Hoeganaes, the home of ceramics in the middle of a stunning natural reserve

Ever since we started researching this trip I've been just a little obsessed with visiting Hoegenaes.

The Kullaberg peninsula, a beautiful place for a bike ride.  Hoegenaes is the town in the harbour at the top left of the picture.

I can't really explain why I had to go there, it was partly to do with their Tuesday night fish grill.  But also because of the large national park on the peninsula to the north of the town.  Add to that an airfield right in town and an abundance of potters and I'm there.

We didn't stay for that long, just enough for a bike ride up to Moelle, a beautiful little harbour, beloved of tourists since some time in the late 19th century.  We also had a look at a couple of old churches and the odd potter.

Krapperup castle, note the lovely and unusual star decoration built into the building.

and Krapperup castle from the air

I thought the provision of a communal fish smoker at Molle harbour was particularly nice.  Wood and lighting materials are stored under the nearby table.

This was a really  nice windmill from wooden 'slates', staves.

As to the history, Hoegenaes has a very large coal deposit that people started mining in 1780.  Having abundant fuel the region developed into a centre for industrial and art ceramics.  Traditionally the area produces salt glazed pottery, a dark brown shiny pottery which is fired for much longer than stoneware and is a lot harder and was used in the past for water pipes etc.

But I'm going to put up a separate post for ceramics!

A few of my favourite things (in Denmark)

I'm a bit behind with my blogging, but I'm sure you can still notice that we've spent a lot of time in Denmark.  Probably around 6 weeks over 3 separate visits.  So the question is what is so special about Denmark.  In no particular order:

1) The people.  They really are wonderfully kind, interesting and helpful.  Big thanks to Regnar and Eva; Birgitte and Morten; Lars, Catrine and of course Mercedes; Rune; Aasbjoern; Patrick and the many others who have helped make our trip so much fun.

and how could I leave out Legoland???

I could add a lot about the society here, but will attempt to keep it brief.  Kids are treated as humans, and have a lot of fun at school.  They often spend a year at a special school like the one we visited with Rune on Samso where they stay as boarders and get to do lots of really fun courses (parachuting anyone?).  The community looks after its kids with all adults keeping an eye out for the young and provides several great services including areas where youth can hang out with adult supervision with computers for gaming, pool and table tennis tables and karaoke machines.  Most of the local youth seems to spend time at such youth centres and to develop a positive relationship with adults not their own parents.  There are also special morning screenings at the cinema for mothers: the babies are left in their prams outside the cinema with half a ticket stub on them and if they start screaming and staff or other adults can't calm them, the mother will then be found.

6 weeks a year holidays in the public service, plus 2 days per child off to look after them when they are sick.  Fabulous.

2)  Paalaegschokolade.  Really thin slices of chocolate that are eaten on white bread for breakfast.  Nicer than nutella and definitely a smaller portion than what I end up spreading.

3)  Concentrated fruit juice.  You can buy the concentrate and reconstitute it yourself, saving on packaging and transport, brilliant!

This is just the one glass variety you get at conferences, but the same 1:4 principle applies!

4)  The fish.

Julian about to enjoy his platter

5)  The chairs.   We went to some fabulous shops and design museums in Aarhus, Copenhagen and Kolding and discovered that what I have previously found so elusive; furniture that is comfortable, is a given in Denmark and also looks good.  Of course it has an associated price tag, but considering how much time you spend at the dinner table or on the sofa, how could it not be worth it!  I would love to hear your thoughts and inspirations on good and bad furniture buys.

This is not in a design shop, but someone's home.  These fabulous chairs are comfortable sitting up straight or sitting sideways with your legs across the arm.

Comfortable dining chairs, who would have thought of it?

Note the fabulous cast concrete design museum.  Pity the roof leaks!

6)  There are many other great building design elements that I love, but of course I'm looking with the eyes of someone about to build.

Note double sided stove, light shades and my favourite roofing: a mix of saw offcuts and concrete that looks great and absorbs a huge amount of sound.

