20 june 2024
Travel log
For our last day before going back to Zürich, we went to Copenhagen!
We decided to go by train because a/ trains b/ driving sucks c/ parking sucks
more. The Danish train company recently introduced a check-in / check-out
mechanism in their app, which worked well enough for the tickets (it felt more
clunky than the Swiss equivalent, but still alright.)
The first train was a diesel train going through the forest and crossing
multiple foot paths (and hence honking once a minute or so). We changed to a
S-tog (equivalent of our S-Bahn, we supposed), which brought us to the center
of Copenhagen.
First (almost) mandatory stop: the statue of the Little
Mermaid around
the port. As expected, somewhat underwhelming, but there was still many many
tourist buses around! We took the opportunity to put on some sunscreen (hadn't
done that yet), and someone asked us for some (we were happy to help :) )
Then we walked some more around the port, looked at the opera house from the
other side of the canal, saw a lot of boats (including a lot of sailboats, a
gigantic cruise ship and a very large yacht), and arrived around
Nyhavn, known for its colorful
facades.
From there, we took the metro to try and have a look at the Church of our
savior,
which looked pretty cool from the outside (in Copenhagen, the spire slays
you), but was unfortunately closed to the public this afternoon.
We took the metro again and went to spend some time in the King's Garden (and
have a peek at the Rosenborg
Castle. We finished our day
in Copenhagen by going for coffee (and strawberry lemonade) and eclairs in a
nearby salon.
We took the train back to Gillelege; we made some snarky remarks about the
Hillerød train station, which has tracks 0, 1, 3, 4n, 11, 12, 14 and 16, and
tracks 0 and 14 are, obviously, next to each other. I may or may not have
fallen asleep on the train :p and I'm now typing this as Pierre went for a run
before dinner.
Dinner at the hotel, packing for tomorrow and reading.
Books
Finished Neil Gaiman's Norse Mythology and really enjoyed it.
Now back to The Left Hand of Darkness! (I like it so far but I'm not sure
I'm smart enough for that book ^^;) Or more precisely to keep track of that
amount of proper names.
Added https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Pyyy-BAIYQ to "watch later", looks
interesting
Read https://www.thecut.com/article/memory-people-who-remember-vs-forget.html
about remembering: it does seem memory ability varies depending on people. As
a probable "forgetter" (in the terms of the article, and despite the warning
against rememberer/forgetter essentialism), I can't say I'm surprised.
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19 june 2024
Travel log
Today was indeed mostly a travel day: we left Blokhus at 930 and arrived in
Gillelege around 1630. It didn't help that we arrived two hours early for the
ferry and decided to check-in as we arrived... which kind of blocked us in the
ferry waiting line. Oh well.
The travel, including the ferry, was uneventful, despite somewhat more traffic
than we had seen so far.
Our hotel room has a fantastic view over the sea - and we can see Sweden from
the window. (Later this evening we also saw the MSC Virtuosa sailing away,
which was fun.)
We walked to the train station and back, walking on the beach on the way to
the station and on the path above the beach on the way back. The beach is very
different from the one in Blokhus: less surface, less sand and more pebbles,
and also no cars!
Had dinner at the hotel (salmon rillettes, veal and potatoes, chocolate
fondant), and went outside again for the east-er and hence earlier sunset -
which was actually not a total fail, we did see the sun dive in the sea, even
if it was behind clouds! It was actually very pretty (but windy.)
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18 june 2024
Travel log
Sunset yesterday was cloudy, so we technically didn't see the sun set. But the
light was nice and it was still good times.
Today we both needed a somewhat chiller day, as we're starting to get tired!
We started the day with a late-ish breakfast at the hotel, and then we went to
the next town to visit their sculpture garden. We had seen when driving past
it that they had sand sculptures, and they didn't disappoint; a lot of
impressive works on the general theme of scientific progress. The rest of the
sculpture garden was also delightful; a lot of themes, a majority of wooden
sculptures, and overall a nice place to spend some time. We may or may not
have dozed off on a bench :)
There was also a small wax museum - the "fictional" characters (a bunch of
superheroes, mostly) worked better than "real" people, even if they were
represented by their usual actors.
Finally, there was a large art installation over several small rooms and
corridors, with material from the forest and the sea. I was particularly moved
by a room representing the sea - the waves were structure with shellfish glued
on them, particularly mussels, and the overall effect was absolutely striking.
After that, we moved a grand total of 600m to go visit the museum of paper
arts, a small museum with some origami and more impressively cut paper
silhouettes - those were really impressive in their scale and level of detail.
There was also a table with some origami paper and some instructions - I left
a very badly folded crane there.
We were quite tired still so we decided to have a break back at the hotel.
