Denmark - Amazing Bork Havn and the Viking Village

We are travelling north through Europe on our way to Oslo in Norway before the winter sets in. This trip took place in Autumn 2013, and I am playing catch-up to blog the trip. I meant to do it at the time, but you know how it is :)

We have left Germany behind (only stayed one night), and are now in Bork Havn in Denmark. We stayed at Camping Bork Havn - which was excellent, and had free wifi (you had to be in a certain place - but it worked fine). The site is very close to the harbour area, and there is a useful supermarket right next door. We arrived in the mid afternoon which meant that we could set up and then go to explore the harbour area - which was well worth doing.

Great area for windsurfing as it is on the edge of Ringkøbing Fjord - which makes it really quite still and pleasant. The fjord itself is quite amazing as you can stand in Bork Havn, which is at the southern end and see the edge of the land running all the way around the fjord, except for one small gap where it is open to the sea. A map may make it easier to understand, the pin indicates Bork Havn:

The next morning we decided to get on the electric bikes and visit the Viking Museum which was quite close by. An excellent choice. The place was great, and the young lady in the reception area come gift shop was very informative. The Viking Village was a real eye opener, and it was easy to imagine yourself being there when the Vikings were actually around. 

There were displays of tapestries and costumes, boats and buildings to explore. The buildings included a blacksmiths forge and a typical home for a chieftain of one of the villages. They were fully furnished with authentic items. Even the smells were evocative of how I imagine the Viking village to have been. I don't think that I can do it justice here - you should go and see for yourself.
 

  

Unfortunately, the actual museum, which was across the road from the village, had suffered an electrical fault two weeks before our visit, had caught fire, and burned to the ground. Very upsetting, as many of the original items were irreplaceable.

 

 

Motorhome Into Germany

We are travelling by motor home through northern Europe with the intention of getting to Oslo in Norway before the bad winter weather sets in. So far we have been up through France and Belgium into Holland (The Netherlands). We are trying to use public parking - things like Aires and Stellplatz wherever possible - not just because we are mean, but you get to stay in some interesting places, and we often don't need all the facilities that 'proper' camping sites provide.

Moving on from the Netherlands we ended up in Baumstedt in Germany, just above Hamburg. Driving there from our last stop was not much fun. It rained a lot and the German motorways were not as wonderful as I had hoped they would be. Most are two lane, and because of the lack of speed restriction it makes overtaking really quite hard. You look in your rear view mirrors and everything is fine. Start to move out when suddenly an Audi or something screams up behind you at goodness only knows what speed! Add to this a lot of quite torrential rain, and the going gets tough.

We arrived at Baumstedt in the early evening, in the rain, with about an hour until dusk. We stayed on a Stellplatz in the centre of the town:

Marktstraße 44

25355 Barmstedt, Germany

53.786936, 9.764111

It was just a car park really, and the designated area for motor homes was under trees. As it was a bit wet and windy we had a few clunks from branches falling on us.
 

One was a bit on the big side - you can see it in the foreground in this picture after I had got the ladder out and taken it off of the roof. We had a brief explore - but spent more time next morning having a look around. The town itself was interesting and had lots of small shops. We also found a Lidl just down the street - which was useful. The local beer was equivalent to 35 pence for a 500ml bottle - I only bought a few, should have bought more! Excellent fresh bakery in store there as well. I enjoyed it - made K wish once again that she could eat wheat. The Stellplatz was close to a small cafe and takeaway, which had a nice clean public toilet just around the corner in the same building.

It seems that we missed the excellent park and Schloss which was right next to where we parked. Shame really, but it was only an overnight stop. If we venture that way again.....

As evening fell we noticed that a German van had crept in front of us to gain access to what seemed to be an electrical outlet, which he duly attached himself to. I investigated - and it would seem to need a key to unlock it. I don't know what this is, but I suspect it is something that, perhaps, a club akin to one of the UK's offerings allows members to have access to. Anyway - we ran on batteries that evening. We stayed one night and then headed for Denmark.

Standing Stones and the Funnel Beaker Culture

I'm partial to a standing stone. Close to where we live in the UK there is Avebury, and a little farther away there is Stonehenge. Very close to us indeed are the Stanton Drew Stone Circles - and these are, believe it or not, the third largest collection of prehistoric standing stones in England! It only seemed natural then, having spotted some prehistoric monuments indicated along the route that we were taking from Amsterdam to Gronigen, that I would want to stop and explore.

We didn't know what flavour of standing stones we were about to see, but as it turns out they were 'Hunebedden' - which are megalithic tombs. They were built by the 'Funnel Beaker People' in what is now the Netherlands about 5000 years ago. Having chosen our camping place we set out on our electric bikes to explore. Being so flat, we hardly needed the electric part of the bikes at all - but it is always nice to know that you can rely on them to bring you back home if/when your legs give out, or you get really tired. They have a range of at least 20km, so that is more than enough for most of our trips.

The area that we were in was named Drenthe. We chose to stay at a camp site named 'Camping De Lente van Drenthe', which was very nice, and quiet as it was coming to the end of the season. We found a corner of a field and camped up. It was a little damp as it was now about half way through September. We caught the tail end of a Volkswagen Camper Rally - there were only about three vans left. Their owners were friendly enough, and we exchanged a few words on the way to and from the toilet block. This block was, incidentally, excellent! Warm and clean with good hot free showers. Most recommended.The site is almost buried in the forest, and surrounded by lots of good cycling terrain - both on and off road. 

One other thing about the site at that time of year was the abundance of fungi to be seen. It was everywhere and of all varieties. If only I had taken a book on edible fungi with me... (I'm going to buy one now, so it can live in the van along with the bird and tree identifier books).

We cycled around the area a fair bit. In one part of the forest we came across a recreation area, complete with a beach and swimming lake! Bet it's great in the summer. There were quite a few people there enjoying the autumn sunshine, though the water was a bit cold to venture into - for me anyway. 

After a great time in The Netherlands we decided to move on to Germany - heading for Denmark.

The Afsluitdijk and on to Groningen

OK - I realise by now that I am a somewhat carefree Blogger. I must do this on a more regular basis - but things seem to get in the way, and I'm not really convinced that anyone reads this stuff anyway. Back to the travel bit of the blog (I have quite a bit more to add on this).

We were in the Netherlands, in Amsterdam. We wanted to continue north. Having seen an edition of the BBC's 'Coast' program which showed a causeway carrying a road, the E22, for 32 kilometres - we decided to go for it, and head for Groningen.

 

 Well, we had to try it, didn't we? So off we trolled, and it was quite a sight.

In the top right picture you can just make out the van - OK, I parked it straight. I seem to remember that it was the edge of a 'coach' reserved space. The dike was built between 1927 and 1932. There's lots more information here if you are interested.

The tower is at 'The Monument' on the dike. You can see where that is from this picture:

We traversed the rest of the dike and headed towards Groningen.