Living a Life of Leisure in Læsø

We left the marina in Aalborg at 8:30 a.m. on Thursday morning (June 18) and, after passing through the raised spans of the two bridges there, continued east and out of the Limfjord, en route to the island of Læsø, which many people have recommended to us. The sailing was lovely under sunny skies. For a while, we were averaging 9 to 10 knots.

The Garmin display showing 10.2 knots of speed

A little after 5 p.m., we arrived at Vesterø Havn and the harbormaster was there to direct us to a place to tie up and took the lines. We have gotten used to not reserving ahead for a place, as we would in the U.S. Usually, no one answers the phone and there are no replies to emails nor any response on VHF radio. We have learned to just show up and look for the spaces with green placards indicating that the space is open for visitors and have become relaxed with this quite workable situation. (Of course, we are here slightly ahead of the season; I do not know what happens when the northern Europeans start their holidays.) Payment is made via a cell phone payment method, and the bathroom, showers and laundry rooms are always spotlessly clean.

After we settled in, we took a walk around the town and along a bit of the northern beach. Then we had a pricy but wonderful all-you-can-eat-and-drink buffet dinner at one of the few hotels overlooking the marina. The staff were very friendly, and one of the cooks insisted on making me a couple veggie burgers (without the bun) and many pieces of falafel despite the fact that there were wonderful and tasty salads and vegetable selections. Frankly, I am rather tired to these two options, which are often the only veggie choices at restaurants here. It's fish or meat, and while a salad may come on the entree plate, it is not on the menu as a separate item.

Roses on the dunes at the edge of the beach

Peter on our evening walk on the beach

But, back to Læsø, which I have decided is a perfect vacation spot. It is the largest island in the Kattegat Sea, a body of water I had never heard of before. The Baltic Sea drains into this sea between northeast Denmark and southwest Sweden through the Danish Straits. Another sea north of here is the Skagerrak, which connects with the North Sea. The majority of the Kattegat has a depth of less than 25 meters, and there are many sandy, stony reefs and tricky shifting currents, but we had no problems navigating here.

Læsø is in the Danish "desert belt," which consists of this island and the island of Anholt to the southeast. Annual precipitation is 31 inches, so it is relatively rainy compared to a true desert, which receives less than 10 inches a year. However, rain and snowfall are markedly less than the mainland areas surrounding the Kattegat Sea. Along with a few small nearby uninhabited islands, Læsø is just 44 square miles. The year-round population is about 1700, so it is a quiet place with a few small towns but most houses in open or wooded areas. It is a vacation place, but the largest of the few hotels are only two stories high. There are many bed-and-breakfast establishments and campgrounds for guests to the island.

Læsø is a young, dynamic island that emerged from the sea rough 4.900 years ago due to post-glacial land uplift. New beach ridges and sand spits are continuously expanding, particularly in the east and the southwest. Under the water are massive, unusual glacial boulders, some of which were pulled up by early inhabitants for building material.

In the Middle Ages, the island was known for its salt industry, and, on an artisanal level, salt is still extracted from the groundwater for commercial purposes today. Læsø's subsoil consists of a layer of blue clay up to 180 meters thick; above that is a layer of sand between 3 and 15 meters thick. Winter storms flood the flats with seawater. The underlying clay prevents the water from seeping away, so the groundwater in certain areas has up to 15% salinity. Cistercian monks started salt-making sometime in the 12 century. After the Danish Reformation in 1536, when the church land was taken by the Crown, it became a cottage industry on family farms.

A salt-making farm museum was one of the first places we visited after renting electric bikes (a first for us) in the town of Vesterø Havn. We rode to the main town on the island, Byrum, along well-paved bike paths and roads with infrequent traffic. First we stopped at one of the two red-painted brick and stone churches on Læsø. This church was founded in 1200 by monks from Viskøl Monastery on the mainland. The current building started as a chapel in 1269, with extensive Romanesque and Gothic additions in the 1700s and 1800s. The interior has vaulted ceilings, which like the walls, are whitewashed. Decorations consist of the altarpiece, the pulpit and a triptych.

