Summer 2014

Week 3. A Week of Nothing Much

Monday 23rd, Tuesday 24th, Wednesday 25th June 2014.

Three days disappeared in a fog of MAN COLD misery. Three days in which we did nothing and went nowhere. Three days of total misery.

Thursday 26th June 2014.

We moved today. Another day recovering should have happened but having seen and done all we wanted to in Copenhagen we were keen to get on.

The day didn’t start well, I couldn’t get the motor mover to work properly, it seems to be a bad connection somewhere inside the remote control, which if it becomes totally inoperable will potentially give us big problems. The last two sites for instance would have been impossible without it.

We should have moved on Monday, we were going to move to a country neither of us have visited before, Sweden. The easiest way to get from Denmark to Sweden is via the Øresund Bridge, which starts as a tunnel till its under the Danish shipping lanes then rises from the ground  to pass over the Swedish shipping lanes as a suspension bridge. The whole crossing is around 20km long and cost us an eye watering DKK 730 (£78.49) for a one way crossing.

The countryside as we passed was pleasant but uninspiring, unless you are turned on by fir tree plantations which lined either side of largely empty roads. I set the cruise control to the legal limit of 80kph as we left the bridge toll booth and took it off over 300km later just one kilometre from where we are camping. During that journey probably not more than a dozen or so heavy lorries crept past us and we overtook just three vehicles in the whole trip. Sadly the weather which has been mainly good to brilliant since we arrived in Scandinavia has taken a turn for the worst. It has rained almost continuously since we set off this morning and the forecast is for more for some days to come.

The site, Vätterledens Camping which although large, is more of a Caravan Club CL than what we have become used to in our two previous Scandinavian sites. Our pitch does have an uninterrupted view over the lake and wild harebells grow amongst the undergrowth.

Friday 27th June 2014.

The sky although cloudy showed an amount of blue this morning so we were able to sit outside the owners house and use their t’internet to sort the finances, we set up a payment for my credit card to be cleared on Sunday and after completing it discovered it will not be credited till Tuesday so that will attract a £12 late payment fine. Talking of credit cards we had a problem towards the end of our last trip when our bank wrote to us to say that in a spirit of openness the foreign transaction charges that “were always included” would now be shown separately on our statements. It is strange that although the “existing charges” were now clearly shown separately the main cost did not reduce, the cost of withdrawing our money increased by 2.5% and we were paying £12 a month charges for an account that gave special privileges e.g. RAC membership - useless in mainland Europe, travel insurance valid for two weeks holiday a year and, the only thing of interest to us cost free foreign money transactions, and cash withdrawals. We spent a long time researching the best way forward and finally finished up closing the old account and opening a new Halifax Reward account which pays us £5 per month and a Halifax Clarity credit card that charges no fees for foreign transactions or cash withdrawals but does of course charge interest from the moment cash is withdrawn at 12.9% APR. We get around this by buying everything on the credit card and when we need cash we again draw it on the card but as soon as the withdrawal appears on the statement the card gets repaid in full. So far it’s worked well cos we have had reasonable t’internet access.

Saturday 28th June 2014.

Still feeling like death warmed over today. I can't believe that even a MAN COLD could last quite this long so it must be MAN FLU and how long is that going to last? We did go for a drive into town to have a nose around and get a few necessities like beer and wine. The town here is very much a small seaside town with many shops making and selling the local speciality of peppermint rock and two small supermarkets neither of which seemed to stock wine, spirits or any half decent beer. Chatting to the checkout girl she explained that only the government shops could sell wine, spirits or strong beer ordinary shops could only sell low strength beer. We hurried round to the Systembolaget, the state owned liquor store, only to find that its opening hours were Monday to Friday 10.00am till 6.00pm and Saturday 10.00am till 2.00pm. It was 3.00pm. Oh bugger! a teetotal weekend.

Sunday 29th June 2014.