No more mucky cleaning around the base of the tap and mouldy silicon when your tap comes out of the wall.  The drawers also open themselves when you push against them, great for when you are cooking.

Aarhus: vikings and bog bodies

Aarhus was more challenging from an airfield finding perspective, as all the airfields are quite a way from town.  Luckily we managed to get in contact with the owner of a private strip (Hardy) who very kindly allowed us to land on his strip.  But we were a bit concerned when we flew over to discover a Piper in the middle of the runway!

and evidently it's normally there, since it's been mown around!

Luckily there was another runway across alongside the lake, so we took that instead and landed just as it was starting to rain.  Hardy & his wife soon arrived in a little SLK, saying that they'd been waiting for us.  Oops, that was a miscommunication, we try to tell people when we expect to arrive, but didn't think they'd be kind enough to wait around to drive us in to town too.  Unfortunately our bicycles, stuff and ourselves were a little large for the SLK's back seat / boot.  So we went to the garage to see if we could jump start the Rolls that had had its lights left on recently.  No luck.  Frankly I was pretty worried about my tires getting anywhere near that cream upholstery, so back to plan c, a few minutes later Hardy came back with a big trailer hitched to the back of the SLK, bikes in and off we went in the by now heavy rain.

Hardy & Lars with another of Hardy's toys

We were very lucky that Rune from Samso's friend Asbjoern had offered to host us for a few nights in Aarhus.  He has a quite amazing apartment in the centre of Aarhus with some really lovely features, including some very old tall succulents / cacti.  Asbjoern lives an enviable alternative lifestyle, that involves working on projects as architect / builder, sailing, and travelling the world.  He has developed a new interpretation of rune stones, which gives meaning to some of the more abstruse messages, but I won't tell you too much, as there will be a book.  A great thing about this trip has been meeting all the different people and seeing how many different ways there are of leading a fulfilling life.

I love the peacefulness of this space (and in fact the entire flat)

We did a lot of bumbling around Aarhus with the bikes, and saw some really lovely buildings.  Aarhus has 250K - 350K inhabitants depending on who you speak to, so it's easy to live close to the centre and there are so many fabulous major city touches, like the city centre, first inhabited by the vikings, with remnants of viking houses found under the recently built bank now on display downstairs in the bank.  That inspired us to go a bit out of town to see the Mosegaard museum, which has the best preserved peat bog body in the world.  It is really amazing, as the peat has tanned the skin so it looks like an incredibly well sculpted piece of ebony.  We also saw the oldest glass bead in the world, from Bahrain, which didn't look like much but was pretty interesting.  ARoS art museum is really world class, and being a little smaller than the Tate Modern, has a really good scale to look around in one day.

ARoS

Right before leaving Lars took us to Friland, quite a large area devoted to straw bale houses.  We got shown through the guy who organised the area's house, which really impressed me, especially the good insulation and central wood oven that burns one small briquette a day to heat the entire house in winter, as there are pipes taking the heat all around the walls.  It even has a spot where you could bake bread if you were so inclined.

how beautiful does this one look!  I'm not sure if there's a practical purpose for the towers - maybe for water pressure?  Ideas anyone?

isn't this stove amazing

This diaphragm styled roof on the above building looks stunning

The road to Aarhus, running from the rain.

The forecast weather was rain, rain and more rain.  We'd forgotten Julian's sandals on Morsoe and we wanted to see Orla and his lovingly restored Stinson in Viborg on the way through to Aarhus.  The met office said the weather would set in around midday.  So it was a rush. 

land and dash action

By dint of hurrying a lot were were hardly late at all on our schedule and landed on one of Viborg's two excellently tended grass runways by 10.15am.  The Danes are very hospitable and Orla brought bread rolls and jam (typical Danish breakfast) as well as, you guessed it, a Danish, mmmmm.  Lars and Mercedes made it too.  Lars often looks at Mercedes in conversation and says 'Eh Mercedes' for confirmation and after a while I found myself doing the same, at which Lars looked quizzical, but didn't disturb Mercedes in the slightest.  Due to the weather there was only time for a short chat and a quick trip in each plane.  We now know what they called the Stinson the cadillac of the skies, it hugely comfortable with great controls and even a good view out (unusual for a tail dragger).  Lars' plane is one he built himself out of metal and is a STOL, so it takes off from very little runway, not too fast but fabulous for photography.  Mercedes has her own dog earphones, which she doesn't really like and keeps pulling off.