It is surrounded by the usual large, extremely well-maintained cemetery. As we learned in Ireland a few years ago, the regularly spaced square holes in the outer walls of the tower are left from where scaffolding was placed during construction. Birds love to nest in these perfect alcoves. The walls of this church and the one in Vesterø have been traditionally painted red as marks for seafarers. Because the island is flat and low-lying and in winter is covered in snow, the red beacons warn navigators of its existence. Nonetheless, in Medieval times and later, about 12 ships a year wrecked on the reefs and in the shallow water, providing the islanders an opportunity to take payment for saving lives and to plunder the wrecks. They often used parts of the ships in their own houses and charged the stranded sailors for lodging until they could leave.

Tower of the Bynum Church

Bynum Church and Cemetery

Interior of Bynum Church, with organist playing

Altarpiece of Bynum Church

Once again, I went off on a tangent. The salt works that we visited after the church is part outdoor museum and part actual manufacturing in progress. It is free to walk around the grounds and see and learn about the centuries old process of extracting salt from groundwater. The stoves are fueled by wood; by the 17th century, the forests had been totally destroyed. In 1652, an official ban on salt boiling was put in place, which lasted for over 300 years. Læsø had become a windswept heathland. 

Boiling water and baskets of salt

Baskets of salt and salt encrustations on the outside of the vat

Exterior of one of the salt-making buildings

On our bicycles, we passed by but did not climb (because we had so much to see) the 17-meter high tower built in 1926 by Thorvald Hansen. a clog maker, tinsmith, bicycle repairman and former sailor. In his youth, he had been able to see the entire island from the small hill, but houses and trees blocked his view in the 1920s. So, he hand-molded the bricks himself and constructed the building without assistance to regain the view. He became the tower keeper and charged a modest fee.

Thorvald Hansen Tower

Our next stop was the Læsø Museumsgården, housed in an old farm house surrounding a courtyard. It is one of only about 3 dozen houses left on the island with a thick and heavy "seaweed" roof, known as tangtag houses; there were around 230 in the 1930s. Of the remaining houses, 11 are officially protected. The oldest was built in the 1650s; the last existing one to be built in this tradition is from the 1870s. This vernacular style of architecture was prompted by the deforestation connected with salt production. Although the coverings are called seaweed roofs, they are actually made of eelgrass washed up on the southern sandy beaches. The roofs can weigh 35-40 tons and reach a thickness of 5 feet (1.5 meters). They provide excellent insulation; are resistant to pests, rot and fire, mainly because of their salt content; and can withstand harsh weather.

Exterior of house with roof made of eelgrass

On Læsø, thr women innovated the unique roofing method, using their knowledge of spinning and weaving to create bundles of wrung eelgrass. Long eel grass was dried and laid out on the ground. Then several women worked to twist the strands into long bundles with ever increasing diameters, up to a foot and a half, with a tapering end or tail that was used to tie the long bundle to the laths between rafters.  Construction of a house was a collective undertaking, usually involving 40 to 50 people; it started after enough eelgrass and wood (mostly driftwood or timbers from shipwrecks) had been collected and prepared. The men actually put the bundles on the roof; it would have been inappropriate for the women in the their skirts to possibly expose the lower parts of their bodies by climbing on top of the structure! 

However, women ruled--or at least did all the work. Men went to sea for long periods of time as fishermen, leaving the women in charge. The women owned the property and cultivated the land. Since women rarely left the island and therefore did learn of agricultural innovations in Scandinavia, they used simple methods with traditional tools--the heath cutter, the peat spade and the Læsø spade--and the furrows were hand sown. 

The men did not help with the farming even when they were home from sea in the winters. Their work consisted of carpentry and watching for possible groundings near the island, which represented a profitable supplement to the economy of the harsh island. Even when the men were home, the women leveled and plowed the fields, sowed the seeds, harvested the crops, looked after the animals, cut heather, dug peat and drove the horse-drawn carriage

After the museum attendant told us much about the house and the history of the island, we walked around inside of the house, which dates back to the 17th century. The roofing on some parts of the building is nearly 400 years old, dated by pine seeds embedded in the eelgrass. The living quarters are on the north side of the courtyard and include space--including a parlor, a pantry, and scullery and and a kitchen--for the owners and their children and a separate, similar space for the older generation (the pensioners) who had previously owned the property and who the new owners (descendants usually) are required to provided with lodging, food, fuel and care as part of the transfer of title. 

