marlborough, off the side of the road.

I was particularly vexed by the signs around a couple of blind corners stating “On coming traffic in middle of road”. What exactly am I supposed to do with that information? Should I stop and wait, what-a-heck! I decided to drive like and Englishman and just barreled through. Fortunately there wasn’t any on coming traffic, but I think I completely lost it when we saw this sign:

Tanks! I’ve got to watch out for tanks! I think both Karen and I broke down in a fit of giggles.

Regardless we reached Avebury and parked in the car park just outside of the village, the walk in was very pleasant and we were all taken by the circle of stones and mounded earth that was around 5000 years old. (Pano)

some people more than others

We finished up our walk around the stones in the light drizzle

and sent the girls in to a little market for some Aero bars, and man they found the biggest ones ever!

Alright, I’ve got to run to breakfast I’ll break this off here and finish later. -AAron

Today we woke up and started to re-pack all the bags we had a flight to catch in the afternoon. Of course I made the trip in to the bakery to pick up some rolls and pastries, but most of the morning was spent on getting things shipshape for checking in our bags etc. Things took a little longer than expected so we had to hurry off to the airport instead of a last round of goodbyes. We made it to the airport and after a very fast rearrangement of bags, my bag was over weight so I had to shift the Valhalla comics to Lizzie’s bag, we were checked in and headed to our flight.

We walked right on to the plane and we were off to London. After an uneventful flight we found our way to the bus to our rental car place, as we boarded the bus a man speaking Danish dashed up and handed Mr. Hugs to Lizzie, apparently he had bounced off as we boarded the bus and the guy had noticed. We were all relieved that Mr. Hugs made it on board. At the rental car agency there was much excitement that we could choose our own car. We looked around and finally settled on a nice silver car with lots of cargo room.

With chants of “keep to the left, kept to the left, keep it to the, keep it to the, keep it to the LEFT!” ringing from the back seat we headed off. Our destination was the Newbury Manor Hotel, about an hour to the west. A converted manor home right on a tributary of the river Thames. We are deep in the “The West” centrally located to a number of places that we’d like to see, the internet however is a bit dodgy. So posts might come at irregular intervals. Our room is quite nice and after clearing up a misunderstanding with the word cot, apparently in England a cot is a baby crib, we now have beads for everyone.

We had a quick dinner at the pub across the street and then back to the hotel for some rest. Of course by now you can expect that when we returned we found a pretty large spider hanging from a drag line in the middle of the room, I shaped a picture and moved him outside. Then we could rest.

This morning we were up and going to catch the ferry back to the mainland and drive back to Maribo. The group decided that it would be nice to break up the drive with another ferry ride, just as we would have done before the bridge was put up. Over all the drive took about 6.5 hours.

Most of the drive was uneventful, we watched videos on the ferry,

or knitted or read Valhalla comics,

But waiting for the ferry back to Maribo we did see another very interesting spider:

The ferry was a nice way to break up the drive and the weather was wonderful.

We arrived back in Marbio in time to just catch dinner with Ida, Lars, Silla and Silke. Silla was just getting ready to head off on a week long school trip so it was nice that we could say goodbye to her. Karen and I had a nice evening catching up with Ida and Lars, but all too soon we had to get some sleep.

The breakfast was a traditional Danish spread with fresh baked bread, cheese, and spiced sausage, the coolest part was that breakfast is severed in a giant green house planted with citrus trees. We all had a wonderful relaxed breakfast:

Here is the pano

The grandparents left as we got the girls ready to go but we weren’t far behind them. The first stop of the day was the Læsø salt works, the island of Læsø was a major source of salt production from about 1150 -1650, there is now a historic recreation of the saltworks where they produce salt. There was a little band playing for a vacation group when we arrive and a bit of dancing broke out:

Dancing

They also have a tower where you can get a good view of the surrounding country side, but the main attraction is the salt works. There have displayed of several different types of salt works

and they even have a place where you can make your own salt, that was a tremendous amount of fun!

The process took about 30 minutes to slowly boil the water and harvest crystals, while we worked the grandparents decided to head off to the yarn shop. After we gathered all the salt we could we walked around a bit more and then decided to head off to the yarn shop ourselves. As we were pulling up we found everyone else just sitting down to a little ice cream at a stand across the street from the yarn shop, so we joined right in ordering the special ice cream made on the island.

I also had a little time for some tech support.

The yarn shop was a converted farm house half of which still had the traditional seaweed thatching. (Pano)

There was a lot of wool products many of them produced by sheep on the island, after taking it all in we decided to head off to the beach for a little picnic. A good bit of the island was over run with sand dunes when the climate changed and the salt works failed and the population tried some unsustainable farming practices in the 1700s, by the mid 1800s the dunes had been stabilized with reforestation efforts and the beaches are now prime amber hunting grounds, we had some snacks and looked for amber. After about 30 minutes we were again joined by the grandparents.

We had a nice buffet dinner and came back to coffee and a nice chat, we’re heading back to Maribo in the morning.

