I made my annual spring trip to Denmark this week, although because of a tight schedule it was shorter than usual, from Thursday to Sunday. Still, I managed to squeeze in everything I wanted to do.
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But before going to Denmark, I participated in the monthly meeting of our reading club on Tuesday evening. Elisabetta had selected the book of the month, and here she explains why (the person who selected the book always starts the conversation):
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The book we read was “Circe” by Madeline Miller. Circe was one of the characters of the Odyssey, a witch living on island where Odysseus lived for a year during his travels. In this book, the whole story is told from her point of view. Along with the book, I also brought my old copy of the Odyssey in Danish which I had used in high school many years ago:
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Caroline, the founder of our book club:
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Vivi smiles:
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Wednesday morning sunrise:
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On Thursday morning I flew to Copenhagen and took the train to Aarhus, where I arrived in late afternoon. Lars picked me up at the station and proceeded to make us dinner–his wonderful homemade pizza:
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As always when I visit Lars, we went cycling. On Friday we did a 60 km ride in the landscape west of Aarhus. I love the yellow rapeseed fields. For me, they mean “home”:
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On the way home, we stopped at a bakery in Brabrand, the suburb of Aarhus where Lars grew up:
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This is a trøffel, a chocolate-coated ball of delight and energy:
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In the afternoon, I walked down Strøget, the main pedestrian street. The local football team AGF has just won its first championship of Denmark in 40 years, so the city has been celebrating for many days:
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Another thing Lars and I always do when I visit is to go to ARoS, the wonderful art museum, one of the best in the world. We saw an exhibition by a Danish and American artist called The Populace:
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An ashtray on the street in the centre. Smokers are invited to vote on whether the cigarette tax should be increased by depositing their butt in the respective compartment:
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I was going back to Copenhagen on Saturday afternoon, so we still had time for a morning ride. This time we went to the south of Aarhus, stopping at Moesgaard Strand on the way home. When I was a teenager, this was the beach where I and my friends would go, mainly to sit in the sand, drink beer, and look at the topless women:
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A new attraction on the beach is this round structure called the Infinite Bridge:
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In late afternoon I arrived in Copenhagen, checked into my hotel in the centre, and walked a bit in the surrounding streets. The area behind the train station, a square called Halmtorvet and the street Istedgade used to be a sleazy place with prostitutes, sex shops and drug addicts. Today the prostitutes are online, the sex shops are out of business and the drug addicts are more or less gone too. There was just this one remnant of the old days, in a somewhat posher version:
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A conveniently located ATM:
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Just beyond Halmtorvet is the old meatpacking district, called Kødbyen (“meat town”). There are still several meat wholesalers there, but the thing the area is best known for today are the many restaurants and bars:
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I came across a hen party:
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I had dinner with my childhood friend Beata in an Italian restaurant in Kødbyen:
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On Sunday morning I took the commuter train to the cemetery to visit the graves of my parents. As is well known, cycling is a big part of Copenhagen’s transport infrastructure:
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Spring was very much in evidence at the cemetery:
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After visiting my father’s grave at the Jewish cemetery, I walked around a bit. I came across this grave of a well-known Danish politician. It has a touch of humour; besides the standard inscriptions, at the bottom it says “it was not boring, after all”:
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My flight home was late in the evening, so I had all of Sunday to enjoy the good weather and to meet up with Beata once again. We went to visit the Royal Library on the waterfront. The library was founded in the 1660s but today it consists of a late 19th century main building, with a modern addition called The Black Diamond which opened in 1999. When it opened, it was very controversial but today it is a popular destination for tourists and locals alike:
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We were joined by one of Beata’s friends, and together we went to see the Danish Press Photo of the Year exhibition at The Black Diamond. The two ladies had fun looking at this image of streaking students in a suburb of Copenhagen, apparently a local tradition in connection with graduation:
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The diamond is connected to the old library building, and on this Pentecost Sunday the beautiful reading room was empty except for stray visitors like us:
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A pleasant conversation, apparently:
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Children’s corner:
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Beata, like most inhabitants of central Copenhagen, uses a bicycle to get around. The baby seat is a leftover from more than 20 years ago but she has kept as it is handy for carrying groceries:
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We walked to a nearby restaurant for lunch where we were joined by Beata’s daughter Natalia, and afterwards we finished the afternoon in Nyhavn, very crowded on this beautiful Sunday afternoon:
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We had a beer at McJoy’s pub in my father’s memory (I used to go there with him years ago):
Afterwards, I went back to the hotel, picked up my luggage, and made my way to the airport to fly home. More photos from Aarhus can be seen here, and there is also a small Copenhagen gallery here.