The other three sides of the quadrangle are made up of pigpens, goose pens, a storage room for heather and peat (for fuel), a horse stable, a hayloft, a fodder bay, a sheep cot, a cow shed, separate storage rooms for rye, oats and barley, a barn for threshing, and a coach house. A farm cart that was used for many purposes, including hauling eelgrass from the beach was in the coach house. I noticed that the wooden, iron-rimmed wheels were concave toward the hub. Later I researched this and discovered that,in loose, sandy soil, this design was particularly advantageous because it shifted the stress load away from the axles and naturally directed abrasive debris outward, away from the carriage body.  

Underside of the eelgrass roof showing the tapered tails tied to laths

Wagon used for transporting eelgrass from the seashore

Living area which includes a bed for guests and a spinning wheel

Parlor for entertaining guests and for special occasions. The board below the ceiling is a wedding board.

Loom of the last owner in the pensioner's room (placed after her death)

Last owner's brother's workshop in the former pensioner's living room

The courtyard

After we had spend some time at the museum, we pedaled onward passed cultivated fields and a few small woodlands to Østerby Havn in the northeast end of the island. This harbor was developed in 1905 and reoriented the area from agriculture to professional fishing. It is famous for its scampi (Nephrops norvegicus), also known as Norway lobster, a small and slender lobster known for its sweet and delicate meat. We stopped for a very late lunch (or early dinner), having only been sustained since omelets for breakfast by an ice cream snack at the salt works. (I was starting to get hangry.)

Fishing nets drying on the wharf with fishing boats moored to the wall

Peter by the large scampi sculpture in Østerby Havn

After our meal, we walked around the the harbor and then headed back to Vesterø Havn, stopping briefly at a small rhododendron grove.

Rhododendrons in bloom

My battery indicator on my bike indicated I still had over 75% left while Peter's was down to 25%. Luckily, peddling across the island from east to west, we made it to the bike rental shop just as his was warning his battery was almost depleted. We were tired but had enjoyed a wonderful warm and sunny day exploring and learning about the island and its culture. 

After showers and no dinner (because we ate at 5 p.m.), we looked at the weather for the next day and decided it was too unsettled, with possible thunderstorms, for us to move on to Skagen, We went to bed at sunset (early for us) and looked forward to another day on the island.

We woke up to another day of sunshine and temperatures hot enough for light-weight pants and a long-sleeve t-shirt. After a lazy morning on the boat, we went out for a walk. We were strolling through the town and found a sandy path which led over the grass and brush covered dunes to the shallow water and beaches on the south shore, with their fine sand (the kind that squeaks under your feet). On on beach walk, we encountered only a few other people.

The crystal clear water is shallow for a long way. It was low tide, so it was possible to wade through the water parallel to the shore some distance from where it touched the sand without any wavelets. In some places, there were exposed sand bars. With the strong sunlight unobstructed by any clouds, the tiny wave patterns laid down in the sand were illuminated in relief. In some places near the shore, where water ran out from the land in small, diked streams, the texture and orange-red color of clay overlaid the pale sand. 

Past the shallow water, the sea graduated through several shades of blue as it stretches to the horizon. We strolled and waded for for more than a mile and still were quite far from the western point of land visible in the distance. Noticing rain clouds on the western horizon, we turned around and walked along the beach all the way to the yacht haven. Before going to the boat, we stopped for some delicious ice cream. It was actually ice cream weather! And the rain passed by offshore.

Sherri part-way out over the shallow water

View looking toward Vesterø Havn

Patterns in the sand under one inch of water

Small shells on the beach

Red clay deposits to which algae and grasses cling

View across the shallow water with the ferry in the distance

I waded out farther than Peter, well above my knees for a short stretch, so my rolled-up pants got wet. They were dry by the time we came aboard, but a bit salty, so I changed into shorts and a short-sleeve t-shirt--and the summer solstice did not occur until today! Peter and I played a game of Scrabble, lounged around some more, and did minor tasks before going to bed. We were happy we had postponed our departure because we would have missed the lovely beach experience.

We departed this morning around 11 a.m., heading to Skagen. The WNW wind at about 20 knots most of the time and the strong NE current both worked against our progress, and we finally were forced to motor-sail to the northern most tip of Denmark, arriving at 5 p.m. We had been invited by a man we had met in Reykjavik last summer to dock at the Skagen Sailing Club and attend the St. John's Eve celebration, which has been held for over a hundred years on June 23, a day celebrated through northern Europe with bonfires, speeches and music on the beaches. Because June 24 was the date of the summer solstice on the Roman calendar, St. John's Eve festivities are closely associated with midsummer activities throughout Europe. Skagen hosts one of the largest.