After a quick breakfast in Dronninglund we all hopped in our cars and headed to the ferry station in Fredrikshavn. Karen’s parents traveling with her aunt, Telse, and Telse’s partner Haakon pulled into line to wait for the ferry first and we followed after. I’m not going to lie to you people, it rained on our drive. I know your probably as shocked to hear this as I was but it does apparently rain in Denmark durning the summer. Fortunately the rain let up as we were waiting and I was able to grab a couple of photos of the ferry coming in to port:

The ferry ride took about an hour and a half, we did what we always do on ferries in Scandinavia and had hotdogs and snacks! Emma spent most of the time on the upper deck in the quite room reading she had some company.

After we rowdies down stairs had looked over all the exciting things we were going to do we headed up to get out first glimpse of the harbor.

We drove off the ferry and straight to the B&B in a steady rain, fortunately for my reputation as a sun bringer the rain let up as we pulled into park at Østergård. This amazing B&B is a converted farm house, in typical Danish fashion it’s a four sided building surrounding a central courtyard:

(See what I did there? I got a new app for my phone, you can expect a bunch of these 360° panos till I get tired of them )
We took a short break while Knut, Haakon and Karen went to get lunch supplies. I guess in some ways sisters are very similar:

After lunch the Glimmes decided to walk to the near by glass blowers workshop, it was a wonderful trip with the huge Danish sky filled with puff ball clouds, none of which decided to rain on us!

Along the way we found a path that looked like a short cut and decided to take it,

and it lead us right to the glass blowers shop,

while he wasn’t blowing glass that day he did have quite an assortment of items. Shortly after we arrived the clouds opened up and it rained for about 30 minutes. About 10 min after we got there Knut, Nina, Haakon, and Telse all arrived in the car, they sprinted through a downpour into the shop, but by the time we were ready to head off the rain had stopped, proving once again that it doesn’t rain in Denmark while I’m outside.

Nina and Knut walked back with us and we had a great time. After a quick break,

we headed to the village on the east of the island for dinner.

Today was mostly a travel day. We spent the morning having a fantastic breakfast with Karen’s cousin Signe in Copenhagen. All the good Danish standards were there and lots of coffee. Signe has been to visit us in Berkeley a number of times most recently a few moths ago while working on a grant for her documentary film company. As always she was great and we had a good time chatting about the world. After breakfast we hopped over the walking streets, we needed to stop in at the comic book shop Fantask

to complete our collection of Valhalla comics,

we also walked around and picked up some fruit and vegetables for our drive to the other side of the county.

One of the interesting things that we saw was the Storebælt. The 18km long bridge, including a 2.7km long suspension bridge,

built in 1998 it connect the islands of Zealand and Fuen. Of course Emma and Lizzie slept most of the way there:

We stopped at a bakery outside of Odense for rolls and other baked goods, our rental car has seat trays in the back and Lizzie was excited to try them out, so we decided to abandon the picknick and eat in the car. Strawberries, cherries, rolls with butter all went down as we sped along the danish country side.

After about five hours in the car we arrived at Dronninglund Slot, a manor house converted into a hotel.

The highlight of our stay was definitely the walk we took on the grounds of the hotel. A wonderful mix of lawn and beech tree forest. The Beech tree forests are a particular favorite of Karen, the girls found a frog, and we walked around some shade dappled paths to a potato field, then to a nice if somewhat slow dinner back at the hotel.

We hit the day running, we left the hostel right after we woke up and drove in to Roskilde. Our first stop was a bakery where we picked up lots of snacks for breakfast. We took our “mornmel”, read breakfast, and walked through the park up the hill from the harbor towards the cathedral:

we stopped half way to eat and enjoy the view

Once we got up to the cathedral, we walked a little past it to the town center where and open air market was in progress. The girls had brought their allowance money and we all found little things we wanted to get so the girls got some practice in asking how much things cost and saying thanks in Danish. The big hit were little wooden birds:

After our shopping trip we headed in to the cathedral, most of the Kings and Queens of Denmark are interred  here but the most striking monument was the plans that the current monarch, Queen Margrethe II, has for her monument an amazing modern Danish design:

When we came out the cathedral it decided to rain, so we picked up a couple of umbrellas to see us back down to the harbor where the viking ship museum is. The path was lined on both sides with wonderful trees that really kept the rain off us:

Let’s start off by saying the viking ship museum(VSM) is completely awesome! There have been a lot of changes in the 20 years( OMG! I just realized that is now exactly 20 years since Karen and I took our first trip to Denmark together!) since I was first at the VSM. The biggest difference is the vastly expanded harbor, with many replica ships including the largest and most recent Skuldelev 2 which recently completed a voyage from Roskilde to Dublin and back. The dock area has many activities for kids and now offers rides on viking ships. When we arrived to purchase tickets, there were only two sailing tickets left one adult and one child. A quick conference and it was decided that Lizzie and I both wanted to sail while Karen and Emma would bother rather take a break and read their books and so it was the Lizzie and I found our selves at the oars!

