~ wander.essence ~

August 3: It was a long day wrapping up our last minute details and final packing for our 89-day trip to Scandinavia. I changed my traveling outfit several times and removed a sweater, a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt from my suitcase because it was just too heavy. It was tough to prepare for all kinds of weather and activities from August to October in the northern climes. We needed to have clothes for summer heat, rain, cold and a variety of activities such as hiking, bicycling, swimming, and city walking. I didn’t even bring hiking boots because they were too much to carry.

Our day in Virginia was hot and humid so I didn’t bother going for a walk. Mike made us salmon with pasta nests and broccolini for lunch so we could use up the rest of our food at home.

Allie had just woken from a nap when we were leaving at just before 5 p.m., so she refused to let us hug or kiss her. She’s such a grump after she wakes up. I think she’s going to miss us for the next 3 months. She’s going to have an extra hard adjustment since Jandira just got offered a new job and Allie will have to go to day care full time. Jandira is thrilled because the job is not in sales and she’ll work Monday through Friday, so she’ll have weekends off. She’s never had a job with weekends off, and she and Alex really need that kind of schedule for their family life.

Alex drove us to Dulles International Airport and we got checked in easily. We had a 7 hour 50 minute overnight flight ahead on SAS Airlines which would be sure to wreak havoc on our bodies.

On the plane I watched 1 1/2 hours of the 2 1/2 hour Project Hail Mary. I found it rather slow and boring and never finished the last hour after a vegetarian pasta dinner interrupted my watching. After dinner and a glass of wine, I took a half a Valium and ended up sleeping uncomfortably next to a solid Latvian guy for about 3-4 hours until the flight attendants woke us for breakfast, a heavy egg and cheese breakfast biscuit.

We started to land but the pilot aborted the landing and circled around again because air traffic controllers told him he was too close to the plane in front of us. Soon, he landed the plane in one of the smoothest landings I’ve ever experienced. The flight crew on our SAS plane were all extremely polite and orderly.

August 4-11, 2026: Copenhagen

August 4: We had to stand in line in Copenhagen for an hour to have passport control take our fingerprints and photos for the new EES system. The most boring man, originally from Baltimore but now living in Lithuania, stood in front of us in line telling us every airport and transportation dilemma he’s ever encountered.

It took us a while to find our luggage since it had taken us so long in passport control that they had removed our flight number from all the boards. Finally someone helped us find our bags and we made our way to the train, which we took to Copenhagen Central; there, we switched to a train to Sydhavn Station. From there it was a three minute walk.

Our apartment is on the 1th floor of #51 on Johan Kellers Vej in Sydhavn. It is minimalist Scandinavian style but the owner’s belongings are super organized in every available space.

Lunch at Wild Horses Cafe

We dropped our bags and walked to Wild Horses Cafe, a cute cafe where we shared “horses granola and yogurt with lemon curd and fresh strawberries” and a grilled sandwich with smoked cheese, chili jam, pickled red onion, pickle and mayo. It was a delicious but expensive ($35) lunch. We were serenaded by Connan Mockasin singing “Charlotte’s Thong.”

It was rather gloomy and sprinkling a bit but we walked back to the apartment, stopping at the convenient Netto market for some groceries.

Like we did when we went to Venice in 2023, we napped for 1-2 hours after lunch, despite the advice never to nap due to jet lag. It seems to work well for us to do that after having lunch. In the evening, we were still full from the heavy lunch, so we had a light snack of crab salad with ØGO crackers. We tried to watch Grantchester but we both kept drifting off.

Wednesday, August 5: We ate scrambled eggs with cheese and green onions. Mike had brought some exercise bands along and suggested we do some exercises in the apartment before heading out each morning. I was a bit grumpy about that idea as I don’t like to exercise with Mike “coaching.” If I exercise, I want to do my own thing and no more than 15 minutes. After all, we always do a lot of walking on our travels, so that is enough for me. No matter, I did some arm exercises and planks and then showered and headed out for the day.

Marmorkirken, The Marble Church, also known as Frederiks Church

We took the train to Marmorkirken, The Marble Church, an historic Evangelical Lutheran church. It features a massive copper-green dome spanning 31 meters and is the largest church dome in Scandinavia. It was designed by Nicolai Eigtved in 1740; King Frederik V laid the foundation stone in 1749.

