We’re now in Sweden.  Arrived from Denmark on the 12th via the Orundsen bridge from Copenhagen to Malmo; stopped for a long lunch with Bengt & Kristina Fahlander in Svedala (friends we met in Havelock North) – a very pleasant afternoon before going on to Ystad on the south coast, where we are currently staying 3 nights.

Ystad is famous for the Kurt Wallander detective stories (by Henning Mankell), and is a very pretty town to go with it.

Enclosed are some photos of the places we visited in Denmark, starting with the oldest town RIBE (pronounced Ribby), est 1300 years ago.

The pole in the photo marks the flood lines for different years over the centuries – the highest in 1364 would have completely drowned all the current buildings with the exception of the Cathedral.

We then drove to Arhus on the east coast of Jutland, via Silkeborg, where we saw the mummified remains of the Tollund Man (350BC).

Then on to Kerteminde, a small fishing town on the NE coast of island of Funen, which has an excellent museum and gallery of Johannes Larsen’s art.

Next step was on to Roskilde to visit the Viking ship museum.  

A lovely surprise in Roskilde was being visited at the campsite by Heather & Clive and family from Napier.

We took a train into Copenhagen the next day and made good use of a day pass to tour by boat and foot, and had a very nice dinner at the Tivoli Gardens before catching a late train home to Roskilde.

Our final stop in Denmark was in Helsingor for the “Elsinor Castle” of Hamlet fame (really Kronborg Castle) – very interesting Renaissance castle and fortifications, also housing a Maritime Museum.  One of the photos shows the stunning ballroom which was the largest in Scandinavia at the time.

Tomorrow we start our journey north through Sweden and Norway to the Arctic Circle.