There will be more about Skagen in the next post.

Aalborg, Denmark

This morning, I went off on my own to explore the older parts of Aalborg. Our radar died of old age a couple days ago, Peter having determined after some tests of voltage and current and that sort of thing that it was irreparable.. He stayed on the boat to work on getting a new unit. Luckily, Skudehavnen is surrounded by businesses serving boats large and small, and he found a dealer nearby who had replacement options as well as a man who was willing to come on short notice to install in the new Garmin radar on the mast this afternoon.

My first stop was Sct. Mariæ Kirk (St. Mary's Catholic Church) on the west side of downtown. The parish was established in 1898 and the octagonal red-brick building, based on Charlemagne's Chapel in Aachen, was built in 1925 in the Renaissance Revival style. The interior is spacious and welcoming with modest decorative aspects.

Interior, Sct. Mariæ Kirk (St. Mary's Catholic Church)

I roamed around rather aimlessly and came upon the Aalborg Monastery, founded by Denmark's oldest social order, the Order of the Holy Ghost. Built from 1431 to 1500, the complex was the hospital of Aalborg until 1953. The Hospital of the Holy Ghost was dissolved in the Reformation of 1636, but it continued to function as a secular hospital. The buildings have been converted into 26 private apartments for the elderly, but some of the courtyards are open to the public. 

Aalborg Monastery

Fountain Courtyard, Aalborg Monastery

Strolling along pedestrian shopping streets, I found the Gothic style, red-brick Budolfi Church, the cathedral of the Lutheran Diocese of Aalborg. The original church on this site, a smaller parish church, was constructed in the early 12th century, and some of the large stones used for this can be seen in the crypt. The existing Budolfi Church was built at the end of the 14th century. The church is entered through the vestibule and tower room, renowned for the intricately painted Gothic vault ceilings depicting biblical motifs and historical coats of arms. In the sanctuary is more richly decorated than other churches we have visited in Denmark. The main altar piece and the elaborately carved and painted pulpit were gifts of parishioners in the 17th century. 

Pedestrian street in Aalborg

Budolfi Church vestibule ceiling

Decorative ends of pews, Renaissance artwork and pulpit, Budolfi Church

I had read about a couple places to get birds-eye views of the city and chose to ascend to the top level of Salling Department Store. From there, I could see red roofs all around as well as rooftop gardens. It is easy to observe that the streets do not follow a grid pattern. 

View of the rooftops of Aalborg

Continuing my exploration, I wandered along cobbled streets past brightly colored and bare brick homes.  They are enchanting and the lanes are peaceful. I walked past the Church of Our Lady, another red brick edifice which, unfortunately for me, is closed for renovations.

Half-timbered bowing building

Hjelmerstald

Hjelmerstald

Entrance to Church of Our Lady

Church of Our Lady

Back near the water, I admired the bright yellow Old Town Hall. Across the street is the five-story Jens Bang's House, built in 1624 in the Dutch Renaissance style. Noted for its gables and its sculpted auricular window decor, it is considered the finest privately owned Renaissance building in Denmark. There are gargoyles above the windows and a sculpture of Bang's face, with his tongue sticking out. (Pugnacious and opinionated, the burgher was disliked by most of his contemporaries.) Jens Bang was one of Denmark's richest citizens at the time, a leading trader and merchant.

Old Town Hall, Aalborg

Jens Bang's House

Svane Apoteket (the Swan Pharmacy) operated on the ground floor from 1666 to 2014. It is now a shop and museum. The original wooden ceiling, painted with plants and animals used for curing illness and disease, is intact as are some of the cabinets, counters and furniture from its early days. 

Entrance to the Swan Pharmacy

Cabinets, Swan Pharmacy

Ceiling decorations in Swan Pharmacy

Next to Jens Bang's house is an older, three story residence, built in 1616 by Bang's older half-brother and mayor at the time, Jørgen Olufsen. Constructed mainly of sandstone, it also has a striking half-timbered section. 

