Now it is almost a week later and we are in Portland visiting with our daughter and her family. This was an unplanned trip but Steve's brother-in-law passed away and we came to Florence, Oregon for the funeral and to support his sister. Then it was just a short drive up the coast to Portland so we could not miss this chance to see our family here.
Being in Copenhagen was very different than I had expected. During past visits to Copenhagen we had great tourist experiences and saw many amazing sites. But this time we laid pretty low.
We found our accommodation without too much difficulty. It was a very lovely flat which included a washer and dryer! But it was a huge disappointment to learn that there was no available parking at the site. The existing parking spaces were purchased by flat owners and our flat owner had not purchased a spot. The young lady who checked us in said there was a concentrated effort to encourage people to take public transportation or use bicycles - not too great for old folks like us. We had to park our car a 10 minute walk away and we were reluctant to drive our car anywhere in case there would not be an open place to park when we returned. And we had no way to see what might be happening to our car. But thankfully it was OK at the end of our visit.
I had hoped to visit the Prison Museum so I could learn what prison life was like back in the 1800's and also to visit the Meteorological Institute to gather information about weather conditions in and around the Aalborg area in 1887. My great grandmother was convicted of stealing and burning carriage wheel rims to stay warm about 1887 which landed her in the Women's Prison in Copenhagen for a number of months. The prison was torn down in the early 1900's and it was my hope to learn more about the conditions my great grandmother lived in while she served her time both before and after my grandfather was born. I believe she was involved in making lace as her prison work assignment. Unfortunately the museum was not open so we missed that opportunity. It was so disappointing to take our taxi to the site of the Prison Museum only to discover that it was not open when it said it would be and that no one answered the phone. It was a costly errand.
We also did not get to the Meteorological Institute. So I will just telephone them after we are home.
Since it was hard for Steve to walk very far it was not practical for us to walk to the bus stop which was over a block away so we were left with using a taxi. And although all the taxi drivers we employed were very nice it was an expensive proposition. We could not go to as many places as we would other wise have gone. And we were tired and did not feel like pushing ourselves.
Although we did enjoy the opportunity of attending the Copenhagen Temple for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I was happy to take the taxi over there so we did not have to worrying about finding nonexistent parking. There is a peace to be found in the temples of the Lord which exist in many places in the world. We were able to worship in Copenhagen with the help of English head phones and we enjoyed our peaceful respite there. It was a good day.
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| So great to visit the Copenhagen Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It was such a peaceful break in the middle of kind of stressful week. |
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| This is an unusual temple in that it was remodeled from a Stake Center. A stake center is a larger gathering place for special meetings for several congregations. |
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| The view from the back of the temple across the reflecting pool. |
My cousin living in Hillerød had invited us for lunch on Sunday. We wanted to attend church in Allerød on our way. It was an interesting experience to find the church only to find an empty parking lot. We could only assume that there was a Stake Conference that day and that everyone was meeting together in a different building. So we spent our 'church time' parked in the empty lot listening to some talks from General Conference which we had not yet heard. General Conference is held in Salt Lake City twice a year on the first weekends of October and April. We always enjoy hearing talks from our Prophet, the Apostles and other church leaders. Due to the time difference we had missed hearing the talks live so it was nice to just sit in our car and listen to some of the talks.
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| Steve in front of the chapel in Allerød. |
It was very nice to catch up with my cousin and enjoy a nice meal together. It had been a number of years since we had seen each other.
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| A lovely luncheon of open faced sandwiches. |
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| The three of us after lunch. |
There is a beautiful castle in her town and I took a few moments to see a little bit of it. What amazing architecture!
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| The entrance to Hillerød Castle |
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| The castle with scaffolding up to do repairs. |
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| Cool fountain. |
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| So many intricate details. |
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| Ceiling detail. |
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| A side door. there were so many details and I did not even make ti to the back of the castle where there is a lake. Sometimes there is just too much to see. |
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| Street near the castle in Hillerød. |
Our trip to the State Museum was more successful. The taxi dropped us off at the door and picked us up when we were ready to go home. I really enjoyed the Viking exhibit, our visit to the gift shop and our nice lunch in the restaurant there. It is always fascinating to see Viking exhibits because I know that these people were my ancestors.
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| The State Museum. |
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| Steve sitting in a large Viking chair. |
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| The artist portrayed Harald Bluetooth this way. It is said that in some of the digs silk clothing has been found for this era. |
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| Tove as portrayed by the artist. Our daughter says she just looks like a blonde woman dressed up in a costume. We wonder just how refined or how rough they actually looked. |
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| This is also a portrayal of a viking man. Is this more to our thinking? |
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| Some of the beautiful jewelry and ornamentation found in one of the digs. |
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| I am amazed at the level of skill evidenced in the beautiful work. |
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| Some years ago my cousin brought me a replica of this beautiful viking woman's broach. |
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| Viking horns recovered from the bogs. What is the real story behind them? |
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| And these helmets and ax heads! |
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| This is the skeleton of an aurochs which was a large bull living in Denmark and other areas many centuries ago. You can see how big they were as Steve stands next to it. Three arrow heads were found next to the skeleton so it can be guessed that he was felled by arrows. These animals no longer exist and the last one died in Poland in 1627. |
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| We had a nice but very expensive lunch of open faced sandwiches. |
Our week in Copenhagen soon came to a close. I learned that I am definitely NOT a city girl. Although the architecture fascinated me I felt rather claustrophobic driving through the streets which were lined with imposing apartment buildings. And there were so many people.
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| I had not seen orange Poinsettias before. |
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| Copenhagen street |
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| Copenhagen street, |
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| Copenhagen Street. |
Our flat was in a nice newer area. The flat was also very nice. It was clean and modern and we enjoyed the time we spent there.
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| We were on the 4th floor |
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| We parked here which was a 10 minute walk from the flat. It was near a university so parking spots were a premium. |
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| From a taxi window as we drove along. |
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| A large complex of buildings for the biggest phone service in the area. So MANY bicycles in the parking lots! |
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| There were FEW street parking spots but never enough. Here you can see someone parking right up on the grass. |
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| Copenhagen street. |
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| Street with large buildings! |
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| Interesting spires in the distance |
We left the Copenhagen area and headed to the Svendborg area on the island of Fyn.
On our way we stopped in Kalundborg which is on the west side of Sjaelland to meet a newly found cousin, her husband and her brother. They had prepared a lovely 'frokost' for us and we thoroughly enjoyed our visit there. We also saw the beautiful Kalundborg church. She even took us to a store so we could buy bedding we needed for the next place we were to stay. Many of the VRBO sites just expect that you will bring your on towels, sheets, pillowcases and duvet covers. It was nice to have someone take us to an inexpensive place to find what we needed. We had a lovely time visiting with newly found family and hope to see more of them in the future.
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| A rainy day to drive. |
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| Rainy landscape |
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| The Danish and American flags were flown to honor us. |
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| Steve and me with my newly found cousins. |
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| The cake to honor us. |
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| A rainy day in Kalundborg. |
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| The Kalundborg Church. |
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| The altar. |
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| Detail in the church. |
And then we were on our way across the very long bridge to Fyn. It was a rainy stormy night and dark but we finally found our place in Skarupor near Svendborg where we would begin our next adventure.
