Muddled Musings.

Danish Countryside

Travel day again today.  Another 350 kms but the Germans who had clogged the roads yesterday had mostly settled somewhere by today & the Danes weren’t moving far so we got along quite nicely, really beating the 8.5 hrs it had taken to come less than 500 kms yesterday and so we struck Denmark well before we thought we would, which was a bit of a fright, because we had planned to buy diesel on the German side of the border, owing to everything in Denmark costing the GDP of a small country.

Anyway, it wasn’t too bad & we had just decided that we wouldn’t have to sell a child to pay the bill, when we arrived at a sign saying that if we intended to cross the forthcoming bridge from one island to the other- & we did, because it was much too far to swim & tow the car- then we needed to pay 220!!!!!! 

By the time we recovered & had worked out just what that meant we were on the bridge & had to go with the flow (pardon the pun.)  However, the view and the experience were well worth the money which turned out to be somewhere in the vicinity of 35.00AUD & still not cheap.  And we have to do it again because I want to visit Odense, the home of Hans Christian Andersen & it’s back over the bridge so the day we do that excursion we will also do whatever else there is to do over there and make a good day of 

it as it’s $35.00 each way.

Denmark surprised us geographically.  Germany has mountains and hills and many wonderful forests but Denmark is really very like western Victoria- lush and green with lots of dairies and cereal crops ready for harvest and low, undulating country.  Germany, France & Italy all have many villages within a few kilometres of each other, but the countryside we encountered today was open and clear and had only large towns that were quite far apart.

We stopped for lunch at a Macca’s!  We, of all people, who don’t eat Macca’s at home even & really relish the ability to eat the local food whenever we get the chance, but Denmark is very short on the wonderful Auto grills that line the roads in France & Germany & Italy so when you’re starving, anything goes.

I really must have needed coffee, because I’d forgotten that Denmark, although part of the EU, doesn’t use the Euro & when I was looking at the menu, which I’m here to tell you is the same as any menu in any Macca’s store in the world, I could hardly believe my eyes!  There, on the wall for all to see, was an illustration of a box of Chicken Nuggets with 65.00 beside it!!!!  When I recovered enough to do the maths, I worked out that it was around the $10.00 mark- to get somewhere near our money, you divide the Krone by 5.5.  I can also vouch for the fact that not only does the menu look the same anywhere in the world, it also tastes the same! And I didn’t have chicken nuggets!

Our Bedroom at Tivoli Hotel

Our Bathroom at the Tivoli

Our hotel was a surprise. It’s called the Tivoli Gardens Hotel & Congress Centre and all the rooms are furnished with a carnival theme - very new & built near the Tivoli Gardens which are very old & are home to the second oldest amusement park in the northern hemisphere. The oldest is just up the road, on the northern side of Denmark.  We have free tickets to these gardens & having Googled them this afternoon we can’t wait to see them as they are certainly very different and special.

 The hotel was designed by the son of Mr (forget his first name) Utson who designed the Sydney Opera House.  He also designed other buildings in Copenhagen which we will see during the next few days. I’ve taken pictures of our room because it is so different.

Very Expensive Bridge

We are off to explore the city tomorrow, including, of course, the Tivoli Gardens.