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!