The church is not made of marble, although that was the original plan. After the original architect’s death in 1754, the 1770 original plans were abandoned completely. For over 100 years, the building stood as a half-finished ruin. In the 1880s, industrialist C.F. Tietgen and architect Ferdinand Meldahl took over and because of a tight budget, they were forced to switch from marble to limestone. It was finished by Tietgen and Meldahl, finally opening in 1894. It was heavily inspired by St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome.

Designmuseum Danmark

We stopped in to visit Designmuseum Danmark since we had a lot of time to kill before the changing of the guard at noon at Amalienborg Palace. This museum was founded in 1890 and opened to the public in 1895. It moved in 1926 to its current location in a fine rococo building, former Royal Frederik’s Hospital. The hospital had the original goal of offering penniless patients free care. The Grønnegården garden in the courtyard center gave patients access to sunshine and fresh air.

The former sickrooms were designed as long galleries. The garden is now used as an exhibition space. The museum is one of Scandinavia’s leading exhibition venues for Danish and international industrial design, applied arts and craft. Its main goal is to communicate the idea of quality within design and is a source of inspiration for people working in industry.

We enjoyed the collections of ceramics, snuff boxes, table settings (“Little Table, Cover Thyself”), posters, chairs and contemporary furnishings.

The Designmuseum recognizes Japanese influence on Danish design and crafts since the end of the 19th century.

One exhibit at the museum was titled “Japan Modern Poster.” It introduces the history of Japanese graphic design through a selection of unique posters. During the 1940s and 1950s, while Japan was recovering from the ruins of war, many Japanese designers studied modern Western design and then established styles that reflected their individual sensibilities. The 1960s brought about major changes in Japanese society and graphic design flourished. At the same time, posters emerged that reflected the darker sides of society, such as war and environmental problems. Of course digital technology influenced design in the 1990s, and designers explored new forms of visual communication in the information society of the 2000s.

“Hokusai Japanese Woodcuts” exhibited about 40 woodcuts created by Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849), one of Japan’s most significant painters and printmakers; he helped make landscapes an independent genre of woodcut art.

Japanese woodcuts had their golden age during the Edo period (1603-1868). The genre, known as ukiyo-e (‘pictures from the floating world’) originally portrayed scenes from the entertainment districts of the time. Later, the artists expanded their thematic range to include landscapes, travel scenes and aspects of everyday life.

Ukiyo-e was a popular art form that was widely accessible and was not considered high art. It involved a division of labour from the drawing of the image to its transfer to a woodblock, the carving of the woodblock and, finally, the production of the multi-color print.

Popular images could be printed in hundreds or even thousands of copies, which contributed to the broad appeal of the genre and is testimony to the public interest in this art form.

After our foray to the Designmuseum, we walked down the street to Amalienborg Palace, where we passed Aleksander Nevskij Kirke, the only Russian Orthodox Church in Copenhagen. It was built by the Russian government between 1881-1883 on the occasion of Princess Dagmar of Denmark’s marriage to Alexander Alexandrovich in November of 1866 and their subsequent coronation as Tsar Alexander III of Russia and Tsarina Maria Feodorovna.

Amalienborg Palace, the Royal Residence, for the changing of the guard.

The Royal Family lives in Amalienborg Palace, which consists of four identical palaces surrounding a square with the equestrian statue of Frederik V from 1771. The palace dates back 150 years to Christian IX and Queen Louise. Today the Royals are King Frederik X and Queen Mary, an Australian woman who met Frederik at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney; they married in 2004. When a flag is flying, one of the royal family is staying at the palace: today 82-year-old Princess Benedikte, the King’s aunt, was present in the palace, as shown by her flag flying above her quarters.

The Palace is known for the Royal Life Guards. The changing of the guard takes place every day at noon. We stood in a crowd to watch but because I’m so short, I could barely see anything over the tall Danes in front of me. Mike, being taller, was able to get a few decent photos.

Hot dogs at Emmis Place & Coffee at Espresso House

We had to try some of the famous Copenhagen hot dogs, so we stopped at Emmis Place at Kongens Nytorv for the traditional hot dogs. I have to say they were just okay. Then we stopped at Espresso House for coffee and a chocolate cookie.

Nyhaven

Nyhavn (New Harbor) is one of Copenhagen’s most visited tourist attractions. The harbor dates back to 1673 and started as a busy commercial port. It was excavated from 1671-1673 by Danish soldiers and by Swedish prisoners of war from the Second Carl Gustav War. The area was notorious for beer, sailors, and prostitution and for many years was considered a seedy neighborhood.

Poet Hans Christian Andersen lived in three of the houses over a 20 year period.

