Bohus Fastning

Bohus Fastning is a ruined fortress that never fell to an enemy attack, despite being sieged more than 14 times. You can't tell from the picture, but we were being knocked around by very hearty winds that day. We startled the woman at the ticket booth (she was putting on mascara when we tapped on the window) because she wasn't expecting anybody to show up on such a bad day. We were just happy it wasn't raining, and had fun exploring by ourselves. Parts of the castle smelled exactly like smoked salmon, which drove us crazy (where is that coming from?) but we finally decided it must be from the oil they used to waterproof the wood walkways.




One of those great towers that you find in derelict old castles with really thick walls and twisty tiny stairways.





The aforementioned tiny stairs.

A last look back at Elsinore castle from the ferry to Sweden.

We had decided to head on over to Malmo, Sweden for the night, and during the short ferry ride I had picked out a hotel and a driving route to find it. Imagine my surprise when we drove off the ferry and saw a sign welcoming us to Helsingborg, not Malmo. My mental map was obviously flawed, and we weren't where I thought we were, and suddenly I was madly scrambling to find the right map and the right guide book, so I could pick a new hotel and route, while Darrin is freaking out because he doesn't know where to go and I can't direct him, and there is no place to pull over. We gave up and just followed signs to the center of town and picked the first respectable looking hotel, which was new and nautical themed and smelled like linseed oil. This was the worst navigation error I think I've made... Malmo is really nowhere near Helsingborg. That's what I get for thinking I have the map memorized.





Swedish people like to ride bicycles.





A view of Karnan, the stone keep that looks across the water to Elsinore Castle...





...and looking back into town from the stairs leading to Karnan.

I really haven't fallen off the edge of the earth.

I haven't posted in a while for a couple of reasons. First, the Olympics were on, and Darrin and I are massive Olympics junkies and have tivo'd every last hour of it (except the hockey). In fact, its still the Olympics here in the casa, and probably will be for a few more months until we've managed to get through all of it. Don't tell me what happened. Second, I was sick for a week with some awful stomach flu or food poisoning, so the first few days worth of Olympics coverage passed for me in a bit of a haze. In fact, stomach flu and the 2006 winter Olympics will probably remain forever linked in my mind, since it seemed half the athletes were also coming down with the stomach flu at the same time. I kept imagining, in my dehydrated delirium, that there was some kind of Typhoid Mary working in the Olympic village cafeteria, gleefully infecting all the athletes stopping by for their big plates of pasta before heading off to the biathelon, or the downhill. The reporters seemed to like to talk about it, too... and Evan Lysacek's description of barfing on the bus on the way back to the village made me, uh, queasy with empathy. Anyway, food and I seem to be friends again, and otherwise things are returning to normal, so more pictures to come.

Oh, and this picture was taken near Elsinore Castle.

Though this be madness, yet there is method in 't.

This is Kronborg Slot, also known as Elsinore Castle... the setting for Shakespeare's Hamlet. It has a very prominent and impressive setting on a peninsula that juts out into the sound, and Sweden is only 4km away across the strait. I imagine it served its toll collecting purpose rather well.






A view of the vast interior courtyard.






Its hard to really get a sense of the place from the ground... there are layers of interesting arrow- or diamond-shaped ramparts and walls, surrounded by a moat. Follow this link for an overhead view.





We must have spent an hour or so walking around the exterior and checking out the earthworks.











The interiors were far less ornate than at Frederiksborg, but the chapel was interesting.






This vast ballroom was pretty cool. In our typical pattern of eking out every last tourist minute from the day, we arrived at the castle near closing time. We had to hurry a bit to see the interiors, but there was literally *no one* there which was a nice change from the very crowded Frederiksborg. We could run up and down the ballroom like idiots and not bother anybody. I am in there somewhere... just very tiny.

Fredensborg

Fredensborg is an 18C palace that apparently is still occupied by someone important, as there were at least 8 uniformed guards there, and the interiors weren't open to the public. The palace, as you can see from the picture, has a very long approach. We are maybe halfway there.





