Today is our last full day here in Scandinavia, specifically Denmark, and since we did the "city day" yesterday in Copenhagen, we decided to do a quick lap around the countryside to see how the Danes live. Breakfast and then in the car to drive north to Frederiksborg Castle which was built by Christian IV (my new hero) as his "usual place". We saw his place in Copenhagen yesterday and it was fantastic. So we used this castle as an excuse to get out of dodge and see the countryside. This castle, even after being partially burned down and rebuilt a few times is big and beautiful. It is a bit overwhelming and confusing because they filled it with what appears to be every painting of every monarch, every chest of drawers ever carved as presents to every royal family ever being royal. They also loaded it up with church stuff, knight stuff and anything else they had crammed into back closets and sheds. I went to see my hero Christian IV and ended up seeing all the Christian IV wannabees. It is nonetheless impressive, and the Danes have out of the public money kept it up and are very proud of everything there. I need to research who married whom before I go back so I can keep track of who all these people are.
Did I mention Denmark is also chock full of wind turbines? When we flew in I could count a couple dozen as we landed. Denmark has been developing wind turbines for decades and last I checked they were considered the largest maker of turbines. They get 20% of their electricity from wind energy. When you drive around, you will see 1, 2, 3 5, 20, all different number and also all sized turbines you can imagine because the small ones are the earlier ones that are still running today. They usually sit in fields with wheat growing around them, but many are off-shore. I drove by a bunch of really old ones today and then realized they were sitting in the back yard of Risø. Riso is the standards organization whose papers I have been reading for the last few decades and here they are 6km from my hotel. Very cool. Pretty clunky looking wind turbines though.The countryside is covered with wheat and someone told us today that is is just about ready to harvest and because the weather has been so wet, they have to act quickly when it is ready and when the weather cooperates so it is dry enough.
We drove north to the coast and stopped in the town of Gilleleje. They have a walking mall down town (2 blocks so it is a small town) and a beach with free parking and nice benches for people to sit and relax. I have probably commented before on the "public wealth" here. The roads are in good shape, the public transportation, either train or bus goes everywhere and is simple but well maintained, and there are lots of simple, well-groomed parks for people to enjoy. They get free college tuition (only 4 year university, not grad school) and 1000Kr per month to live on while they are in school. Health care is provided (by the way we were told that if a foreigner gets hurt here, they are taken care of compliments of Denmark, although I doubt it would cover triple heart bypasses or the like), and maternity leave is pretty generous (read David Brooks pieces on the value of early childhood care based on statistics). What you do not see a lot of is really wealthy people, although we did see some nice oceanside homes today, so there must be some. Maybe I have rose colored glasses here but they seem proud to contribute to the public wealth and it shows.
So we tried to get lost on some rural roads, which is hard because there are not that many roads being a small island (we were not on the larger part of Denmark). We found a bakery and bought real Danish danishes for our son Jake (Jake, don't read this. It is supposed to be a surprise for tomorrow) and they wrapped it up special so it would last the day in a box, gift wrapped. Nice touch.
We were pretty beat from the almost 3 weeks of travel and decided to head back to the hotel and pack and get a last dinner in town somewhere. We actually stopped by the big Cathedral in town and took a few pictures, but never made it to the Viking Ship Museum. I think we hit saturation sometime in the last day or 2.
We picked up a few things to bring home, found some pizza for dinner (we've found Scandinavian pizza to be really good, and different than home), went back to the hotel, and packed. Tomorrow it is back to those thieving vikings at Iceland Air. This time we come prepared with real kroners (Swedish and Danish, so take that).
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