Today the harbor is lined with sidewalk cafes and restaurants. The northern side has brightly colored townhouses built of wood, brick and plaster. The oldest house, #9, dates from 1681.

Canal ride on Netto Boat

We took the Netto Boat Tour from Nyhavn, sailing past Holmen, the naval base of Copenhagen for 300 years. We saw The Little Mermaid from the backside, and though Mike was adamant he had no interest in seeing it, I said I wouldn’t mind seeing it from the front side with the water behind. (He relented and we ended up going the next day.) We boated past Amalienborg Palace, Church of Our Savior, and many other sites, including an apartment building that holds the most expensive apartment in Copenhagen at $10 million. The front steps of this building along the harbor were lined with sunbathers, as if it were a beach.

We sailed through the Christianshavn canals with its many boats bobbing in the sunlight. This amazing maze of canals was built from 1671-1622, partly to protect the fleet of the Royal Danish Navy. We saw Amager Bakke (aka Amager Slope or Copenhill), a combined heat and power waste-to-energy plant opened in 2017. It is also a recreational facility with a dry ski run, a hiking trail, and a climbing wall; this opened in 2018 and has 42,000-57,000 visitor annually.

An evening in our apartment

We returned to our apartment around 3:30 and relaxed, after walking about 5.3 miles all day. We made a dinner of fish cakes and pasta with sun-dried tomato pesto, broccolini and garlic, and drank a Carlsberg beer. We watched the first episode of Season 4 of Ted Lasso and promptly conked out, exhausted from our day of travel and our busy first day.

Thursday, August 6: Even though Mike insisted he didn’t want to make the trek to see The Little Mermaid, he changed his mind after we saw the backside of her on the Netto Boat Tour. Plus, he knew I wanted to see it, so he agreed to make the trek.

The Little Mermaid

We got a rather late start and headed to The Little Mermaid, a statue famous because it serves as the ultimate national and cultural symbol of Denmark. Unveiled in 1913, the 4.1 ft. bronze statue connects the city to Hans Christian Andersen and his poignant 1837 fairy tale. It is also a symbol of Copenhagen’s resilience due to numerous meticulous restorations after frequent attacks of vandalism: multiple decapitations, severed arms, and paint splatterings by political activists.

St. Alban’s Anglican Church

Leaving The Little Mermaid, we walked past St. Alban’s Anglican Church, Copenhagenk, an example of Victiorian ‘Early English’ Gothic Architecture. It’s the only Anglican (Episcopal) Church in Denmark and was consecrated in 1887.

In front of the church is the Gefion Fountain which features a group of animals being driven by the legendary Norse goddess, Gefion. She was the goddess who ploughed the island of Zealand out of Sweden. The Swedish King Gylfe offered the goddess as much land as she was capable of ploughing in one day and night.

Strøget: La Glace and Ann Ricci Boutique

We took the metro to Strøget, a 1.1 km pedestrian shopping street established in 1962. We stopped for pastry and coffee at La Glace. Across the road from the expensive cafe was a shop, Ann Ricci Boutique, with a bohemian vibe. We were amused by the two little dogs who kept peeking out of the shop windows and getting the clothing caught on their long ears. The clothes in the shop also featured the shop’s dogs in graphics. I went in and found 2 tops and a scarf for reasonable prices, so I bought them.

We happened upon a craft market where we could have been tempted if we had any room in our suitcases. We had discovered that this week was Copenhagen Fashion Week, so we took pictures here and there of women flaunting their Scandinavian style.

After our stroll down Strøget, we took the train to the apartment and rested a while before going out to Tivoli around 6:30 p.m.

TIVOLI

In the evening, we went to Tivoli Gardens, an amusement park and pleasure garden in Copenhagen. It opened on 15 August 1843 and is the 2nd oldest operating amusement park in the world after Dyrehavsbakken in nearby Klampenborg, also in Denmark. With 4.25 million visitors in 2024, it is the most visited amusement park in Scandinavia and the 2nd most visited in the world after Europa-Park, a theme park in Rust, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany.

We planned to go in the evening as the sun set and the lights came on and to enjoy dinner in one of the park’s many restaurants or the food hall.

The buildings at Tivoli are in the style of an imaginary Orient and include a theatre, restaurants, cafes, flower gardens and mechanical amusement rides. After dark, colored lamps illuminate the gardens. It is a magical and whimsical place to visit, especially at dusk when the fading and blue light and the colorful lights and buildings make it seem otherworldly and exotic.

In 1943, Nazi sympathizers burnt many of Tivoli’s buildings to the ground. During WWII, several landmarks were bombed by Nazi saboteurs in June 1944. The government made sure to restore them quickly, just 25 days later.

