The overnight train from Bonn-Bad Godesborg brought us to Odense, Denmark around 8:00 in the morning. Odense is on the island of Fyn, Denmark's largest. We were able to shower and have a small continental breakfast on the train, and then had another breakfast at a hotel in Odense. The rest of the group for the Denmark trip caught up with us from Sweden at the hotel before Stephannie and I headed out for that day's ride. Yet again, the day started with a train ride, this time, to Fredricia. Fredricia is on Jutland, the peninsula of Denmark that is connected to Germany. I suspect that we travelled through the Fredricia train station the night before on the overnight train. It was never quite clear to me why we couldn't have gotten off the train there and saved ourselves several hours of travelling.

The weather in Denmark was cool, clear, and dry with a higher sky than I've ever seen. It was everything that the weather during our first week was not. Fredricia was a very old city, around which the original inhabitants had built earthworks. The earthworks were then planted with grass and trees so that the town would not be visible to would-be invaders. We rode from the train station into Fredricia through one of the few available gates, had lunch, and then left through another gate.

We rode out of Fredricia through a small suburban area, and then a small industrial area. After a few kilometers, we were riding through farmland across this finger of the peninsula. All of that day, and any other time that we rode near the ocean, there was a strong wind. Although Denmark, is not flat, the rolling hills never get that far above sea-level. The areas near the ocean tend not to be heavily forested, so they're covered with windmills--not the pictersque windmills of the Low Countries, but spare metallic machines that are essentially a pole and three blades.

From Fredricia, we were to ride to Vejle at the end of the fjord we reached across the finger, and then inland to Skovdallund. Along the fjord we passed quickly from one environment to another. We crossed farmland that looked like Michigan or Ohio, rode through forests that reminded me of Upstate New York, and along beaches that looked like nothing so much as Cape Cod, often all within a single kilometer. Despite its beauty, I never stuck a toe into the Baltic--I was sure that it would be too cold. Eventually, struggling against the headwind that blew steadily out of the fjord, we reached Vejle. We passed through it quickly, and then climbed a pretty steep hill out of the fjord, and crossed the last few kilometers to Skovdallund. There, we stayed at a small roadside inn (or kro in Danish) that was in the middle of nowhere. The food and drink here and throughout Denmark were not nearly as good as Belgium or Luxembourg.

<<

European Biking 2000

>>

---