Most of the week I spent visiting Denmark, as I always do in early November.
45_1
But the first couple of days I followed the usual routine. On Sunday morning I walked to the bakery and photographed the morning light on my street, in a couple of different ways:
45_2
45_3
In the afternoon, I was at 100 Montaditos on Playa San Juan, enjoying the early November sunshine, as were many others:
45_4
(Equipment note: the preceding two photos were made with one of my favourite long lenses, the Leica 90mm Tele-Elmarit)
45_5
On Monday I was walking on a street in the centre, Calle Poeta Quintana, when I noticed these masks on the lampposts along the street. I never found out what was the occasion, and by now they are gone:
45_6
45_7
Tuesday afternoon I stopped to photograph the full moon over the beach:
45_8
On Wednesday morning I flew to Billund in Jutland. Why are there flights from Alicante to a small town in Jutland? Because that small town is strategically located in relation to several bigger towns, and it is also the headquarters of the world’s leading toy company, Lego. My friend Lars came to pick me up and we drove the 80 km to Aarhus. After lunch, we walked to the ARoS art museum. Along the way, I photographed some of the many election posters for the upcoming municipal and regional elections. Here, posters from two left-wing parties, with slogans such as “inequality is unhealthy” and “make space for the preppers”, the preppers being the squirrels (collecting acorns for the winter), symbolising nature:
45_9
More election posters. The one in the middle is interesting; the candidate is the daughter of Rudi Dutschke, a German left-wing activist who was shot in 1968 and suffered lasting injuries which eventually led to his death at an early age in 1979 in Aarhus where he had settled in the early 1970s:
45_10
As we always do when I visit, Lars and I went to ARoS, one of Europe’s great contemporary art museums, with Your Rainbow Panorama on top:
45_11
We always start by going to the panorama at the top and look at our city through various coloured panes:
45_12
We then moved downstairs to the exhibitions. This time there was a new exhibition by UK artist Jenkin van Zyl called Lost Property:
45_13
On Thursday morning we went on the first of two bike rides, enjoying the landscapes south and west of Aarhus. In contrast to my last visit in April, the weather was nice, cold enough to require long pants and jackets, but mostly sunny:
45_14
Typical country road in eastern Jutland:
45_15
A pastoral scene:
45_16
On Thursday afternoon, I was going to meet with Lone, a classmate from primary school many years ago, for a drink. While walking to the bar where we had agreed to meet, I really enjoyed my city, now getting ready for the holidays. This is the Aarhus river with reflections of the Magasin du Nord department store, the Aarhus outpost of Copenhagen’s oldest and grandest establishment of this kind:
45_17
On the main pedestrian street I passed Salling, Aarhus’s own original department store, founded in 1906, and today part of Denmark’s largest retail group:
45_18
Lone and I met at the bar she had selected:
45_19
The bar is called Æblet og GÃ¥sen (“The Apple and the Goose”). It is a neighbourhood bar with a very nice ambiance and good beer selection. I did not know it before but will be coming back for sure:
45_20
This gentleman was making an interesting fashion statement:
45_21
In the evening Lars’s daughter Klara came to visit and we had sushi:
45_22
On Friday, Lars and I went cycling again, and in the evening we celebrated his birthday earlier in the week. Lars’s sister Hanne is a family lawyer, and quite fierce:
45_23
Lars has paintings by his grandchildren on the wall next to the kitchen:
45_24
Lars opens a present while his other daughter Marie looks on:
45_25
The food was Lars’s homemade pizza, always a delight:
45_26
On Saturday morning Lars took a final photo of me while we were eating breakfast. Afterwards, he drove me to the train station and I travelled to Copenhagen, a trip of about 3 hours:
45_27
I had arranged to meet up with my parents’ (and mine) old friends Marek and Tamara for lunch in a restaurant in the centre, close to my hotel. While walking to the restaurant, I took in this building with its iconic milk advertisement (“half a liter every day, for the entire life”):
45_28
I waited for Marek and Tamara outside Palads, an old movie theatre:
45_29
There was a young couple, having a long conversation before the woman got on her bike and cycled away:
45_30
This is how many Copenhagen children get around (the photo is not sharp but I liked the scene):
45_31
Marek and Tamara are in their mid-70s, so about 25 years younger than my parents were when they moved to Copenhagen in the late 1980s. I will forever be grateful to them for the help they gave my parents in adjusting to life in the big city, and I always make sure to get together with them when I am in town:
45_32
Later that afternoon, I walked to the main pedestrian street, Strøget, always crowded on a Saturday:
45_33
The weather station on the corner of RÃ¥dhuspladsen (City Hall Square), showing a cool 7C/45F but sunny, as indicated by the fact that the girl on a bicycle is out:
45_34
The traditional Danish fast food, a sausage, usually served with bread and condiments:
45_35
More election posters. In Denmark, all foreigners who have lived legally in the country for at least 4 years can vote in local elections, and some of the political parties try to attract that vote. Here, a poster in Ukrainian saying “this election is also yours”:
45_36
A building I love seeing at dusk, the House of Danish Industry:
45_37
In the evening, my childhood friend Beata and I went to Nyhavn. The place was beautiful with the holiday decorations and the good weather:
45_38
Beata and I speak Polish to each other, and we were “accosted” by a group of young Polish tourists who had overheard us:
45_39
Beata at McJoy’s pub, a bar in Nyhavn where I used to go for a beer with my father; I always honour his memory by having a pint or two in this place:
45_40
Just before taking the metro back to my hotel, I admired the beautifully lit Magasin du Nord on Kongens Nytorv. This is Denmark’s oldest department store, founded in 1868. The current building dates from 1894:
45_41
On Sunday morning I went to visit my parents’ graves. First my mother’s, at the Vestre KirkegÃ¥rd municipal cemetery:
45_42
Then my father’s, at the main Jewish cemetery a couple of hundred meters away:
Afterwards, I went back to my hotel, checked out, took the train to the airport and flew to Brussels where I had two days of meetings starting Monday morning.