Jørgen Olufsen's House

Although it was nippy and the sky was totally gray when I left Mantra at 9:30, by early afternoon, the sun had appeared, and I returned to the boat to do laundry. By the time the first load was hung on the life lines, the clouds had clumped up and obscured the golden, warm orb once again. Within ten minutes of hanging out the second load, it started to rain! How did people here dry clothes before the advent of dryers? Did they just put on damp clothes and hope their body heat would dry them? Quickly before the downpour, I gathered all the clothing, which held about the same amount of moisture as the when they came out of the washing machine, even the ones that had been blowing in the wind for over an hour.

The cities operate the harbors where we have stayed. There is an easy and efficient payment system accessed with a smart phone. There are very clean restroom and showers (free at this place) and laundry facilities. We looked around yesterday evening and could not find the laundry. Peter has now found out it is in the adjacent marina a short walk away. As soon as the load of sheets finishes washing, we will haul all the wet things over there. I walked through that marina on my way back from the city and discovered there are many restaurants by it, so we may have dinner out again while we wait for dry clothes. 

Meanwhile, Peter had tested the new Garmin radar before installation and it is working properly. A young technician with a cherry picker arrived a couple of hours ago, after we had moved Mantra to a better spot for his access, and easily took down the dead radar and put up the new one--before the rain. This problem actually was solved with much more ease than anticipated. 

Removal of the old Garmin radar

Although I have been mildly complaining about the lack of sunshine and the cold, we are not having to endure the condensation, dampness and frigidity inside the boat that we did last year during what is called summer in Maritime Canada, Greenland, Iceland and Scotland. For that I am truly grateful--although I would still prefer a warmer, sunnier climate for sailing. Some days we don't use any heating at all, and on the days we do, it is only for brief periods of time. We only have the two small, portable heaters now as the heating and A/C unit died earlier this year. Fortunately, they are sufficient.

Lazy Times on the Limfjord

As usual, it was a partially sunny day in Denmark on Sunday, June 14. (I have read that average hours of sunshine per day is only a paltry six hours. How do people live like that?) After breakfast, Peter and I visited the remaining structures of Dueholm Monastery, a former holy site and then manor house which is now a museum about ancient cultures, fishing, seafaring,,and development of the market town Nykøbing Mors. 

Dueholm Monastery

Dueholm Monastery was founded in the late 14th century by the Order of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem, commonly known as the Knights Hospitailer, the sixth to be established in Denmark. The order was founded in connection with the Crusades, and its monasteries were created across Europe to raise funds for defending Christianity in the Holy Land. The hospital services provided a lucartive source of income. During the Reformation in Denmark in 1536, the monasteries' estates were confiscated by the Crown. The monks were allowed to stay but could accept no new members. The last prior of Dueholm died in 1559.

The monastery was converted into a royal fief and was leased to wealthy landlords, and there were  periods of time in the 17th century it was also occupied by Imperial German troops and later by Swedish soldiers. The Crown sold Dueholm in 1664, and subsequently the estate changed hands frequently. Beginning in 1752, a family named Tøttrup expanded and improved the property over four generations. After 1845, however, the estate was subdivided and sold off; by 1898, only the courtyard, the garden and a small meadow remained. Plans were made to demolish the remaining buildings. Morsland's Historical Museum, established in 1901, raised funds and purchased the main building, opening in 1909. The museum acquired the surrounding buildings during the 29\0th century, and they are now also used for exhibitions.

We enjoyed the various rooms with exhibits and recreations of rooms throughout the museum, including one which had samples of and explained the production of local faience in factories on Mors. In an outbuilding was the best stuff, prehistoric artifacts found on the island from the Stone, Bronze and Iron Ages and the Viking era, including the remains of a Stone Age dug out canoe, burial items, including the tibia bone of an Iron Age man with clear evidence of a severe and untreated fracture which must have made one leg shorter than the other. There are also a large collection of flint axe heads and spear points, swords, pottery fragments and gorgeous large-stone amber jewelry. 

Seafaring exhibits

Kitchen as it would have been when the monastery was an estate mansion

Flint tools and pottery

Amber necklaces 

Bronze Age swords

Stone Age dugout canoe

After spending time at the museum, we stopped at a nearby supermarket for a few provisions and returned to the boat. After lunch, we cast off the dock around 3 p.m. and mostly motored the short distance to the island of Fur. The island is linked to the mainland by a 24-hour ferry that takes about 3 minutes to cross and runs every 15 minutes during most of the daylight hours. 

