Jandals



A gift from the Strange's - along with a decent supply of pineapple lumps, jaffas and milk bottle lollies - yum!  Thanks Fran & Michael xx

Running Blog

Estelle and I have started a blog of our marathon training, mainly as we are running to raise funds for our trip to Tanzania in the summer where we will be volunteering at a primary school.  The blog is mainly for the boys at school to follow what we are doing - but some of you might be interested in having a look as well:

http://www.ucsinchoba.blogspot.com/

Super Stinky

This is the culprit of our currently foul smelling fridge.  Well worth it on the taste scale though.

Lolland to London

Wednesday we were up early, well I was anyway, to squeeze in a 10km run in the snow while Tim stayed in the cosy cottage and tried to find news footage of Christchurch on the very limited English news channels we had available.  My first run in 'proper' snow was rather lovely, with most of the footpaths having been cleared meaning there was no problem with slipping, like there is in London.  The countryside was so pretty covered in a blanket of white snow - but I was glad to return an hour for breakfast and a chance to thaw out!

After packing up we headed back into Odense where we visited the Has Christian Andersen museum which lies amid the picturesque little houses of the old poor quarter of the city.  In 1805 Andersen was supposedly born in one of the rooms which the museum is built around, although the author himself denied this in later life and there is no concrete evidence to support this view!  And it's probably not a good idea to remind the locals that Andersen couldn't wait to leave Odense for the bright lights of Copenhagen as soon as he had saved enough money for the coach fare!  But the museum is really well done with interesting exhibits retelling the interesting story of Andersen's life, especially as we pretty much had it to ourself during our visit - one bonus of visiting during the off-season!

Stopping for some lunch after our museum visit we planned our journey back towards Copenhagen where we were due to fly from the next day.  Deciding against returning to Zealand the way we had come, we enquired about the possibility of travelling south amongst some of the smaller islands which are connected by bridges and in one case a ferry.

So we had an interesting drive, stopping in some cute little towns that afternoon, before deciding to spend the night in Maribo, on the island of Lolland, at yet another farmhouse Bed and Breakfast.

The next day we arrived back in Copenhagen around midday, and decided to head straight for the Carlsberg Factory for a self guided tour.  Our slightly out-dated Lonely Planet told us that the tour was free, and that we would even get a free beer at the end.  But this was too good to be true, and they now charge the equivalent of £10 entry, which we decided to do anyway as we had driven out there especially.  The tour was interesting, though not as good as the Guinness Factory in Dublin, and the highlight of the tour was probably the sampling session at the end!

After that we had a few hours to kill before our flight so we managed to find an expensive park in central Copenhagen and had another wander around the shopping areas, before heading out to the airport for our 9pm flight.  We had enjoyed Denmark, although the biggest downfalls were visiting during the winter (way too cold) and the prices (like the rest of Scandinavia it's super-expensive)!  We were almost glad to head back to relatively warm and cheap London!

Funen

Our first task on Tuesday morning was to check out Roskilde's famous viking ship museum.  Back in the Viking days ships were sunk in the Roskilde Fjord to act as a defence barrier.  In the 1970's five of these ships were discovered and bought to the surface in thousands of fragments, to later be put back together as amost complete vessels.  Around the musem are a series of waterfront workshops, where Viking ship replicas are built using Viking-era techniques.  It was an interesting visit, particularly the exhibition they had on a recent trip between Denmark and Ireland, where 60 odd volunteers sailed one of the replica ships on a two week journey.

From the waterfront we headed back up the hill to the township where we grabbed a coffee and an amazing real 'Danish' pastry, before having a look around the beautiful Roskilde Domkirke.  The church is basically the equivalent of Westminster Cathedral, where loads Danish royalty and famous historical figures are buried.  Here we lit a candle and spent a few minutes thinking of people of Christchurch affected by the earthquake - we had just heard the news earlier that morning.

From Roskilde we continued our journey along the highway and crossed from the island of Zealand to Funen on the magnificent Storebaelts-forbindelsen, Europe's longest combined road and rail bridge.  It consists of a four lane highway that is supported on two sleek suspension bridges connected by an uninhabited island, and an 8km train tunnel, second in length only to the UK-France Channel Tunnel.  All in all, the impressive structure covers 18km, justifying the hefty toll they charge for the privilege of using it!

After crossing the bridge the immediate difference between the two islands was the amount of snow, with Funen having a decent layer covering the ground, making for a pretty drive to our destination for the night, Odense.  Odense is most famous for being the birthplace of Scandinavia's most famous author, Hans Christian Andersen.  The third largest city in Denmark, Odense has a studenty feel, and after parking our car we enjoyed wandering around the cobbled pedestrian streets and taking a walk through the snowy park.

The tourist office had given us a list of Bed and Breakfasts to try for the night, and we managed to find a lovely place in the countryside just out of Odense.  Our accommodation was in our own little cottage next to a big old farmstead, complete with its own log fire.

Having picked up a few supplies at the supermarket in town we spent a cosy evening next to the roaring fire, enjoying a couple of beers and a few Danish-style nibbles for dinner.

North Zealand

Monday morning we watched the first flakes of snow fall over Copenhagen as we ate breakfast.  After layering up, I headed out into the flurry for a run along the canals, while Tim caught the train out to the airport to pick up our rental car.