We wandered all around the park and soaked up the atmosphere. In the Food Hall, we ate dinner at the counter of Wakha, a Moroccan food stand. I enjoyed a Vegetarian Moroccan flatbread with roasted aubergine, tomato glaze, goat cheese, walnuts and pomegranate seeds. Mike had a Lamb flatbread (tajine, raisins, mint yogurt, toasted almonds).

The park is best known for its wooden rollercoaster, Rutschebanen, built in 1914. I was most mesmerized by Svingkarrusellen, the swing carousel, with its pretty setting in the midst of gardens and ponds. Mike and I made the mistake of riding it (our only ride) after we ate dinner, not a wise move for our stomachs!

We returned to the apartment around 10:00, exhausted from a day of walking 6.8 miles. We managed to watch an episode of The New Adventures of Old Christine, and promptly fell asleep.

A DAY TRIP TO ROSKILDE

Friday, August 7: Today we took a 30 minute train west from Copenhagen to Roskilde to see Roskilde Cathedral and the Viking Ship Museum. First we walked through the charming town and enjoyed pastries at Lagkagehuset: Kanelsnegl (cinnamon snail), Kardemomme Snurre (cardemom buns), and Spandauer with a custard filling.

Roskilde Cathedral

Roskilde Cathedral, an early Scandinavian brick Gothic cathedral, has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1995. It has numerous unique royal chapels which reflect changing European architectural history over 800 years. It serves as the final resting place for 40 kings and queens. Altogether, there are more than 1000 graves in the church.

Built in 1200, the cathedral was Scandinavia’s first Gothic edifice. The Gothic pointed arches, vaulted ceilings and exterior buttresses enabled construction of light and lofty churches with large windows.

It was originally Catholic but since the Reformation in 1536, it has been Lutheran. Pews were installed after the Reformation because, unlike in early Catholicism, the congregation is a vital part of the services.

The King’s Door (2010) shows the Bible story “Journey to Emmaus.” After Jesus’ death, two of his disciples met a man they shared a meal with. When he broke the bread, they recognized the resurrected Christ. Only the royal family may enter through the door, but others may leave through it.

The pulpit is from the 1600s and depicts the four evangelists. The cathedral’s baroque organ is known as Raphaël’s Organ. It has a unique vintage tone. After Reformation, church music became important; the congregation joined in singing and sang hymns in Danish. The altarpiece was made in Antwerp, about 1560. The elegant Renaissance piece is of oak and depicts the birth, death and resurrection of Jesus.

According to plaques at the cathedral, the Royals of Denmark over the ages have been quite a mixed bunch. They either meddled in politics and turned the people against them, rode through Copenhagen on horseback daily to give hope to people during the German occupation, built buildings such as Rosenborg castle, expanded trade and colonial settlements, waged destructive wars, or conducted witch hunts. They inherited strong kingdoms and then devastated them, lost the race to Sweden to become the strongest Nordic power, were the center of scandals, or were notorious for wild parties, loose relationships with the truth, and divorces. One, Frederick VII, introduced democracy with a constitution, which won him widespread affection among the people.

Viking Ship Museum

We walked to the harbor to visit the Viking Ship Museum built in 1969. Its main focus is the permanent exhibition of the Skuldelev ships, five original Viking ships excavated nearby in 1962.

Around the year 1070, five Viking ships were deliberately sunk at Skuldelev in Roskilde Fjord in order to block the most important waterway and to protect Roskilde from enemy attack by sea. The five meticulously excavated ships ranged from cargo ships to warships.

After returning from Roskilde, we made dinner in and watched Sommerdahl and The New Adventures of Old Christine. Our neighbors in the apartment below us were having a party. It wasn’t noisy but it sounded like the group of young people were enjoying themselves until late Friday night.

Saturday, August 8: This morning, we took the train to Copenhagen Station and rented two Donkey Republic bicycles for the day. The bikes had names on them; mine was Richie and Mike’s Edinburgh. We stopped along the harbor to watch a kayak polo game in progress and admired the Havnebadet Islands Brygge (a harbor swimming pool) and Christiansborg Palace, which tells the history of Denmark’s monarchy and houses the Royal Danish collection, across the harbor.

We rode over bumpy cobbled streets through Christianshavn on the isle of Amanger, where we admired the boats along the canals. King Christian IV built the canals from 1617-1622 partly to protect the fleet of the Royal Danish Navy and partly to increase trading with merchants from abroad to level extra tolls from their ships.