Moving day. Don’t quite know why as we have been no where and done nothing since we arrived here but still had no desire to stay. We moved north and east and are now about 150 km north of Stockholm. The scenery didn’t unfortunately improve very much, we drove mile after through rather dull fir tree plantations although the roads themselves were interesting. Many of the roads here are three lanes wide, this being a super democracy each direction takes equal turns in being first the dual carriageway and then the single carriageway. Not that it makes much difference. We had set the cruise control to the regulation 80kph within 5 minutes of setting off this morning it was on virtually all the way and very little overtook us and we overtook absolutely nothing. The site we are staying on is again small and family run, right on the edge of a lake and miles from anywhere.

Heres hoping next week is better than this one.

Week 2, A good beginning and a bad end.

Monday 16th June 2014

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Moving day. We have been a full week in Ribe and are now moving on to Copenhagen. The journey was easy and quick the roads, in the main, being smooth and relatively empty. The Danes don’t seem to have motorways as we would describe them and although there are no charges for using the main arterial routes we did get charged for crossing the bridge between Nyborg and Korsor costing a staggering £40 OK it is around 15km (9.3m) long but even so. . . .

We arrived in DCU Absalom Camping at around 3.00pm only the second site whilst in Europe we have ever booked, which was a complete waste of time as they had misplaced the booking. Even when I gave them the booking reference number all they could say was “ . . . it must be in here (the computer) somewhere . . . “ it was not. Never mind we got a good pitch.

Tuesday 17th June 2014.

Toddled off to Copenhagen. Suburban and Metro train stations are completely unmanned, tickets can be bought in many places, we bought our multi journey ticket from the camp site. We bought a ten journey ticket for DKK 200 (£21.44) so with each journey costing around £2.14 it’s pretty good value, particularly as for one hour after you punch the ticket when you get to your railway destination you can continue to travel on a bus for no additional cost.

We travelled into Copenhagen central and found our way to the Tourist Centre where we bought a Copenhagen Card which entitles you to free entry at many museums and attractions in the city, reductions in many restaurants and shops and totally free public transport in the region as well as the city itself for the duration of the cards validity which in our case was three days. As the card validity starts from the fist place of interest you visit we decided to start the cards Wednesday morning and today followed a tourist walk through the city, the walk according to the Tourist Centre would take between two and three hours. Over five exhausting hours later we were still only half way round. 

Wednesday 18th June 2014.

The start of our three days with a Copenhagen Card, It was nearly noon when we reached our first stop the Tycho Brahe Planetarium where we saw a stunning 3D astronomy film that would have been perfect had we been able to find the socket for the headphones to get the English soundtrack this was followed buy a totally magical film about the Galapagos Islands which (when we found the headphone socket) had a David Attenborough sound track. We followed the Planetarium visit with one to a Hans Cristian Anderson Museum, a good visit for kids of all ages including retired ones. From the HCA museum our last visit of the day was to the Tivoli Gardens. It is said that you can’t visit Copenhagen without visiting the Tivoli Gardens - I could and will if we visit here again, it seems to have changed from my last visit some ten years or so ago. There now seems much more emphasis on the food (I can’t remember fast food being so prevalent before) and the fun fair that seems to be much bigger and more intrusive than before and the gardens seem smaller and less spectacular.

Thursday 19th June 2014.

On our second day we visited the Rundtårn or Round Tower 35m (115 ft) tall and 15m (49 ft) in diameter it affords a superb platform to view the city. The access to the top is by a cobbled spiral ramp that winds around seven and a half times in it’s 209m (686 ft) length. When opened in 1642 King Constantine IV is said to have ridden his horse to the very top, a stunt repeated in 1716 by the Tsar of Russia, Peter the Great, followed, according to legend, by his wife Tsarina Catherine II, in a coach pulled by six horses. There is now an annual bicycle race in which the winner is the fastest to the top and back without dis-mounting or falling off.

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Third item on the agenda for today was a tour of the city by canal boat. Allowing us to catch our breath the canal trip was informative and pleasant. In the navy area we were told of the seizing of the entire Danish navy fleet by the British and the subsequent building of sheds in which were constructed many small boats not much bigger than rowing boats at the front of which was mounted a single gun. From these vessels the term “gunboat” was, according to the guide, coined. Although the sheds retain their original exteriors they have now been transformed to posh and very expensive flats, restaurants, etc,. One item that every boat trip takes in is The Little Mermaid. The Danes express amazement that this life sized statue is, by foreigners spoken of in the same terms as The Statue of Liberty or The Eiffel Tower and feel that some of their other monuments deserve to be as well known and respected.