We walked along the waterfront, past open fields with views of the Limfjord, toward the small village of Nederby, passing small, colorful metal sculpted and painted fish. These fish--there are about 70 throughout the island--have been arriving every year in May since 2008 and are created by local artists. This outdoor art exhibit fosters hunts by both islands (about 700 people) and tourists to find the most.

Fish sculpture

Fish sculpture made of beer cans

Danish themed fish

Fish by the pedestrian pathway

We stopped at Fur Church, a Romanesque structure originally built in the early 12th century. Later, we learned from a man on the next boat in the harbor that the church is unlocked and we could have walked in. It did not matter, because we were so impressed by the meticulous maintenance, colorful flowers, trimmed shrubbery and partially polished memorial stones arranged in small plots with gravel pathways in a grid pattern dividing them. We had never seen such a beautiful cemetery. (The next day a Danish friend told us that the Fur churchyard is typical of Danish burial grounds.)

Icelandic horses on Fur

Wildflowers along the bike and pedestrian trail to Nederby

Fur Church

Fur Cemetery

The island of Fur consists of a unique geological formation and is renowned for its deposits of moler, which is one-third clay and two-thirds diatomite. It is quarried and two factories on the island process the moler. Fossil hunting is a popular activity on the island, with some dating back more than 55 million years. We planned to visit them on Monday morning. Unfortunately for us, the sites were not within walking distance of the harbor, the bike rental place was closed, and the bus we hoped to catch drove by in the opposite direction. Since it was Monday, the fossil museum in Nederby was closed. 

Thwarted in our desire to see and possibly collect fossils, we were nonetheless happy because we had just received an email from a couple whom we had contacted earlier in the day. In 2019, we met Karl and Agnieszka in the Guna Yala in Panama. They were on a steel boat and getting ready to go through the Panama Canal and continue on their planned around-the-world cruise. After making the passage, COVID and problems with their boat compelled them to abandon their plans, sell their boat and return to Denmark, where they have now settled in a lovely late-19th century brick house in the country side near Thyholm, which we had passed a couple days previously. Anyway, they were available to get together with us after 3 p.m., so we quickly returned to Mantra, cast off at 11 a.m. and headed west. 

In terms of sailing, it was excellent day to be out. The sun was shining and it was relatively warm. Within 20 minutes of leaving Fur, we were sailing on a close reach in 15-20 knot southwest winds, making fast progress on the calm water for four hours, reaching Oddesund Nord Havn just as our friends arrived to take our lines. 

They came on board for afternoon drinks, cheese and crackers, and we exchanged stories of what we have doing for the last six and a half years. After that, we toured a little around the beautiful countryside in their car and then went to their house, which is a lovely place which they have made their own. In addition to the bright living spaces, the house includes a gallery and their workshops. Karl is a woodturner and Agnieszka is a chainsaw artist and painter. Their gallery also includes paintings by a former resident who was an artist. Stretching to the horizon from their patio and backyard are views of woods and wheat fields. It is the epitome of bucolic. 

Agnieskza, Karl, Sherri and Peter by Mantra

View from Karl and Agnieszka's patio

We went to the city of Struer on the south side of the Limfjord for a pleasant dinner at the only restaurant they could find that was open on a Monday. After our meal, we walked a bit on the pedestrian streets lined with modern buildings and shops before they dropped us off at the harbor. What a delight it was for all of us to get together!

This morning, we cast off while wearing multiple layers of clothing to fend off the cold, with pearly gray-bottomed cumulous clouds allowing sunlight to peek through for a minute or two once or twice an hour. For hours, the sailing was great. We did not use the engine until we approached Logstør, where there is a bridge and the Limfjord narrows. The sun had come out! We had to wait almost an hour for a bridge opening. 

After we passed through at 2:30 p.m., I took watch. I had stayed below for the hours of bleak coldness. Peter took a brief nap as I maneuvered our boat along the marked channel leading to Aalborg, where we docked at Skudenhavnen at 6 p.m., right in front of a former furniture factory that is now a huge eatery with 16 street food vendors and outdoor seating. Two preschoolers enjoyed watching us dock and we invited them on board. They were so excited. The little boy was not sure he wanted to leave.

Visiting children with Peter

Visiting children disembarking

We bought Italian food at Street Food and ate inside (because we are not Scandinavian!). In addition to the vendors and a bar, there is setting for 600 people, arcade games, comfortable lounging areas and music on some nights.  Tomorrow we explore Aalborg, Denmark's fourth largest city.

Street Food interior