Denmark Diary 2: Western Denmark Study Tour

We are back in Copenhagen. The kids and I had the amazing opportunity to join Jonathan's three-day study tour with 28 students to see some contemporary and historical sites in the western part of Denmark, on the island of Fyn and in Jutland. The next three posts are going to be my record of the trip - mind you, there will be A LOT of photos...

We left Copenhagen at 8:00 am on Thursday, July 19th. Our first stop was Koldinghus Castle, in the town of Kolding located on the south central part of Jutland. It took almost three hours on the bus from Copenhagen. Koldinghus is a Danish royal castle built in the 13th century, but in 1808, a fire lit by Spanish soldiers left the castle in ruins. An extensive restoration of the site began in 1976 and was completed in 1991. What is amazing about the restoration is that, instead of "rebuilding" and "restoring" the ruined sections to its original state, the missing parts of the wall were filled in with wooden walls (instead of bricks) suspended from the roof, so that it is easy to distinguish the original sections of the building from the restored sections. The architectural effect is pretty amazing, and how they embraced and actually enhanced the ruins with the use of wood and lights was quite beautiful.

The facade of the castle.

The courtyard.

Sketching time with daddy.

The restored castle functions as a museum containing old Danish paintings and crafts such as ceramics and silver. We didn't have time to explore much of the museum part, but I got to see the Poul Henningsen lighting exhibition in the cellar gallery of the castle. PH (as he is often referred to as in Denmark) was an architect, but he is probably most famous for his lamp design. I am not a designer lamp connoisseur, but his works are familiar to me, as my parents had a PH lamp in our dining room growing up, which later came to my room. So it was nice to see all his work, including the very lamp we had, in such a special place like this.

Poul Henningson lighting exhibit in the cellar gallery.

A little sward training session in the beautiful chapel.

Our next stop was the Trapholt Museum for Modern Art. The museum is one of Denmark's largest modern-art museums. The museum is also home to the world's largest collection of Danish-designed chairs, which was very impressive. And just as notable as the collections of the art and furniture of the museum is the museum building itself, which of course is the main reason of the study tour's visit. The museum is in fact beautiful in itself, and it was very enjoyable to walk through the corridor leading to different rooms. And the setting was so beautiful. I really enjoyed the museum.

After a short stop at a small church called the Skanderup Church, we finally arrived at our hotel, well, actually a Youth Hostel in Skanderborg, located right by Skanderborg Lake. Let me just say that the accommodation (the room) itself was very, very basic (almost shockingly so...), but the setting was just AMAZING it totally made up for the low standard of the room! The lake was just so peaceful and pristine.

We went for a quick canoeing before dinner. First time for the kids! It was fun, but quite nerve-racking as they could easily fall into the water if one of them decides to stand and lose balance!

After dinner, we had a bonfire by the lake. Several students worked hard on building the fire, but it took a while, probably because it had been raining. So in America, the classic tradition is to toast marshmallows when people have a campfire (or bonfire) - though I have never done that myself... But in Denmark, the tradition is to toast ("bake" to be precise) some bread on a stick! When Rasmus, Jonathan's co-teacher who was also on the trip, told us about this, we thought you put a piece of bread on a stick and toast it over the fire. Nope! They brought us two big buckets of bread dough and another bucket full of cooked red sausages. Rasmus gave us a very good (and quite entertaining) instructions on how to put the dough onto a stick and cook it. Once the bread is done, you pull it off the stick, and if you like (it's optional), you can shove a sausage into the hole of the bread, which I did. The bread has a little sweet taste to it, and it was not bad. Actually quite good with a sausage.

It was getting late, so we had to head back to our room to let the kids sleep, but at that point, they were still about half way through the first bucket of dough. And I learned the next morning that they actually finished both buckets of dough! I couldn't believe how much bread and sausages the students ate! A sure sign that they liked it, so I guess that's a good thing.

Mio and Yuto ended up going to bed so late. In fact we all went to bed around the same time, around 11:00 pm. Going through our mind was the thought that tomorrow is going to be a pretty rough day with two sleep-deprived children...