I watched this guy walk back and forth for a while, trying to capture his fancy footwork on video (like a true tourist) as he made his turn.





The palace's gardens were beautiful... very woodsy and semi-natural, with long, long pathways.

Frederiksborg Slot

You might not think something this big would be hard to find, but we got quite lost looking for it. There was no "Giant Tourist Attraction This Way" sign from any of the highways ringing the town, so we had to wander around and around until we ran into it. Frederiksborg Slot was built from 1599-1622, and its has extremely ornate interiors.





This chapel has a rather different look from the village church we saw in the morning. The next three pictures give you a hint of what some of the rooms were like.








By the time we were done wandering the castle, it was time to eat, so we had lunch at the cafe that was there. The plate on the right has curried pickled herring, marinated pickled herrring, and plain 'ol pickled herring, served with very dense brown bread, capers, boiled egg, etc, and a package of something called "fedt" which was... nasty... with a mysterious taste that I couldn't quite place. The herring was quite tasty though. The plate on the left are chicken and asparagus tarts.

Keldby Kirke

Isn't this the cutest thing? We saw many of these little cottages with the interesting wooden 'spine' as we drove around the island of Mons.




This is Keldby Kirke, which we saw from the road and decided to explore. It was still pretty early in the morning, and there was absolutely no one around. Its nice enough from the outside, but, as is my wont, I tried the door, just to see if it was unlocked. It was, and inside we found this:





Now, its hard to show just how jaw-dropping these frescoes were in a photo, but this was really a tiny church in the middle of a very rural area, and these came as a complete surprise to us.





Christ here suffers not only from the usual five wounds and crown of thorns, but it appears a madman has gone after him with an ice pick!





Check out the great human headed snake, and the crazy spiny wings on the angel.





How about a demon leading people in chains to the gaping, flaming mouth of a... whale? And lets throw in a unicorn to cavort above the pulpit! This place felt like our own special discovery until I happened to look in my guidebook later in the day and found Keldby Kirke prominently featured in the section on Mons, complete with a picture. It turns out there were three churches on the island, all built and decorated in the 13C, with additional frescoes added in the 15C, and they are considered some of the best in Denmark. We were, however, incredibly lucky to find it unlocked (that time of year)...90% of the doors I would try on the rest of the trip would be locked.

Mons Klint

Our guidebooks described the island of Mons as charming and unspoiled, with beautiful chalk cliffs, and since we have always had an interesting time visiting out-of-the-way islands, we gave it a go. This church is one of three very similar village churches we passed on our drive across the island.





This is the cafeteria (and behind it, the hotel) where we planned to eat and spend the night. It was a great spot... at the end of a dirt road, surrounded by forest, with the cliffs and ocean nearby...but as you can probably guess from the picture, the place was completely abandoned, and looked like it'd been so for a while. That's our rental car, and I look like I am literally tapping my foot with impatience. Oh Lonely Planet, how you failed us!





We decided that since we'd driven all that way, we may as well see the cliffs (which were accessed via a trail behind the hotel) and ran down the 500,000 steps to the lookout so we could get there before the sun went completely down. Thank goodness you can't see how much I am huffing in the picture.




After climbing back up the 500,000 steps to our car, we had a decision to make. We could drive the hour or more back to the highway and then drive until we found a city and a hotel, or we could backtrack to that cute little town we passed through a half hour ago and see if that tiny hotel there was open, (which we were pretty sure it wasn't) or we could check out that slightly strange looking golf hotel we passed by 20 minutes ago. Since it was after 8pm at this point the strange looking golf hotel won, despite a rather shocking room rate and trailer-like building style. This was our first inkling that there is a specific tourist season in that part of the world, and it had ended a few weeks before we got there. I usually prefer traveling in the shoulder or off season, but when it means stuff is closed, well, it just becomes a little more of a challenge. At least dinner was pretty good...though you might not think so from the picture. The plate in front of me is monkfish stuffed with shrimp over veggies and the other is grilled zucchini gratin with dill dressing. Vegetable gratin seemed to be the standard (often the only) vegetarian dish on the menu in the Scandanavian countries.