kawaii

Stauning: where planes retire

Stauning is Denmark's big air museum and absolutely fascinating if you're into planes.  I quite liked it, especially all the historical planes and the amazing old gliders, where you basically sat on a little plywood seat in the middle of the sky and had one ski on the bottom to land on.  Wacky.  Here are some pictures.

Awesome old training plane, note that there are no flaps / ailerons, the wing itself flexes to control the lift...

see the ski and the little ply seat open to the elements!

We stayed several days, as the weather was less ideal.  One day was well spent at the museum, then Lars and Mercedes came to visit, so we never made it to the local town.

Mercedes finding something magical under the heather

Stauning itself is a nice long tarmac runway.  Landing fee approx. 85 DKK, the first night for a bunk in the pilot's cabin is 150 DKK (20€) per person, which is higher than average & contrary to what is indicated on their website, subsequent nights are cheaper.  2 plate electric hob, coffee machine, fridge & television all available, but you need to fiddle a bit to make the TV work.  If you stay at the cabin you can also use their bicycles for free.

Essential travel kit: my Garmin Edge 605

Without which I would be literally lost.  Now that I've discovered that I can actually type in addresses and search for local museums and get directed there it's functionality for me has greatly increased.  The only problem?  Garmin has recently brought out the new Edge 800, touch screen, faster, lighter & better looking....

Garmin Edge 605

vs the new Garmin Edge 800

More seriously though the things that bug me about the 605:  it can be a bit slow to find satellites
it's way too slow in recalculating routes.
There were only major roads on the GPS before I purchased the Europe NT map set, so do consider the approx £80 of the map cost as part of the package cost when contemplating purchase of this GPS.  I did consider getting just the UK maps, but I have used everywhere from Sweden, Finland, Norway, Denmark, France, Germany and I wouldn't be without it.  Of course with only basic software I had the impression that the machine ran faster.  I bought the maps in the CD format rather than SD card.  I'm not sure if the SD would have been faster because it's not on the hardware, but with the CD I can plan routes on my computer (which I never do) and I could also just put one country on the GPS at a time if I were organised.

Samsoe: Energy self sufficient island

Samso international terminal 1

This was our second destination with Clare and Guntram.  You wouldn't belive it but even a small distance like the 45nm from Egeskov on Funen island to Samso island actually takes a while if you need to ferry people and gear – 3h flying in total for Julian! Samso airfield is small & quiet, a great location for a break, especially considering that it's on the sea. When the weather was good we saw visitors from Germany, Copenhagen and many other parts of Denmark.

Pretty old houses in Nordby village

Samso is world renowned and most impressive as it's completely self sufficient energy wise – they put up 11 wind turbines, which are part owned (subscription) by the local people and over the year provide more energy than is used on the island. Many people come to study Samsoe from overseas, though I am not sure how well it would manage to be self sufficient if the population were larger.

Solar array

Great wind indicator at the centre for sustainable energy.  We hoped to go back and look inside, but....

Over several days we managed to cycle all around Samsoe, which is also Copenhagen's veg box, and there were great vegetable stalls everywhere, which caused Guntram great consternation in deciding which vegetables were needed.....

Claire & Guntram just leaving the airfield

There were also heaps of Loppen (garage sales or in Swedish Loppis), really strange as they always seem to be selling junk that a) no one would want to buy, b) no one would have ever wanted to buy, so where does the stuff come from????? Having completely ignored the Loppis in Sweden we decided that we should take in this cultural phenomenon and inspected all stalls we passed.

Julian inspects the folding chairs

And Guntram contemplates whether he really needs best of Eurovision 1983

Samso is really great to cycle around, as it's fairly flat and there really isn't much traffic.  Well except for this caravan, which we passed in total 4 times as we stopped to look at stuff.

