Viking (and other) Ventures

It is a bit of an experiment to stay in one place for six whole weeks so we are feeling our way as we go. Some lessons we have learned so far include that we need to get out of the city every few days, we need to use multiple modes of transport so we aren’t just walking 5-6 hours every day (today we did a bike trip), and we need to do things apart from each other some of the time so we aren’t joined at the hip 24/7.

I have been wishing for more interactions with locals so tonight we went to a communal dinner which was a lot of fun and spent time chatting with several Copenhageners. These communal dinners have become popular and have even spread beyond Denmark. One of the fellows at our table, a journalist who had written an article on the entrepreneur founder of Folkehuset Absolon, said the dinners are also popular in Berlin.

Our out of the city adventures have been great and quite easy to do because of the excellent trains that seem to go wherever we want and are almost always on time.

Our first field trip was to Kronborg Castle, famous for being the setting for Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Earlier this year, I read the book By Any Other Name by Jodi Picoult, historical fiction (heavily researched and based on real people) about Emilia Bassano (1569-1645) who Picoult believes was one of several people to have written Shakespeare’s works (as in they weren’t written by Shakespeare). Bassano traveled to Denmark when young and visited Kronborg Castle meeting with the royal family, whereas William Shakespeare never came to Denmark. This is just one of the historical facts that ties Bassano more closely to Shakespeare’s writing than Shakespeare himself.

We really enjoyed the tour we took of the castle. It allowed us to see parts that are not open to the general public. The most impressive was the attic area where they used to store grain. John nearly had a heart attack when the guide opened the door to the inner courtyard 4-stories below and we were allowed to walk right up to the edge, there being only a slender metal rod between us and oblivion. My willingness to be on the edge and peer down doesn’t sit well with John’s acrophobia. This type of vertiginous opportunity would never be offered in the US due to concerns about litigation should there be an accident.

My other favorite part of the castle was Holger the Dane who was sleeping in the casemates (a small room in the wall of a fortress, but seemed like the basement) who is supposed to wake up and fight if Denmark is ever in real trouble. I was wishing we had someone like him to come help us protect the US of A from ourselves. Come on Holger, now’s the time! We need you!

Our next trip was to Rungstedlund, the home and museum of Karen Blixen / Isak Dinesen, the Danish author who write Out of Africa, which was made into a popular 1985 movie with Meryl Streep and Robert Redford. Blixen was an important person in John’s life because his mother was also a Danish woman who moved to Africa and she read Blixen’s book (in the original Danish of course), albeit after she herself had moved to Africa. After Blixen lost the coffee farm in Africa in 1931, she returned to the family home, Rungstedlund, in Denmark and lived out her remaining years there where she continued to write, despite ill health. John was particularly taken with the fact that in her later years, she subsisted on oysters, champagne, and painkillers.

The home and property around it is in a gorgeous location right on the ocean in Rungsted, a town North of Copenhagen. Blixen became interested in birds and the property is now a bird sanctuary. After touring her wonderful home, we had a traditionally Danish lunch of Smorrebrod (open faced sandwiches) in the cafe.

Finally, on Saturday, John’s mother’s family had the reunion that was planned because of John’s visit to Denmark (they also had one in 2017 when we were here on our honeymoon). It is too bad that Anders had left the previous weekend so missed the reunion but he did get to visit with several relatives before he departed. The luncheon, at the home of his cousin Pia, included a traditional Danish feast of Smorrebrod, followed by Frikadelle (meatballs), Tarteller (Tartlets with chicken and white asparagus), and multiple dessert options, along with lots of beer.

Soon, we have some of my own family showing up. Kelsey and Garet are touching down on Saturday night and we’ll have a week to show them the city. We have had amazing sunny weather almost every day so far, with today the warmest day yet, but it is about to turn so I’m afraid that they may experience more of the rain and cold that frequently characterize June here. Apparently, May, July, and August are great but June often is not. They will be here the last week in May but it seems that June weather may be coming early this year.