Well Friedrichstadt was another lovely little place to visit! Think Holland/Venice with a touch of German cleanliness and panache. Just beautiful and well worth a visit if you’re up this way.
As the weather turned a bit drizzly, Andy suggested trucking on to Flensburg. We got a great parking spot over looking the marina with it’s own picnic bench! Another Park4night place. Tried the Cadac out for the first time this trip and cooked egg and bacon butties, yum. When we were in Ghent last week, My friend Sarah set us a challenge to try some new food in every country we visited. Edwin, her husband, said he needed us to eat a herring Scandinavian style lol. So when I poured the pancake batter onto the Cadac for pudding, we fell about laughing when it ran to the edge and made a fish shape!! Apparently that doesn’t count as a herring as it wasn’t pickled haha.
The following day was spent walking around Flensburg. All the old boats in the harbour were really interesting to look at. If you like shopping there were plenty of shops plus a few places to eat or have a coffee and if you like tying knots, this is definitely the place for you 😉 it was nice to walk round in the sunshine and we had a lovely day. We kept our same camping spot on the harbour side that evening and cooked tea again outside.
Tuesday, we needed a laundry day, so we typed Laundromat in google maps and found one not too far away from where we spent the night. It looked like there was parking around the area too, so we set off. When we got there, we were a bit confused about the parking sign, even with google translate we weren’t sure. We asked a German man if we were able to park, and in perfect English he told us yes. The Germans are so helpful. Dirty laundry gathered we walked to the launderette. How come they are always a bit run down and not very clean in the UK and here, in Germany, they’re spotless!! Had to ask another German guy for help on how to use the washing machines. “Never be afraid to ask”, my dad always used to tell me, “you were born with a tongue in your head” 😁 So, you put your laundry in the machine & select the temperature. OK so far. Put the correct money in the slot on the wall and press the corresponding number to the machine being used. Press the start button on the machine. You can even help yourself to free washing powder if you want. How cool is that! Even the laundry baskets are on wheels!! Easy when you know how. Don’t know if all launderettes are like that in Germany but so far I’m very impressed.
Laundry put away in Harriet’s cupboards we needed to fill up with water and empty the waste.
The City Park (park & ride) had a place to dump all your waste and fill up with 100 litres of water all for €1. (Thank you park4night) Everything perfectly clean and well maintained again. I ♥️ Germany!! It’s Motorhome heaven.
We were sorry to say goodbye but we were really excited to drive into Denmark and a new adventure.
We headed for Ribe and parked up near the train station. You can’t wild camp as in, get your awning out and chairs etc. in Denmark but you can park up and sleep in your Motorhome. You can cook outside too I believe as long as you pack up your stuff straight away and leave no trace you’ve been. So we did just that, rainbow kebabs etc. on the cadac.
After tea we did a little recce of the town ready for the next day. We found an ATM and using our Halifax Clarity card, drew out some Danish cash.
The website, “money saving expert’ suggests a card like Clarity to enable you to make free withdrawals and get the best exchange rate for that day.
First full day in Denmark and I love it. Ribe is the oldest town in the country apparently and walking around the place you can see that it's full of history. We HAD to visit the cathedral, it's the oldest one in Denmark!! How could we not lol. It was free to enter and 40dkk to climb the 248 steps up the tower to look at the view ... phew!
I really wanted to visit the Viking Museum but the weather was just too nice to be inside. We did see an archeological dig going on though and they have found loads of artefacts from the Viking era. The tourist information in the town square had a self guided walking tour leaflet in English free of charge so we spent the whole day just wandering round, what a great start! The weather was hot and sunny so we had to buy an ice cream each. Cost us the equivalent of £6.16 which I didn’t think was expensive by U.K. standards.
After tea we walked to Netto to get some bottled water. Looking at the receipt afterwards we noticed we’d been charged an extra 18dkk for the water on top of the 27dkk for the six bottles. Google to the rescue again. There’s a refundable deposit on certain items
The following day we needed to empty the waste and fill up with fresh water. The park4night app pointed us to a car park for Motorhome’s where you could do just that
We hadn’t got the correct water tap connection, our brass one with a screw thread was too big so I asked a lovely Danish guy for help and he lent us his. Further up the road we stopped at a “Harold Nyborg” store (bit like B&Q) and found what we needed in the hose lock section.
We may not need it again but we like being prepared 😁 *
IT'S TRUE!!!
You can get into Legoland, Denmark free of charge half an hour before the rides close 😎😎😎 As they didn't close until 6pm tonight, we stopped off to have a look at Denmarks answer to the Angel of the North. It's called 'Men by the Sea' and reminded me of the 4 statues of Ramsses ll at Abu Simbel.
It's been a scorcher again today so we spent time by the beach enjoying the breeze.
We drove to Billund and parked up 50dkk (£5.92) and just walked into the park. The lad even had a smile on his face when he said 'free of charge', and I must admit, so did I. I grew up playing Lego and so did my girls 😊 We managed the haunted house and the pirate boat ride before 6pm and then spent the next 2 hours wandering around mini land. I've now got more places on my list of things to see in this lovely country.
A fortunate stroke of serendipity today. Harriet’s shower has 3 concertina doors, and if you don’t move the tap to one side when you fasten them up, the shower wets you through lol. Good news though ladies, when it’s hot, and your bras wet, you stay ever so cool 😎😁😂
We bought some bottled water from the supermarket the other day and couldn’t understand why we’d been charged twice for it. Google to the rescue (again, what would we do without google?). There’s a refundable deposit on certain items in Denmark. You take your bottles back to the shop, put them in the machine one at a time. The scanner reads the ‘pant’ and when you’re finished, you press the green button. Hey presto, you get your deposit refunded in the way of a voucher to spend in the shop. Beware though, if you press the yellow button, the money is given to charity.
Den Gamle By is an ‘Old Town’ in Aarhus. It’s a bit like the Beamish Museum. Some of the buildings they’ve preserved go back to the 1500’s. When we were at Beamish a few weeks ago, one of the staff told us it’s where Mr Atkinson got his inspiration from to create a similar living museum for the North East of England. I’m so glad there are people out there preserving our history.
We treated ourselves to tea out tonight as I’d wanted to try ‘Aarhus Street Food’. It’s a disused Bus Station that’s full of shipping containers. Each individual one serves a different kind of street food, everything from Thai to authentic Danish food, from Caribbean Jerk to English Fish & Chips and even a stall selling duck haha.
We opted for Thai curry and spring rolls, it was really good. It was full of families all enjoying themselves eating nice food.