We arrived just in time for lunch at Reffen Copenhagen Street Food, a colorful and cosmopolitan container city on the waterfront with narrow alleyways and beachy spaces. The complex features small street vendors from all over the world and was designed to blend with its maritime and industrial surroundings. Most structures are made from recycled materials and all permanent stalls are old containers that could no longer be used for shipping. More than 75 used shipping containers, four old German fire trucks and several worn-out vans make up the main building blocks of Reffen.

We ordered lunch from different food vendors. From the Japan-Easy vendor, I got shrimp and chicken gyoza ramen, and from an Afghan vendor, Mike enjoyed Borani Bonjan – deep fried aubergines with tomato sauce and yoghurt dressing with garlic and dry mint served with warm bread. Mike’s was much better than mine!

I ordered a Hugo Spritz from Kajen Bar and we sat on benches at this waterfront oasis with a chill vibe, watching sea planes land, boats zipping by, and people riding bicycles, pushing strollers, running and walking along the harbor front. We were serenaded by Wizkid singing “Blessed (feat. Damian “Jr. Gong” Marley) and David Astri singing “Safe & Sound.” This was one of our favorite days in Copenhagen.

After our laid-back afternoon, we rode our bikes back, stopping to admire the opera house and the busy harbor with Nyhavn in the background, then we returned the bikes to the train station.

After riding 10.9 miles, we were exhausted, so we took the train home to Sydhavn and relaxed in our apartment for the afternoon and ate dinner in. We watched The Split and The New Adventures of Old Christine.

Sunday, August 9: This morning we took a trip north to visit the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art and the town of Helsingør, home of Kronborg Castle and the filming location for the Sommerdahl Murders. We first got off at the Humlebæk station, and walked 13 minutes to the museum.

Louisiana Museum of Modern Art

The Louisiana Museum of Modern Art is considered one of the most beautiful museums in the world due to the harmonious architecture and scenic location. Since its opening in 1958, the museum has conveyed international art and culture of high quality to its guests in Humlebæk. The aim has been – and is – to reach a large and diverse audience with an equally broad and varied selection of art and culture from the 20th and 21st centuries.

It was such a pleasant experience strolling through this museum. We walked through exhibition spaces with large windows to the green exterior, courtyards with views over Niva Bay, and green spaces that serve as a sculpture garden. There were numerous exhibits here (the museum is huge), too many to cover in much detail.

• Sophie Calle (b. 1953): her original works tackle big questions of existence and human emotions with warmth, humor and poetry.
  • On the Hunt (2017-2024): A catalogue of the qualities most desired in women by men, and in men by women, drawn from a selection of personal ads published between 1895 and 2019.
  • The Blind (1986): “I met people who were born blind. Who had never seen. I asked them what their image of beauty was.”
• Giacometti Gallery: works of Alberto Giacometti (1901-66): sculptures that appear at once strangely modern and very old fashioned. He draws on a tradition of Etruscans to create works that resemble something that has been through the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius, creating associations with people in a post-nuclear wasteland.
• Lucian Freud (1922-2011) : Works show his lifelong preoccupation with the human face and figure. “Everything is autobiographical and everything is a portrait.”
• 700 Nimes Road: Photos by Catherine Opie from the home of star Elizabeth Taylor.
• House Beautiful: This exhibit includes “House Beautiful: Bringing the War Home” (1967-1972) in which American artist Martha Rossler combines images of homes in lifestyle magazines with images from the Vietnam War.

Leaving the museum, we got back on the train heading north to Helsingør.

Helsingør

Helsingør, known in English as Elsinore, sits on the narrowest part of the Øresund strait. It is a ferry city, with frequent departures (70 per day in each direction) connecting Helsingør with Helsingborg, Sweden, across the Øresund.

During WWII, Helsingør was among the most important transport points for the rescue of Denmark’s Jewish population during the Holocaust. Hundreds of civilians hid their fellow Danish Jewish citizens in their houses, farm lofts and churches until they could board them onto Danish fishing boats and ferry boats. Over 3 nights, Danes smuggled over 7,200 Jews and 680 non-Jews across the Øresund to safety in Helsingborg and Malmö in Sweden.

We wandered around the streets and stopped for lunch of smørrebrød (open faced sandwiches) at Café Kaiser. I had a Potato: Boiled potatoes, mayonnaise, homemade pickled red onions, radishes, chives and grated Vesterhavsost, a Danish aged cheese. Served on organic rye bread. Mike had Minced beef patty open faced sandwich (Minced beef patty, crispy lettuce, soft onions and a fried egg. Served on organic rye bread). As seems to be the case lately, Mike’s was better than mine. We also had chicken tenders, jalapeño poppers, and mozzarella sticks.

