Copenhagen

I had an awesome week in Copenhagen with Ellen, Torunn, and Lisa before returning to the States last Saturday. I'm still jet-lagged and a little tired from five weeks of traveling, but it was a great trip.

Here are some scenes around Copenhagen:

La Glace pastry shop

on the bike bridge on the harbor-front, part of our modern architecture bike tour. 

Left: National Theater, right: new Opera House

quite possibly the nicest university dorms ever.

two disused silos repurposed as apartments.

smørrebrød at Aamanns Cafe 

Traveling Buddies: Ellen, Lisa, Torunn

Æro II

The beginning of the bike path to Marstal

Still unseasonably warm here in Denmark but at least while biking there is a bit of a breeze. Yesterday, Lisa and biked into the booming Metropolis of Marstal which is about 6 miles from where were were staying in Æroscøbing. Not much to do there either, but the ride was gorgeous. There were more beach huts to see, we poked into a few shops, got some ice cream, and rode back to rest before having a lovely dinner back in Æroscøbing.

The Flügger farver is to the right.

Dinner at Restaurant Mumm

It was a wonderful last day on Æro before leaving for Copenhagen.

Æro

Yesterday we all got on the train in Aarhus and Ellen and Torunn headed to Copenhagen while Lisa and I split off mid-way, changed trains, got on a ferry, and came to the island of Æro. We cruised for 90 minutes to the island and while it was a bit of a hot slog to the place we were staying (only because of the heat and the cobblestones, which weren't made for wheeled luggage; and have I mentioned that all of Europe seems to be experiencing the hottest summer on record?), this island is an idyllic piece of Danish countryside. There aren't very many people (population 6,383 in 2014, according to Wikipedia), there aren't too many tourists (which is crazy), and Lisa and I seem to be the ONLY Americans here. After checking in and ditching our bags, we walked into town for ice cream and picnic goods, walked to the beach to admire the beach huts, and came back for a picnic in the garden before calling it a night.

The view from our picnic table in the guesthouse garden. 

Today, Lisa and I rented bikes in the town and rode off to Voderup Klint, which is a cliff (as it were; Denmark is pretty flat and the cliff is just over 100 feet from the top to the beach) on the other side of the island. That's right, we rode all the way across the island, which was a whopping 4.3 miles. It was a lovely ride though, a couple of gentle hills, hardly any cars, and a fair bit of coasting.

After returning to the guesthouse, sweaty and tired (have I mentioned how completely scorching Denmark is this summer? I have? Well, it is) we relaxed for a bit then biked back into town for a dinner of smoked salmon and potato salad.

Mols Bjerge National Park

This morning we got up and hopped on a bus to the Mols Bjerge National Park for a nice walk to the
Kalø Slotsruin, which is what's left a castle built by a Danish king in 1313. It looked like a good place from which to survey one's kingdom.

From there we got back on the bus and continued to cute town called Ebeltoft, where after walking around for a bit, I left the group to head back to Aarhus, while Ellen, Torunn, and Lisa rented bikes and went for a ride.

Aarhus

Joe left Putney early Monday morning to go home to Seattle, and I left around noon to head to an Airbnb room near Standsted Airport so I didn't have to rush to catch an early flight to Aarhus yesterday morning. Catherine, my gracious host, picked me up from the train station and I didn't really have much to do that afternoon so I just worked for several hours, went to bed, and got up in time for Catherine to take me to the airport on her way to work. It was only an hour and half flight from north of London to Aarhus, Denmark, where I met up with Ellen, Torrun, and Ellen's good friend Lisa, whom I've gotten to know over the last few years during my many trips to Sacramento. Lisa was joining Ellen and Torrun on their summer trip to Denmark, and I was joining all of them in Aarhus. They were staying in a hostel up the road from where I was staying, so I walked up to meet them, had a glass of wine on the lovely patio, and caught up on their travels in Denmark prior to meeting up with me.

Aarhus is the second largest city in Denmark and one of it's main attractions is ARoS, an art museum that focuses on modern art, but which also has a permanent collection of Danish art that spans 300 years. The museum's most prominent component is Olafur Eliasson's Your Rainbow Panorama, which was installed on the roof in 2011. We worked our way up to the rainbow by visiting the exhibitions off the Guggenheim-esque spiral, and then made a leisurely walk around the very lovely ring of rainbow.

After ARoS, we took the bus to the outskirts of town to the Moesgaard Museum, which focuses on the pre-history of humans. Every exhibit is about something a few thousand years old, yet it's displayed with an astonishing amount of technology. Whoever is in charge of exhibit installation over there is doing an amazing job.

The lawn surrounding and on the roof is usually green, but Denmark, like England, is experiencing a heat wave.

The Races at Ascot

I asked Joe a couple months ago if he wanted to meet me in London because I was going to try and go to Wimbledon. Knowing Joe (as I have for 20 years), I figured he'd be up for any kind of sporting event regardless of location, and when he agreed, we developed an itinerary for our week. Joe also developed a plan for himself before meeting up with me which included going to two rugby matches near Leeds. Since he arrived, we've been watching World Cup soccer in the pub, we had a great day at the tennis center, a nice evening at the cricket match, and our last sporting event was Ascot. I had such a fun time with Jen at the races in Lexington two years ago, I knew I'd enjoy the races at Ascot, and not just because they are featured in "My Fair Lady."  We got tickets for one of the fancy enclosures away from the riff-raff (and proceeded to agonize for a month about the dress code), got on the train, and arrived at an incredibly nice racecourse about an hour from London. I'm no big gambler, but there's no point in going to the races if you don't put skin in the game, so we bet on every race, which for me amounted to a grand total of £12.00; I was betting to win and only one of my horses came in first which won me £4.20, so I still have enough money to get home.