The last visit of the day was Rosenborg Slot, this imposing Dutch-Renaissance palace was built in 1606 as a summer residence for Christian IV. It has been a museum open to the public since the early 19th century. The furnishing are sumptuous and the treasury fantastic - no wonder it is one of Copenhagen’s most visited attractions.

Friday 20th June 2014

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Just one item on the agenda today - The Blue Planet, Denmark’s National Aquarium. This vast whirl pool inspired visitor centre opened in 2013 is split into four sections:-

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The Cold Water/The Far North/The Bird Cliff

The Cave/The Lakes of Africa/Evolution

The Rainforest

The Ocean/Coral Reef

The tanks were huge. The biggest, the tank known as The Ocean, contains 4,000,000 litres of water. This centre is without doubt the best aquarium I have ever seen. Indeed during this first year of existence 1.3 million visitors have been, twice the number expected which has led to greater wear than expected and plans are in operation to spend DKK12.5 million (£1,338.000) upgrading the centre.

We left the Blue planet centre around 3.30pm and decided another trip to the Planetarium was in order so back across town we rushed to get there for the 4.00pm showing of 3D D-Day Landings. The 3D effects were stunning and from an historical view I was unaware until I saw this film that although Brits, French, Canadians, Australians etc., etc., etc., were all there it was only Americans that did any fighting and kindly won the war for the rest of us.

Saturday 21st June 2014

Up early today, as we had activated our Copenhagen Cards at around noon on Wednesday we were entitled to use them until noon today so we wanted to see the Danish natural history museum. We didn’t have a map but the book that came with the card gave an address and stated that we needed to get to Norrebro the nearest station. On arrival we looked up and down the station road getting no clues, we showed the book and asked advice of three shopkeepers, all scratched their heads and suggested the shopkeeper next door might know. Danes are very helpful and after standing on a corner looking lost for a few minutes someone will always offer to help. Today was no exception, a lady on a bicycle stopped and offered to help. She looked at the address and could not understand why we had been sent to this station, she said we would need to get one bus from here to half way there then another bus for the next half then walk a bit . . . . It was getting late by now our cards were only valid for another half hour so we cut our losses and went back to the caravan.

The Copenhagen Cards were not cheap at DKK 559 (£59.83) each but as we had over DKK 987 (£105.65) worth of product, they were good value. We visited a wide variety of interesting places across Copenhagen some of which we would have missed without access to the cards.

Sunday 22nd June 2014

Woke up with a cold today, and not just any old cold, no a proper MAN COLD. Going to retire to bed and hope it goes away.

Week 1 - Ribe, Denmark

Monday 9th June 2014.

We had decided on our first Danish site being fairly close to Esjberg ferry terminal so that with a 1.00pm arrival we could get to our first site quickly and easily where we could wind down and relax after the last few hectic weeks rushing around.

There are only 84 ACSI and 32 Camping Cheques camping sites in the whole of Scandinavia which, as we approach the high season, becomes less and less as the summer season gets under way so our choice of sites was fairly limited. W,e chose Ribe Camping as it was (sort of) in the right direction for where we want to go, and a very good choice it turned out to be.

Tuesday 10th June 2014.

Anticipating that the time the freezer would be without electricity would be in excess of 20 hours we emptied it and threw everything out of the fridge that was likely to go bad in that time and so arrived in Denmark with no fresh food so the priority this morning was a supermarket and getting stocked up. It would also enable us to get of an idea if how right were those who said Scandinavia was very expensive. Well there is good news and bad news. Diesel is cheaper, fresh fish is expensive as is most wine, although it starts at DKK 50 (£5.40) beer seems cheaper with everything else in the supermarkets being about the same. Give it a couple of weeks and we will find out how Sweden compares.

Wednesday 11th June 2014.

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Market day today so we toddled off to town with the hope of picking up some good fruit and veg, unfortunately the market comprised one fruit and veg stall and a dozen bric a brac stalls - very disappointing. We did though find an ice-cream shop that not only sold fabulous ice-cream they made all their own cones by hand in the shop window, fascinating and delicious.