An hour and a half later we met up again and hit the road, heading north along the coast towards Helsingor.  The drive was very scenic, with sweet little thatched cottages and the beaches well and truly frozen over.  Neither of us had ever seen the sea frozen before, so it was weird to see the way water had frozen almost in waves.  Just across the sea the coast of Sweden was clearly visible, it seemed it would almost be possible to walk across the sea to the other side!  This part of the coast is apparently a popularsummer holiday spot for hoards of people from Copenhagen, hard to imagine really!

Eventually we arrived in Helsingor, a busy port town with ferries continually shuttling across the straight to and from Sweden.  Our main reason for visiting was to see Kronborg Slot, made famous as the Elsinore Castle of Shakespeare's Hamlet.  Unfortunately we had not realised that the castle was closed that day though, which was a shame.  However we were able to cross the moat and walk around the courtyard and walls of the castle.    Standing next to the cannons facing Sweden, it was obvious what a key strategic military and naval choke point the castle was - acting mainly as a grandiose tollhouse taking taxes from the ships passing through the narrow sound.  However, we didn't last long before the cold sea wind go the better of us.  It was time to head into the township to a cute little pub for a bite of lunch; smorrebrod - Danish open sanwiches topped with fish.

Back in the car with the fabulous seat and steering wheel heaters on full bore, we headed inland and south towards Roskilde, where we planned to spend the night.  Roskilde was a thriving trading port throughout the middle ages, but nowadays it is pretty sleepy.  By the time we arrived and found a ridiculously expensive hostel to stay for the night, everything seemed to be closing up.  Our options were pretty limited but we managed to find a cafe with a view over the beautiful cathedral where we spent the rest of the evening.

Too Cold for Ice Cream?

Sunday morning after breakfast at our hotel we headed out to continue our explorations of the city.  First stop was the 17th century Vor Frelser Kirke, a beautiful church with an incredible spiral tower, which apparently has amazing views as far as Sweden on a clear day - but is only open (along with the whole of Denmark it seemed), during the summer months.  Still it was nice to admire from the outside.

After pausing to warm up with hot chocolate in a cafe (something we had to do a lot!) we made our way to the 'Freetown' of Christiania, a commune formed by a bunch of hippies and political activists in the 1970's.  Apparently the community is home to over 600 people and is quite a tourist attraction, but there didn't seem to be much going on around the bunch of shabby run down ex-army buildings surrouded by all manner of junk and graffiti.    Slightly put off by the smell of dope and the very spaced out looking people hanging around oil drum fires, we didn't stick around for long.  The area around Christiana was more interesting, with lots of cute cafes and pastel painted houses lining the canals.


We had read that the best way to see Copenhagen was from the water, so a cruise was the order of the afternoon.  Although the canals were partially frozen, boats were still able to travel along most of the waterways, cutting through the paths left by other vessels as they went.  So we saw all the main sights from the heated cabin of the boat, including the harbour and the famous Little Mermaid statue.

After the cruise ended we decided to walk around the edge of the harbour for a closer look at the royal palaces and the mermaid statue, which is actually not very exciting at all, and was really not worth the extremeley icy walk.  In need of thawing we hit yet another pub to recover afterwards.

Danish Delights

We decided to make the most of my half term holiday coinciding with a break in Tim's shift pattern, and head to Denmark for a few days. It was only after we had booked out flights that we properly read the guidebooks, which told us that Danish winters are cold, dark and either wet or freezing.  Not to be put off, we were up at stupid-o'clock Saturday morning, headed for Gatwick to catch our flight to Copenhagen.  We got a bit of a shock when the pilot announced the temperature as we neared our destination, a mere -5 degrees!  Foolishly we had both assumed that as Copenhagen is on a similar latitude to London, the climate would be similar.   This was not to be, and we were lucky if the mercury even hit zero our entire visit.

Happily, Copenhagen airport is really handy to the city, so after indulging in our first hot dog of the trip, it was a quick 12 minute train ride to the central station. On our way to our hotel we passed the famous Tivoli gardens, a historic amusement park and Copenhagen's top tourist attraction.  Unfortunately walking past was the closest we were to get, as the gardens were closed for the winter.  The outside was still lit up in the evening though, creating a pretty display.

After dropping our luggage off at the hotel we headed back towards the central city, stopping for a quick photo with Hans Christian Andersen, near the town hall square, Radhuspladsen.  Continuing on we walked down the cobbled main shopping street, Stoget, alive with Saturday shoppers.

We spent a good amount of time in the amazing Lego Shop, resisting the urge to splash out and buy some supplies for the boys at school, after remembering our carry-on luggage limitations!

Starting to feel the cold by then we continued on to the quayside area of Nyhavn, which translates as 'New Harbour' and has a pretty colorful history with the antics of the sailors that used to frequent the area.  Now days the (then partially frozen) canal is lined with wooden sailboats next to numerous bars and restaurants.  We pretty much dived into the first bar we spotted, a cosy Danish style pub where we spent an hour or so celebrating the beginning of our holiday with a couple of beers and some nibbles.

After that we headed back via the supermarket for a typical budget Strange-style hotel room dinner of cheese and ham sandwiches, washed down by yet another couple of Carlsberg!  And later on some pretty amazing desserts.   I could sense already that this holiday was not going to be good for the waist-line!

Take 2

Tim's turn to cook, a delicious roast lamb dinner.