After the rowing we headed in to the museum and  watched a video on the voyage of “The Sea Stallion from Glendalough”

and then toured the exhibits, the big hit was the dress up area where some partial ships were set up for kids to play on:

After spending some time in the gift shop we headed in to Copenhagen to tour all of Karen’s old stomping grounds driving to the places where she grew up and then back to central Copenhagen to have dinner with Marianne, her family and Michael. We went to a restraint owned by one of Michael’s friends and he was greeted warmly by everyone in the place. We had a great Italian dinner and some more great conversation. It was wonderful to see good friends again. On our way back to the the hostel we stopped by Tivoli to get some ice cream and see where Nina and Knut meet and where I proposed to Karen, a day full of fun and memories.

Up in the morning and back to the bakery, this time as a family trip.

After that we packed up and headed up to Copenhagen to meet Karen’s cousin Signe for lunch. We had a nice walk around the harbor and canals of Copenhagen:

We did the obligatory stop by the little mermaid who is back from her visit to China and we had a great lunch at a café nearby. The café had some amazing home made potato chips and a mermaid of it’s own nearby, not quit as ummm little.

After lunch we headed over to David and Marianne’s flat for dinner, along with their kids Annie and Oliver we were joined by Marianne’s mother and brother as well as Sofie’s parents and younger brother. We stayed till 9:30 pm chatting and having a great time. We drove to a hostel outside of Copenhagen and crashed.

Emma and I were up early, if you consider 8:00 early, so we went for a walk in to the town center where I stopped by the bank and we went to a bakery.

I tried to let most of the people go first because I need to get my bearings when the store emptied out I ordered some croissants and what in danish is called “Vienna brough” in english we’d call them Danishes. I was just getting ready to try and figure out how to ask for some rolls when a bunch of people came in and I got a bit flustered. Anyway we ended up leaving with out the rolls, all and all a nice morning. We ambled back to Ida and Lars’s place and got Karen and Lizzie out of bed.

We went for a wonderful walk down to the lake in Maribo, getting the travel cobwebs blown out by a stiff brezez:

and around to the town center. We stopped for lunch at the Pølser(read hotdog) stand for hotdogs and ice cream.

This one's for you Thomas!

After a brief stop back at the house we went to

A great organic creamery and farm, Knuthenborglund, run by some friends of Ida and Lars’s. The cheese was fantastic and we spent almost 20 minutes talking to the guy behind the counter who is planning a trip to California!, by the time we finished chatting with him there was a long line of people and waiting and we were ready for a quick snack on the lawn outside.

The weather was wonderful a very nice breeze and cotton ball clouds.

After Knuthenborglund, we freshened up and headed over to Telse and Håkon’s house for a big dinner, pork loin, new potatoes, pickled beets, all the best of Danish country food. We spent a wonderful evening chatting and when night fell a beautiful full moon.

I thought I’d flesh out our arrival a little more and maybe some other people will jump in with their thoughts. -AAron

The spider we found in our hotel room.

Karen Knitting in the Hotel Room

Our Rental Car for Denmark

Ida and Lars's House

The Stairs Up to Our Room

So when last we checked in on our adventurous crew we had made it to SFO, we boarded our flight to London and everything went well, we spent the nine and a half  hours reading, watching and sleeping:

We arrived in London in plenty of time for our connection to Copenhagen. The next leg of the our journey was an hour and a half flight from London Heathrow to Copenhagen, the SAS flight was right on time and we boarded and started to taxi to the run way, where we ended up sitting for about 2 hours while the flight and ground crews tried to deal with a problem with the hydraulic transfer pump. Eventually we ended up moving to an out of the way chunk of tarmac and we eventually de-planed and ended up moving to an out of the way chunk of tarmac and we eventually de-planed and ended up back at the terminal:

Hydraulic issues,

The SAS staff were really well organized we were reunited with our baggage and directed to a hotel

where SAS would be arranging rooms for all of us. The hotel turned out to be in Terminal 5 which was a 5 min free train ride away and it was a really nice place.

Loby of the Sofitel Hotel

SAS provided dinner that night, and then breakfast and lunch the next day. We ended up getting right back on the repaired plane the next day and this time everything went well. We landed in Copenhagen at 4:30pm on Sunday, our rental car was waiting for us and we drove the hour to Karen’s cousins, who had a wonderful dinner waiting. We’re all bedding down for the night getting ready for the real start to our vacation. Total elapsed time since we left Berkeley:

Here are some quick photos of us making our way to the airport. The girls and I grabbed a ride to North Berkeley BART

and then meet Karen on the way to SFO. We checked our bags(Sorry Richard), and had a snack at a cafe. While we were eating our plan pulled in.

We heeded down to the gate and everyone pulled out their travel activities, iPads, Laptops or:

We board in a few minutes so thats all till we land in Heathrow. -AAron

Packing is moving along, and it’s nearly time to check in for our flights.