The town is startlingly clean with no litter anywhere and surprisingly very few litter bins. People are expected to, and do, take their litter home.

We had our second BBQ in two days tonight; last night we had the traditional sausages, burgers and pork fillet served with a salad and washed down with a bottle of white port that was, obviously, not as cheap as in Portugal but, at just over a fiver, cheaper than in UK, while tonight we BBQ’d half a chicken, served it with salad and a bottle’s worth of Portuguese red wine that we bought for DKK 90 (£9.22 or equivalent to £2.43 a bottle) for a 3 litre box.Perhaps we won’t be teetotal for the next four months as we expected -HURRAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!! 🍻

Thursday 12th June 2014

I went to bed at 11.30pm last night and it was as light as it was at 5.30pm and when Sue toddled to the loo at 12.30 there was still dusk light in the sky.

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Lots to do today, Sue has a long itinerary. Well that was the idea, the first item on the agenda was Gramslot Castle described in the guide as a “unique experience” well it certainly was that. The castle tours happen on Friday morning (out of season), there is a market every Thursday - but only in season. It was a very pretty area but with little public access we got back in the car and travelled to our next point - Mundø Island. Its not possible to get to Mundo by car -  there are tractor and horse drawn busses as well as guided walks over the mud flats where you can collect your own oyster lunch. All very exciting - till we got there! Although there are a number of signs etc in English the whole place was chaotic, people wandering about. We were unable to make head nor tail of what was going on so it was back in the car and on to the next exciting event. The island of Rømø is the southern most of the Danish Wadden Sea islands there is a causeway with a wide tarmac road to the islands 129 km² and 650 inhabitants. Rømø was the centre of Denmark’s lucrative whaling industry. We visited the Captains House dating from 1748 which is now a museum housing a variety of interesting artefacts (including a skeleton of a Sperm Whale). The museum is free to entrée and some information is in English although most is in Danish and German only.

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From the Old Captains House we went a few hundred metres north to se a fence built in 1772 from whale jawbones interesting - for a fence but the best sight of the day and almost next to the jawbones was a field full of large poppies and cornflowers. The contrast of red and blue was stunning.

That letter Ø by the way seems to be a letter in it’s own right and in the Danish alphabet apparently comes before Å but after Æ which in turn comes after Z. 

Had our third BBQ of the week tonight. There is very little chance of getting extra gas on this trip so we are going to conserve gas by using a BBQ at every opportunity and when we saw the “Cobb BBQ” demonstrated by Rosemary and Frank in Portugal we were very impressed indeed. The Cobb BBQ was apparently designed for use in the townships of South Africa where there was often no electricity or gas and limited wood for use in cooking. We were less than impressed when we bought one and tried it out, finishing up with quite a poor meal but remembering the tasty meals R&F cooked for us on the same type of equipment we persevered and now having completed almost a half dozen BBQ’s we are getting the hang of it.

Friday 13th June 2014

It’s a good job I didn’t realise the date until after it had been and gone or I might have worried about the possibilities for bad luck on Friday 13th, particularly as we decided to drive 50 miles south to “pop” into Germany for a couple of hours, there is a large caravan/motorhome dealer there that we thought may stock the “Europe Fill It In As You Visit Maps” I have been trying to get for several years (they are made in Germany) but unfortunately no luck although we did get a roasting grid for the Cobb BBQ. It was a pleasant drive through countryside very reminiscent of The Netherland in both architecture and almost obsessional cleanliness. What must some Europeans think when they get of the ferry at Dover and see the mess we create for ourselves.

Saturday 14th June 2014

Had a wander round Ribe today, we had gone specifically to visit the cathedral but there were weddings all day and it was closed to tourists. We did however visit a superb glass shop where the owner had made all sorts of glass items from very large bowls to lamp shades from key rings to pictures and wall plaques. One of the sad parts about this life style is that we would love to bring back some local craft work from the places we visit but simply cannot carry the weight, neither can we afford to keep replacing caravans wrecked by overloading.

Ribe boasts it’s own brewery, a micro-brewery that the owners sourced the main equipment in Warwick, England and so brew English style beers and ales. I had to try some - purely for research purposes you understand - and found them to be very good indeed.