Apparently weekly rental of horses and caravans is a new business venture for Samso (though I see that they do similar on the German East Fresian Isles), which does seem a lovely relaxing way to holiday.  We prefered the North peninsula to the South, simply because of spectacular Langor harbour and beautiful Nordby village.

Langor harbour

There were a lot of very talented potters and other artists on the island, but since it was no longer peak holiday season, everyone seemed to have different opening hours and we didn't manage to have a look in any open shop (other than the supermarkets).

After a few days on Samso Rune, who runs Samso International Airport suggested that we give a 1.5h lecture to his Flight students.  That evening.  So it ended up being a pretty hectic day with Julian sorting through our photos to get some nice shots for one 45 min lecture 'the build', and a second 45 min lecture 'the trip'.  Denmark has a unique schooling system with approximately 10% of students going to boarding school, and some boarding schools like this one on Samso offer 'adventure' subjects to attract the students.  A few of the other subjects on offer were parachuting, bunji jumping, scuba diving and horse riding.  So the students were around 15-17 years old but seemed to concentrate surprisingly well.  If you would like us or Julian to give a talk, please let us know, we're relatively well prepared now!

some of the class

Clare had to get back to work in Berlin, but we weren't very lucky with the weather - we had planned to take her and Guntram back to Flensburg by plane, but there was lots of low cloud and rain, so we sent them off by ferry.

And of course the weather cleared up the day after they left.  So we went kayaking across to Langor, as Rune has not just bicycles available for hire on Samso's airfield, but also 3 kayaks (one double).

Quite shallow water and so beautiful!

It was a pity about the wind on the day we chose, which made it pretty hard work, but still fun!

Gratuitous group shot including Rune, Eva and Mille

So in summary Samso was a really lovely place and a great destination for flying in Denmark. Rune was most helpful and all the necessary facilities were available (including 2 toilets and a shower).

Egeskov Slot (castle), so good that there is a scale replica in Japan

Julian's sister Clare had a week free, so she and her boyfriend Guntram decided to see some of Denmark with us. So we brought out the big guns, Egeskov castle.  The plan was to pick them both up at Flensburg on the German border, about 45mins flight away and fly them up to Egeskov. The sun was shining & the weather looked fanstastic from our camp at Morso, so we just hoped in CGOL for the hour hop south. And the horizon just kept getting grayer. 

Egeskov castle from the air as we came over, as you can see it's a bit misty.  Otherwise note rose gardens to the left, hedge maze to the top right and Renaissance gardens hidden below a bush to the bottom right

Castle with excellent topiary in the foreground - the first peacock I've seen.

Anyway next day we managed to pick them up, by which time the weather was stunning again, so we had a good look at Egeskov's most impressive gardens: renaissence (fleur de lys shaped), rose, kitchen (in four sections including medicinal), vegetable, hedge maze, old hedge maze, deer park, etc. etc. Until 1962 it was a normal castle with the usual problem of agriculture not bringing in enough cash for the upkeep so transforming the until then rather pedestrian gardens into something special and opening the whole place to the visitors was an inspired move. 

The treetop walk was one of the best I've ever been on, as it felt like an old school suspension bridge in a Western, whilst being really quite solid

And this is the engineering holding the bridges up...

Guntram and I lost the race to the centre of the maze

Clare & I in the middle of the herb garden

With all the recent rain, the question on everyone's lips was: what about the harvest, as the wheat had been looking very ripe.  So at 9pm the questions was answered....

Note harvester behind my head in this idyllic picnic scene!

Unfortunately for Egeskov dew point was reached not long after this (about 10.30), which on the other hand was great for a peaceful night's sleep for us.

 The following day the weather was bad again so we looked inside the castle and at the enormous car, motorcycle, bike museums. Since we were a bit tired of camping beside a main road (we just pitched our tent next to the plane as it was raining when we landed), we decided it was time to move on to Samso.

Amazing old bicycle

Another awesome 3 wheel scooter based car that I'd never heard of before, the Trojan.