OLD TOWN RIBE

On a rather gloomy day three, we were off to South Jutland, and the oldest town in Denmark.

This time round, the places we stayed in were almost as interesting as the destinations themselves. This is Den Gamle Købmandsgaard BnB, or the 'Old Merchant's House'. The owner told us that the building has been around since the 1800s, the first floor used to be the shopfront.

Breakfast of rye bread, cheese and ham and we were off for some exploring.

The Ribe Cathedral.

The reason I love stained glass.

The old site of the Riberhus castle, with nothing left except for a statue of Queen Dagmar, which said something about her popularity with the people. Ribe used to be the home for Danish kings and queens.

Weis Stue, a half-timbered inn over 400 years old. The interior and furniture are apparently still in the original state dating from 1700s. The facade is all uneven and sagging with age, but yet there it is, still standing. It touched me that in the past, with their barely there technology, things were made to last.

Standard activity on every trip.

The night watchman, a very important person in the past, who would make his rounds at night, be the first to alert the town of fires or floods and made sure tipsy men did not freeze in the streets during those bitter danish winters. He also talked about the first record of Ribe being in 854A.D, how it was here since the Vikings, the medieval ages, and how during those times, a man can be killed by anyone in town once declared an outcast and local women here were burned as witches on stakes. Dark, yet fascinating times.

Having some grain problems with my Agfa, though I try to console myself that it's adding character to the place.

As the sky turned pink, I sat and wondered if the sunset looked the same now as it did on this same river, all those hundreds of years ago.

AROUND FUNEN & ABOUT

Randoms taken over 2 days in Funen.

From top:

Cute little towns in Svenborg and Faaborg. We went for a little evening drive after Egeskov on the same day. Nothing was opened, but the streets were peaceful and quiet.

In Odense we stayed with Michael. The rooms were very comfortable and clean, but the most fun part of the stay had to be long talks over breakfast with Michael himself. We talked about the importance of laughing, Maersk Shipping, China, how Viking land used to stretch from Sweden to Hamburg, furniture design (he has two Spanish chairs!), Danish jazz, the right way to eat pork liver (straight onto rye bread!) and so much more. 

We were sorry to go.

Before leaving Odense we stopped over for lunch at Carlslund (highly recommended by Michael), all-you-can-eat Danish country omelet, topped with tomatoes, bacon and yes, the golden strips that you see is pork fat. They've apparently been making this omelet in the same way for the 150 years they've been around.  A nice old man at the next table smiled at us as he was leaving and asked where we were from. I in turn asked him if he eats here often, 'No, just once a year, when the beech leaves turn green again.' 

Something about his words stayed with me the whole way, even after we left and headed for Ribe.

EGESKOV

I started laughing halfway through this post because I suddenly remembered seeing my mom's Paris photos once and not having a clue where she had been because they were all close-ups of flowers, well mine here are nothing but trees (oh and maybe HC). Must be some hereditary streak of a dominant gene.

Other randoms. HC's stickman found a new friend, though I've never heard of a C-3PO lookalike being friends with a trooper.

The Egeskov castle was very beautiful but it was the grounds that I loved the most. Near the main castle were huge barns housing museums of vintage Harleys, fancy sportscars, firetrucks and even WWII planes, but I had to fall for the only bus in the collection, a 1950 Bristol K. After all those years of service, it drove itself to its final resting place all the way from the UK.

You can find out more about the castle here if you like.