Week 1 continued...

We spent our first few days in Denmark in and around Ellum, where Bjarne lives with his partner, Heidi, and Heidi's 17 year old daughter, Ninna. Ellum is tiny - a village of around 100 people and is in the country about 20km north of the German border. Their gorgeous house has been lovingly restored (much of it by Bjarne himself) over the past 30 or so years and is set in a beautiful garden, complete with its own lake and with resident chickens. I met Bjarne in 1999, when he came to NZ as part of a study tour for Danish principals. He stayed with me for about 10 days then and we've been in intermittant contact ever since. It was remarkably easy to pick up again after all these years and we have felt incredibly comfortable and relaxed within no time... Mind you, with wonderful (and plentiful!) food and wine, and a common interest in education, the signs were good from the start.

With Bjarne as our guide, we discovered the nearby towns of Logumkloster, Tonder and Mogultonder as well as the lowland area behind the dykes nearby. We also visited the Ecco factory shop in Brederbro but Heidi was our guide on that occasion. We found what we were looking for - a pair of sandals to replace J's aging ones.

Thursday was the highlight of the first week, however, with a visit to Copenhagen - Little Mermaid, walk along the port, changing the guards at the royal palace, (Tivoli closed) walk around the old centre... all very lovely. The wide streets, easy atmosphere and beautiful situation on the water would tempt us back for a longer visit but that will be for another time. The very best bit of the day, however, was on the way 'home' to Ellum. (You adopt homes very quickly when you don't have one of your own any more.) Having mentioned to Bjarne before we arrived that we were both interested in bridges, he had managed to arrange a very special visit to the Storebaeltsbroen (Google it for more info), the second longest suspension bridge in the world. (For those interested, the longest is in Japan).

We were met by Peter Thyssen, the chief supervisor of the bridge from the start of its construction in the 1980s until now - a man who knows all there is to know about it and who obviously enjoyed sharing 'his' bridge with us. We parked on the bridge, took the lift to the top of one of the pylons (250m in four and a half minutes) . The view from the top was, as you might expected, breathtaking. You couldn't quite see forever as the day was sunny but hazy. It was also almost perfectly still, which was a blessing because it could be very exposed and windy up there!!! We decided when we were up that we were quite possibly on Denmark's highest point and were able to confirm that later as Denmark's highest hill is around 173m high. As well as going up the pylon, we visited an island that supports one of the other pylons - the bridge company looks after the environment and the heritage of the island, which is home to a lighthouse and a former prison for women, as well as many birds, frogs and other wetland creatures. All in all, we spent a most enjoyable couple of hours in Peter's company and still can't believe how lucky we were to be able to visit the bridge in this way!

Friday and Saturday were spent looking around the local area again... both by car and by bike. We are both rediscovering the joys (and the pain) of cycling again after many years' break (at least 30 years in J's case). We thought it a good idea to get in training for France but bottoms need to be broken in... We will be looking for bikes with comfortable seats!!!

Catherine

Week 1: NZ (Seoul) Amsterdam Ellum

What a relief (isn't it always?) to finally get on the international flight knowing there is no more that can be done to organise things at home! Packing up had its moments but they were more than balanced by lovely farewells - at work and especially at Graeme's on the Sunday before we left...

The Korean Airlines experience was overall a good one: excellent price @ $1917 return each; ample leg room; very good service, good food (except the green cake, which neither of us could fathom) and in-flight entertainment of a kind. The best parts, though, were the layover in Seoul, where we stayed at the luxurious Hyatt Incheon only minutes from the airport, and the lack of passengers on the flight through to Amsterdam, which meant we had room to stretch out (across four seats each at one stage!). The best airline can be the one with the fewest customers and perhaps next time we will actually stop in Seoul for a look around.

Two days in Amsterdam - freezing and occasionally wet. The Amsterdam destination was decided before we had found a boat (where better to look for one?) and we were happy not to have to spend too much time there - not because we didn't like it but because it was expensive to stay there. Our B&B, which was very good, was one of the least expensive places we could find on the internet @ 76 euros a night. It was a bit away from the centre but the trams made getting around a piece of cake (also quite cheap) and breakfasts were spectacular! Highlights included the Van Gogh Museum and a chance encounter with a regatta of sailing barges on Sunday afternoon in Volendam - beautiful, old-fashioned sailling vessels for as far as the eye could see and perfect sailing conditions meaning they slipped effortlessly across the water.

From Amsterdam we travelled by train (nearly 9 hours of flat, flat, flat, flat land) to Niebuell (don't worry, no-one else has heard of it either) in Northern Germany just south of the Danish border. Why Niebuell? We were under instructions from our host, Bjarne, to get off there because it's what all the Danes from the south do, the trains in Denmark being somewhat expensive (along with most other things, as it turns out).


The next part of what I've written has just completely disappeared from the blog so I'm giving up in disgust at this point. Will re-write it again soon and add photos when I work out the best way to do it.


Catherine