The crap hotel in Copenhagen tried to stiff us to the end by charging us for things we had not bought, so we were both glad to see the back of it.
Nice sunset though
So to Aarhus in Jutland, which involved three hours’ sedate and somewhat boring train travel in danish first class. Wow. Free power, coffee, tea, water and food, (and chocolates!) and lovely seats. Thounthe seats are the same high quality as they are in standard. We liked Aarhus immediately. It’s greener, prettier, cleaner and with more smiles, though the advertised attractions are somewhat underwhleming. Eg the ARoS which is touted by Lonely Planet as one of Denmark’s three top galleries, did admittedly have a rainbow panorama which was rather lovely, and Ron Muerk’s ‘Boy’, which was terrific. But the two featured exhibitons were pretty dull, even awful. There’s a reason the danish golden age of age is known only in denmark, and the “director’s choice” exhibition was frankly insultingly bad and amateurish. Either danish modern art sucks, or his taste does. Or both
Amazing building though. Afterwards we went to the botanic gardens, and to have the worst asian meal ever made. I had “chicken satay” advertised as ‘spicy!’, but the only spice was salt, and it tasted like satay made by someone who only seen a photo of the meal. Rubbery chicken covered with thickened chicken broth with red flecks that had no taste, and sprinkled with peanuts. It was so bad it was hilarious! Don’t eat ‘ethnic’ in Denmark, i’d suggest.
Hotel was noisy and the main room light came on when the bathroom light was used, so we changed for the second night (the light was the only improvement – 4 star hotel my bum). We visited the lovely Aarhus Domkirke (cathedral) the next morning
As it was rainy and we had exhausted the obvious options in Aarhus, we decided to go north to Aalborg, a pretty town with artistic and architectural cred. The rain followed us, but we had lucnh, went to the Kunsthall Nord which had no exhibitions that we could find, but a lovely panaoramic view of the town
, and then had coffee and cake in the Utzon centre on the fjord. I wanted tea, but though the posh restaurant had five types of herbal tea, earl grey, and green tea, i could not get a cup of ordinary black tea there (or on the train) for love or money. We finally ended up buying a box of liptons to take with us, as hot water and milk is readily available – just not real tea!
Now to Sweden!