Tried out the new roasting rack on the Cobb tonight it worked well, just a pity the sausages were tasteless still the pork steaks were fine

Sunday 15th June 2014

Back to Ribe again today to try to visit the cathedral, but being Sunday there were services all day and it was closed to tourists for the duration. While in town yesterday we got a leaflet detailing a historic walk around the town so this morning instead of climbing the new cathedral tower, one of the two old ones collapsed Christmas day 1283 killing many of the congregation, we went on the official tourist walk of the town. Very interesting but the leaflet contained so many dates, facts and figures that most of them went whoosh as they passed me by.

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Despite the suitable weather we postponed the BBQ tonight to go back into town to see the Ribe Night Watchman first employed around 1269 (not the one we saw) the watchmen’s duty was to maintain order on the streets of Ribe and to watch for fires and threatening storm floods. In 1902 the Night Watchman’s duties were withdrawn as un-necessary but in 1935 the tradition was revived as part of a tourism drive and the tradition survives to this day when at 8.00pm and 10.00pm dressed in his traditional old fashioned uniform and with his formidable mace in one hand and candle lamp in the other the Might Watchman takes you on a guided tour on the town singing the traditional songs and telling the history of the town. The tour is free and the late tour follows a different route to the earlier one.

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Getting Going!

Well, it’s pretty well all done! and what’s not done is going to remain undone, still the house is finished and the first person to view has laid down a deposit and hopes to move in late this or early next month.

The house refurbishment has taken so long that unfortunately there is a number of people we had intended to visit before we left but have been unable to. Its quite a long list, so if you were expecting a visit - Sorry.

We spent Saturday cleaning the car and repacking both the van and the car. We seem to be carrying less than ever, but that may be because a number of unfortunate relatives have found themselves looking after piles of our unwanted kit - thank you Carol and Paul, thank you Brenda and Dave, thank you Pam.

On Sunday we hoped to relax during the morning before leaving the site at around one o’clock for the short run to Harwich to catch the 4.45pm ferry. Unfortunately Sue slept badly Saturday night and woke with a bit of a dicky tummy so everything took longer than usual and things started breaking so I had to make a second visit of the day to Homestead Caravans for spares. Lets hope thats it in the breakage stakes.

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We arrived at the grandly named Harwich International Ferry Port quite early and was directed to a particular queue by an efficient young lady with a reflective jacket and a radio. Then with around two and a half hours before departure time were checked in through customs and told to wait in lane eight for loading. At the departure time we were still in lane eight waiting to load, all the trucks were on, all the cars were on, all the motor cycles and pedal cycles were on but the caravans and motor homes still sat there. We did eventually board and not much more than thirty minutes behind schedule we were nosing our way down the River Stour and into the River Orwell. We were on our way.

It’s a pleasant boat but, sad to say the service is ceasing in September and all the land crew have been served with redundancy notices. It seems the Danish government want cleaner engines and fuel than DFDS insist is economic and neither will give way so unless another operator steps in the only way to Esbjerg, Denmark will be a 650 mile drive overland.

We dropped into “tightwad” mode for our night on board looking at the menus outside the various restaurants we a) saw nothing we particularly fancied and b) £40 a head for what appeared to be uninspired food was about £30 too much so we sat in our cabin eating cheese and biscuits washed down with a bottle of ruby port and watched an old movie on the computer.

We elected to eat a boat breakfast which was much more to our liking; a buffet style eat all you want affair for just DKK 118 (£13.13) per head. Most Enjoyable.

Denmark Arrival

We have spoken to Danes who have been visiting UK and who say that the prices in both countries seem, to them, to be about equal so we had a rummage in the on board shop and found that wine started at DKK 55 (£5.90) and a full litre of 47% Bombay Saphire gin is DKK 175 (£18.80) thats less than you would pay for a 75cl bottle of 40% in UK - at least thats what I told myself as I bought a bottle.

Despite leaving a little late the ferry arrived on time and with just a short delay we were away into Denmark not for the first ever visit but the first ever visit with our own car and caravan.

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Our new adventure had begun.


Last updated Sunday 14th September 2014                                                                                              © S W Ghost 2014