Wanderung 30

We said "Good Bye" to our nice little cottage after breakfast, and were soon on our way to Vordingborg, a historic town on the southern end of the large island of Zealand, which includes Copenhagen on its northern shore. To ride from Stege to Vordingborg we had to go mostly West and, of course, the wind that day came directly from the West. At times it felt like we were slogging through mud. We both used our E-support extensively. Bob's left knee started to hurt, probably a strain from all the steps yesterday, so we stopped more often.

But even with all that, the scenery was still beautiful, especially once we got off the major routes. We even saw a couple of pheasants hurrying along. Unfortunately they did not want to stop to have their picture taken.

Once we arrived in Vordingborg, we chained the bicycles to a fence and looked around. We were at the edge of a historic old castle, used between 1100 and 1600 A.D. Only one tower out of the original twelve was still standing, but it was in good shape, and only pieces of the original outer defensive walls. Still, very interesting.

But our main goal was again finding an ATM since most B&Bs and some shops want only Kroner cash. Unfortunately for us tourists, Denmark uses its own currency rather than the Euro that is used in most of mainland Europe, and you can only get that at ATM machines in Denmark. The downtown area was a pedestrian zone during the week with a lot of little shops. But this was Sunday so everything was closed, and cars and bicycles were allowed. We stopped at the first ATM machine and found out that Bob's cash card worked just fine.

Next item was lunch. Even though we were now flush with cash, we still had to overcome our inherent aversion to the outlandishly high prices in Danish restaurants, e.g. $21 for a hamburger meal. But the hamburgers were big with lots of stuff and the home fries were nicely coated and crisp, totally yummy. So it was a good meal and allowed us to use the sandwiches we had brought along for dinner later that evening. (That turned out to be, however, the first and last time we ate out in Denmark during our bike tour. Breakfasts were provided by our B&Bs, and we purchased food for lunch and dinner during each day's ride.)

Afterwards we walked back to the historic area, where there were beautiful layed out formal gardens just beside the ruins of the old castle. They had nameplate signs for all the plants, but unfortunately the signs were in Latin and Danish, thus not helping us much. But it was a great place to walk around.

We returned to a bench by our bikes for some rest and people watching. A lot of people had delicious looking ice cream cones, and finally we broke down and followed the throng to the icecream store for a delicious cone that we shared. Next to us were a group of Italian pavillions selling Italian specialties, flanked by a group of panel trucks with Italian license plates, leading us to believe, they must be travelling from city to city.

We finally left the nice bench and followed Kamoot to our destination, Danhostel, a large complex. We finally found registration, they had our reservation and a nice lady showed us to our room and gave us a key to the bicycle shed. We also needed linen, which she provided. The room is very simple, no TV, but an en-suite bathroom, which is more useful to us!