Petersontravels

We picked up our rental car at the Copenhagen Airport and drove northwest to Odden, where we caught a ferry to the historic city of Aarhus.  This is the second largest city in Denmark, but it feels dramatically smaller than Copenhagen.  The city dates from the late 8th century, and for a period was a fortress for the Vikings.

We checked into our hotel and just outside our room was this beautiful rooftop.  This is the ARoS Art Museum, which we didn’t visit, as it’s mostly modern art, which isn’t our thing.  However, the roof is very cool!  More photos coming from this evenings sunset.

We walked through the old town and onto the waterfront, and visited the local public library, Dokk1.  This is the largest public library in Scandinavia.

It reminded us of a library we visited in Gronigen, Netherlands, and it seems to be very popular with the locals.  We ran across a large metal structure hanging on the top floor of the library.  This is called “The Gong”, and is the largest tubular bell in the world, at 7.5 meters long and weighing 3 tons!  When a child is born in nearby Aarhus University Hospital, the parents can press a button at the hospital that rings the gong.  Pretty cool!

Across the bay I saw what looks to be a statue of a ship’s hull.  It’s an industrial area so we couldn’t get any closer to check it out.

On the waterfront is a pretty cool fountain called Endless Connection.  I can just imagine how popular this spot would be on a warm summer day!

That night we watched an incredible sunset from our hotel balcony.

A close-up of  the ARoS Museum roof a few minutes later.

One final look at the gorgeous skyline, with the museum roof all lit up.

The next day we made our way just south of Aarhus to visit The Infinite Bridge.

Every beach should have one of these round piers you can walk around!

Just a little further south is this gorgeous building built into the hillside.

This is the Moesgaard Museum, one of the best museums we’ve ever been to!  It’s fairly new, opening in 2014, and uses state of the art technology to tell the stories of Denmark’s past.

There are several permanent exhibitions that cover the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, the Iron Age, the Viking Age and the Middle Ages.  You could easily spend a full day here, and if you want to experience everything in a museum (a problem I tend to have) I could even see spending two days here!  We only spent 4 hours, so I will just cover the highlights here.

The Stone Age exhibit (covering 12,500 to 1700 BC) has some very cool tech that shows how Denmark evolved after the ice age.

It has realistic looking sets that depict how life looked for early man.  This set portrays a shell mound created after years of living in the same place.

This remarkable clay disc, discovered just north of Aarhus, depicts two stages of a solar eclipse that occurred on May 5, 2789 BC.  The age of this thing is amazing!

The museum also hosts the Grauballe Man, a body found in a peat bog in Denmark in 1952.  Apparently it was quite a sensation back in the day!  The body dates back to the 3rd century BC, while the conditions in the bog preserved the body as if they had just died.  It’s been determined he was killed, most likely as some sort of human sacrifice, as his throat was slit.  The red hair comes from the conditions in the bog.

During the Viking Age, Aarhus was known as Aros.  This depiction of the city during the time of the Vikings (from 800-1066) is superimposed by the current Aarhus Cathedral, giving a good feel for how small the city was at that time.

The Viking Age exhibit had a group of people who you could follow through their every day life by listening to numerous stories.  The wax figure to the left of Kim in this photo looked pretty damn real!

On the stairs below the top floor were wax figures of several influential people throughout history.  This is another one that looked so real it was kind of creepy.

We had missed this one section so we back-tracked so we could check out the Gokstad Boat.  This is one of the boats that was uncovered with the Gokstad Ship, a 9th century Viking ship that was discovered in a burial mound in 1880.  Unfortunately, the Gokstad Ship is in the Viking Ship Museum in Oslo, which we couldn’t visit as it’s currently being renovated.  However, at least we could see one of the original boats that the ship carried onboard so they could go ashore.  It’s in remarkable condition!

Coming up next, we visit Mols Bjerge National Park, and see some more sights in Aarhus.