After the break, we followed the suggestion of the sheet that was on the
breakfast table and drove to the Børglum monastery. A very interesting place,
with a lot of different things to see, both historical and cultural. The
highlight of the visit was probably the full reconstruction of the Tapisserie
de Bayeux - a fantastic work that is exhibited in a nice, long room. It took
these 9 women 15 years to achieve that, and what an achievement indeed (more
info here: https://www.bayeuxtapetet.dk/welcome/). There was also a nice
garden, and a windmill nearby. Really a nice place to visit.
Came back to the hotel, went for pizza and tiramisu at one of the local
Italian restaurant (was good, but not extraordinary), popped by at the beach
where the wind made us come back to the hotel pretty quickly.
Tomorrow we're back on the road to reach the last hotel of the trip.
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17 june 2024
Books
I suddenly realized what I need to read during this travel: Neil Gaiman's
Norse Mythology. So I'm leaving The Left Hand of Darkness aside for the
moment and I'll come back to it later.
Travel log
We travelled north today, and by that I mean that we went to the extreme tip
of Denmark. The coastal geography makes it so that two different sea direction
meet there, making for interesting waves and currents. It's also supposed to
be the limit between the Northern Sea and the Baltic Sea, but where seas start
and end is very fuzzy in my view.
Anyway, it was a good opportunity to walk on the beach and in the (not THAT
cold) sea water, even if that meant a significant amount of slaloming around
jellyfish.
We realized later than a lot of the people we saw there may have come from the
MSC Virtuoso, a gigantic cruise ship that was docked in the nearby harbour.
People were shuttled back and forth from the parking lot to the beach tip by a
bus pulled by a tractor, pretty funny.
All in all, a very pleasant experience (weather helped! It was perfect.),
better than we expected, actually (we didn't have much expectations :p) And I
found postcards (but no stamps yet.)
We went a few kilometers down the coast, where there was an old lighthouse
(oldest of Denmark!) and, for some reason, a large trebuchet. We tried going
up the lighthouse but I gave up on the very narrow and steep stairs, I was
afraid my knees would make going down awkward to impossible. A pity: there was
a photo exhibition and the two pictures downstairs were very pretty - I would
have liked to see the rest and the view!
We then drove to Pikkerbakken, a viewpoint over Frederikshavn (which we may or
may not have called Friedrichshafen the whole day.) Also very nice, we had a
bit of quieter time and a snack while looking at the town and its harbour.
To end the day, we decided to drive in the direction of Lindholm Høje, the
historical site of an old Viking cemetery and settlement. The road there was
scary, we got a bout of very heavy rain and I was really not serene. It
receded quickly and it was mostly done when we arrived on site. Beautiful
place, a lot of stones - and goats and kids roaming around! (And, evidently,
the weather we had encountered had yielded hail there.) There was a museum
too, but we arrived too late to consider visiting it.
Finally, we went back to the hotel. Had dinner (cod fillet and vegetables with
a caper sauce, apple and almond macaron as a dessert) at the restaurant in
front of the hotel, went to see the beach one more time, and came back to the
hotel again. Sunset is in an hour and the weather still seems stable - we'll
try to go see if we can get a sea sunset this evening!
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16 june 2024
Travel log
We left Billund for Blokhus in the northern part of Denmark. Our plan was to
stop on the way to visit Aarhus - a plan that got almost foiled by the fact
that we couldn't seem to reach the city center. Mystery solved: today was
Aarhus semi-marathon :facepalm:
After some difficulty, we finally found a parking spot - the silver lining is
that it made us go through the cemetery, which was a lovely place: not too
dense, very well maintained, a lot of greenery.
We then went for a small walk along the docks and in the city center - which
was nice, but nothing struck me as particularly notable. Well, the cathedral
was impressive (and apparently it's the longest and highest one of the
country), but we didn't even get to visit is as it was closed.
Back on the road, and we arrived in Blokhus in the middle of the afternoon. We
checked in at the hotel, and went for a pastry as a snack and for a long walk
on the beach (there's a reason why they're popular). Well, not that long,
because my body is kind of complaining a lot that I make it walk too much
these days! (Ow.)
I was Not Impressed by the amount of cars and campers on the beach, it was
clearly designed that way but I disagree with this decision, there :) Apart
from that we watched the waves. It was nice.
Coming back to the hotel, we sat for a while on a bench in the city square -
and came back as the weather seemed to take a turn for the worse (which it
didn't.)
Had dinner at the hotel's restaurant - we shared a starter of smoked tuna,
then grilled turbot with asparagus, potatoes, shrimp and broccolini, and
finally a rhubarb trifle. Also had a glass of Coteaux du Layon with dessert -
I don't remember last time I had that wine (a long time ago for sure) but it
was nice. Also had a very large fit of laughter (tears in my eyes and abs
hurting!) at a joke Pierre made on the spot, which was a definite highlight.
We considered going on the beach for the sunset, but there's a thunderstorm!!
So we're going to stay inside instead.
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