The City Hall of Copenhagen
We went to Denmark from Italy by car crossing Switzerland and Germany (Memminghen-Würzburg-Kassel-Hannover-Amburgo-Lubecca). From the city of Lubecca we got to the harbour of Puttgarden where we get the ferry to Rødbyhaven in Eastern Denmar (the ferries are about every 30 minutes and the trip takes about 45 minutes).
Our fist stop in Denmark was Køge, small nice town on the Southern coast of Zealand, only few kilometres from Copenhagen.
In the Tivoli Park
The place is full of small colourful houses and the main square is one of the most beautiful of Denmark. We had dinner in a old wooden restaurant (the building was built in 1644) and Køge is also famous for having the oldest house in Denamark (Kirkestræde 20), which goes back to 1527. From Køge you can get to Denmark’s capital by the comfortable regional train (S-Tog) which in about 30 minutes lead you in the heart of Copenhagen.
Copenhagen is a very pleasant town to visit and live in. It has got large and neat roads, an acceptable traffic and a web of small gardens, tiny lakes and parks. The Strøget is the main street and it is also the longest pedestrian street in the world. It leads to Nyhaven (“New Harbour”), a ship canal with very picturesque houses facing on it and also a street full of restaurants, where you can easily eat outdoors.
Hillerod Castle in Roskilde
At Amelienborg Slot, the Royal palace, we could see the changing of the guard (everyday at 12:00) and of course went to see the world famous Little Mermaid Statue.
Our other destinations on the Zealand island were Roskilde, old Viking town on a fiord and Hillerød with is fairy tale castle and Helsingør. This last one was called Elsinore and is a small town on the narrow point of Øresund, the canal between Denmark and Sweden. Helsingør is also well known for its large castle, Kronborh Castle, where Shakespeare’s Hamlet takes place.
We took a car ferry from there to go to Sweden and have a short trip to Helsingborg and Malmö, then got back to Copenhagen crossing a huge bridge on the sea 16 km long and opened in the year 2000.
Kronborg Castle (Hamlet's Castel)
From Zealand we reached Fiona by car (there’s a great bridge joining the two islands) and stopped for a couple of day in Odense, famous for being Hans Christian Andersen birth’s birth town. There’s not so much to visit, but you can’t miss the historical centre (with Andersen’s house) and Saint Canute’s Cathedral. At the bottom of the church, the gold wood-carved wonderful masterpiece with about 300 characters on it.
From Fiona we go directly, via charge free and traffic free highways, to the North of Yutland, to reach the upper point of Denmark: the beautiful town of Skagen. Fish harbour, surrounded by the moor and big sand dunes along the sea, Skagen was discovered at the end of 1800 by a group of young artists who expressly came here to paint “the sun light of Skagen”.
Among them Micheal Ancher, his wife Anna, Carl Locher and Christian Krohg e Peder Severin Krøyer (“a lyric interpreter of nature”, as he called himself).
The restaurant where we had dinner in Kogen
These artists, with their very personal style, show to the world the crystalline light of Skagen, so penetrating, so changeable, with light blue shades. This depends on the geographic position of Skagen, between the North Sea and the Baltic Sea.
You can still see some painters at Grenen, a narrow strip of sand where you can bath in the two sea at the same time. From the point where the national road 40 ends, you can reach Grenen on foot, , across beautiful sand dunes where wild roses grow, or by Sandormen, a very particular motor vehicle which is halfway between a bus and a farm tractor.
An other great attraction of Skagen is the church half covered by sand. The best way to get there is by bicycle. The white building is the bell tower of a big medieval church which the wind covered with the sand, together with a whole village, at the end of the 1700. While the church was destroyed, the bell tower was left because it was used as a sign for the navigation, so you can still see it.
The masterpiece inside the cathedral of Odense
From there you can easily get to the beaches of Skagen.
Another interesting place in the village is “the house of the two hundred masterpieces”, i.e. Ancher’s House (Markvey 2-4), where the artists Micheal and Ann Ancher had been lived more than 30 years and then turned into a museum by their daughter Helga. The furniture of the house is in very good condition and on the walls you can see about 200 of their great paintings. Moving from one room to the other it seems to get in touch with the spirit of the former owners of the house.
After our stay in Skagen, it was time to get back home and had only a short stop in other three beautiful villages of Southern Denmark: Ribe (romantic place considered the oldest village in the country) and Tønder (another village with a so pleasant atmosphere).