 

On our last day in Copenhagen we decided to venture out and hit the last few tourist spots we had not made it to as of yet.  Our first stop was Nyhavn, a 17th century waterfront area turned into a huge tourist trap.  Despite the tourism, it’s still worth seeing, and very photogenic.

We had an early lunch at a spot that didn’t seem overwhelmed with tourists.  This restaurant, Oranje Nyhavn, is a boat floating next to the Nyhavn dock, which I found quite unique versus the places along the wharf.  The best part is all the other outdoor spots allow smoking, so this was a great option for us.

The weather couldn’t have been more perfect, and with it being a Sunday the locals were out in droves!  Look at how crowded the dock was across the water!

Here is yet another dock adjacent to the The Playhouse (performing arts theater) filled with sunbathers!

We walked through a large public space called Amalienborg, which has four palace buildings circling this statue.  The man on the horse is King Frederik V, who died in 1766.  The statue was built in 1771, and is in remarkable shape despite being over 350 years old.

King Frederik’s statue is facing Frederik’s Church, also commonly called The Marble Church.  The church was a project started by King Frederik V, and the foundation stone was personally laid by him in 1749 to great fanfare.  Despite the common name, the church isn’t made of marble, but that was the original plan.

The church’s history is akin to a California state project.  Building progress was slow, and the original architect died in 1754.  By 1770, construction was abandoned, and the church sat half-finished for over 100 years.

In the late 1800’s, wealthy businessman C.F. Tietgen financed the completion of the church per the original plans.  Due to budget constraints, the church was completed using limestone instead of marble.  The church finally opened in 1894, 145 years after the foundation was laid.  See, just like a California project!

The dome is incredibly beautiful!

As is the altar.  This is likely the most beautiful church in Copenhagen, and it’s free to enter.

We kept walking along the waterfront, headed towards The Little Mermaid statue, and came across another beautiful church.  Really love the exterior of this place!  This is St. Alban’s Church, an English Anglican church that opened in 1887.

The church is smallish on the inside, but still quite attractive.  Again, it’s free to enter, and they were very welcoming!

Just behind the church was the super cool Gefion Fountain.  Completed in 1908, it represents the Norse Goddess Gefion (who I’ve never heard of) plowing the sea with 4 oxen.

The oxen even have a fine mist of water streaming from their nostrils, depicting how hard they are being driven.  It’s the largest fountain in Denmark, and well worth checking out!

We reached our goal on this trek, The Little Mermaid, based on the Hans Christian Andersen story of the same name.  This iconic statue, installed in 1913, is likely the most visited tourist spot in Denmark, and the crowds made that fairly obvious.  It took some doing to get a photo without somebody in the way.

It took even more doing to get a selfie!

We walked back via the Kastellet, a 17th century star-shaped fortress.  The bridge into the fortress had the optical illusion of being elevated down the center, but it was perfectly flat.

They have built a memorial inside the fortress to all of the Danish troops who have lost their lives in service around the world since 1948.  The message on the wall is “A Time, A Place, A person”.

The other side of the wall lists all of the countries that Danish soldiers have served in over the years.  It was nicely done.

Another look at St. Alban’s Church as we exited the fortress.  Such a photogenic building!

On our last night in Copenhagen we had dinner at Sticks N Sushi, located adjacent to Tivoli Gardens.  I had to get one last shot of the original Matterhorn.

I booked this restaurant as it’s supposed to have an incredible view over the city.  Turns out there are two of these restaurants in Copenhagen, and I embarrassingly booked one and then took us to the other.  Doh!  They were able to sit us anyway, so it worked out.  Excellent food, just make sure you go to the right one!

On our walk back to the hotel we traversed the stunning pedestrian/bike bridge called Lille Langebro, which opened in 2019.  The lighting is very cool!

We crossed the Circle Bridge again, and it was nice to see it all lit up at night.  I’ve gotta say that Copenhagen is likely the most beautiful city we’ve ever visited!

Coming up next, we pick up our rental car and head to Aarhus, Denmark, on the island of Jutland.