The ugly American

That might look like a big slab of grilled chicken, but its really a delicious sandwich. In the background is a plum tart, and the drink is ApfelSchorle, a sort of 50/50 mix of apple juice and sparkling water. I got to flex my German here, which worked quite well for ordering and paying. The trouble came afterward, when the woman behind the counter let loose a long stream of words, and the only one I understood was "Fork!" Or perhaps it was "Forks!" Hmmm. I believe I may have mumbled the equivalent of "huh?" when a bilingual customer came to my aid, calling me "English" to the woman behind the counter and explaining that I was to help myself to the silverware, then wait at my table outside and the sandwich would be brought to me when it was ready. Ah! Interestingly, we were often mistaken for "English" or British... almost no one thought we were American. In the Scandinavian countries some thought we were Germans who spoke English really well. This seems like a Good Thing, because who wants to be pegged as an American traveler in today's climate, and have to answer uncomfortable questions about our current leadership? On the other hand, I read recently in a BBC article that the British, not the Americans, are now considered the worlds worst (rudest and most "linquistically incompetant") tourists... so... well...hmm.




A last look at Lubeck.






Views of the ferry from Puttgarden, Germany, to Rodby, Denmark. I really like ferries, especially calm, easygoing ones like this one. There were plenty of people on this ferry, though you can't tell from the deck photos. Everyone was inside, eating a quick dinner of fried things from the galley. In the photo of the two of us, Darrin has his anti-motion sickness drug of choice (fizzy soda) and I've got guide books, trying to figure out where in Denmark we might stay that night.

A more tasteful tower.

This is the iconic Holstentor in Lubeck... or at least, this is how it looks made out of marzipan. The real gate and huge towers were shrouded in scaffolding and draped in a photographic reproduction... making for a rather surreal approach to the city. The gate was there, but... not exactly.





A market was happening that day in front of the Rathaus (1250). The whole area smelled like sausages.





This is a close up of the glazed brick on the Rathaus. It had a beautiful iridescent quality, and was used in several places in town, including the Holstentor. If we could have seen it.





One of the main streets in the old part of town. The banners on the right hand side with the woman's picture on them were related to the big election being held while we were there. There were political billboards and banners everywhere as we traveled the country.

Warp speed

Wir fahren, fahren, fahren, auf der Autobahn.

Must be Italian

Here I am, in the rain, in Fritzlar, our lunch stop the first day. I am standing there in that fugue state brought on by a long flight, thinking, "I'm cold. Its wet. But I'm in Germany! Hooray! But I am cold. And wet. And hungry. But I'm not at work! I'm in Germany! Hooray!"
The little Italian Chef Guy behind me was a fixture on this trip. He was very popular and marked the location of many an Italian restaurant along the way. We ate Italian fairly frequently in Germany because:
a) We don't much like German food.
b) German food doesn't much like me.
c) The Italian restaurants were run by Italian immigrants so the food was pretty good, and sometimes great.
d) I can read a menu in Italian and German better than one in German alone. This was handy because the adage "Everyone speaks English in Germany", really isn't true.





Darrin is waiting for his pizza rucola.

The Fairy Tale Road

For our first day in Germany, we took it easy and wandered along part of the "Fairy Tale Road"... a route that, among other things, has connections to the Brothers Grimm and their stories.
This is the Altstadt (old town) of Marburg, high up on a hill and accessed by a slightly creepy elevator. The streets are empty because its 8am on a Sunday, and only over-eager jet-lagged tourists are running around with cameras at 8am.




Part of Marburg's Schloss (castle).




Here we are in Hameln (or Hamelin... yes, that Hamelin...) in front of a statue of the Pied Piper, which is obviously a big deal in this town. There was a walking tour marked on the sidewalk with painted rats, and you could buy little rats made of bread dough everywhere, including our hotel lobby. Incidentally, we are getting splashed here... I am actually pretty soaked, since it took Darrin forever to set up the camera, and multiple tries at exposure.




Streets of Hameln at night.




An accidental picture of the Rat-catcher's House (1603), a nifty Weser Renaissance building.