After lunch, we popped into St. Olaf’s Church, Helsingør’s red-brick Gothic cathedral built in 1559 on a site that had a church since the 13th C.

We didn’t have energy to go inside Kronborg Castle, but we strolled along the waterfront for a view of it. The UNESCO World Heritage-listed castle was built around 1420 as a fortress to help collect tolls from ships entering or leaving the Baltic Sea.

It is also the setting for Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Immortalized as Elsinore in the play, Kronborg is one of the most important Renaissance castles in northern Europe.

We were exhausted after our long trip so we got home and crashed, barely eating much for dinner, and watched the last episode of To Love, To Lose and Love Life.

A day around and about Koge

Monday, August 10: On Monday, we were lucky enough to spend the day with a Danish man named Jorn Ravnholt who went to graduate school at Penn State with Mike’s friend Louis in the 1980s. Both of them were getting Masters degrees in Sports Psychology there. Louis recommended that Mike contact Jorn and when he did, Jorn happily offered to drive us around the countryside south of Copenhagen from his hometown of Koge. We took the train to Koge and met Jorn and he spent the entire day driving us to various sites, going to lunch with us, showing us around the town of Koge and finally inviting us to his house to meet his wife Kirsten and to enjoy coffee and cake. It was one of the most relaxing days we’ve had so far, having someone to show us around in an area not only that he knew well, but also an area from where his family originates.

Gjorslev Gods

The first place Jorn took us was an old cruciform medieval castle called Gjorslev Gods. Originally owned by the Bishop of Roskilde, it is considered one of the most well-preserved examples of Gothic secular architecture in Denmark. Though not open to the public, Jorn wanted to show us the house where his uncle lived and worked as operations manager for the castle. Jorn remembered many Christmas holidays spent in that house and then long drives with the family through the countryside after dinner.

Stevns Klint

He drove us to Stevns Klint (Cliffs of Stevns), a UNESCO World Heritage Site (2014) because of its exceptional fossil record. It is a white chalk cliff stretching 17 km (11 mi) along the coast and is of geological importance as one of the best exposed Cretaceous-Tertiary (K/T) boundaries of the world. Though complicated, one of the layers in the cliffs is fiskeler enriched in iridium, a fact used in the hypothesis that the worldwide Cretaceous-Paleogene mass extinction was caused by the impact of an asteroid. This mass extinction occurred about 66 million years ago; during the event three-quarters of the plant and animal species on Earth were extinguished. It caused the extinction of all non-avian dinosaurs and most other tetrapods excepting some ectothermic species such as sea turtles and crocodilians.

The Old Hojerup Church stands at the top of the cliff and dates from the year 1200. As a result of erosion, a landslide in 1928 caused the chancel to collapse and fall to the shore below.

We drove through the town of Rodvig and then expansive farmland. Jorn then took us to a summer cottage that is for sale and that he and Kirsten are hoping to buy. The cottage is about 35 km from their house in Koge and it is about 500 meters from a nice beach.

In the summer cottage town, we had a nice lunch at Hjortholms Bistro No 1. I had fish and chips and Mike had a pizza. We also had some interesting and colorful refreshing drinks.

Jorn had no shortage of places to show us. He took us to a large limestone quarry, Faxe Kalkbrud, from which many buildings in Copenhagen are built.

Next up was Vallø Castle, which houses unmarried, widowed and divorced women of noble descent. The grounds are quite beautiful and Jorn said he and Kirsten walk there quite frequently.

Vallø traces its history back to the 14th century. The castle was devastated by fire in 1893 but restored largely to its old design between 1893 and 1904.

Lastly, Jorn took us on a walkabout of his town, Koge, which was quite charming with its medieval timber houses, lively market square and a modern waterfront.

To wrap up the beautiful day, Jorn took us to his house in Koge where he and Kristen served us coffee, a lemon mousse cake and other sweets and we talked about the political, environmental and other challenges we face today. We all shared our hatred of the current U.S. administration, and then talked about how our children seem to be losing all hope in the world and the direction it’s going. We tried to also inject humor and hope into our conversation. It was truly a lovely way to cap off our time in Copenhagen.

Tuesday, August 11: We checked out of our Copenhagen Airbnb and headed to Aarhus by FlixBus, a 3 1/2 hour trip.