Wanderung 30

We took our sweet time to bike North to Aabenraa, Denmark, first stopping at a bike shop in downtown Flensburg to finally fill all our tires properly with a high pressure air hose and pressure gauge. It is almost impossible to get really high tire pressures with the tiny emergency hand pump I was carrying, and the low tire pressures I had been riding on, combined with my weight, may have ultimately caused the tire failure I had later on in the trip, but more about that later.

We had blue skies, nice tailwinds from the South, and and warm sunshine, all of which made the ride North into Denmark easy and fun. We retraced our earlier route to the head of the Flensberg fjord, but from there we went due North to take a more direct route to Aabenra. Along the way, we enjoyed seeing more of rural Jutland, which is mostly pastures, dairy farms, and some fields of wheat, oats, and corn.

However, along the way we encounted two things that were unexpected. One was the memorials to soldiers who had died in the German invasion of Denmark at the start of WWII. There were several of those roadside war memorials, and they were well-tended, so I think the Danes may forgive, but will certainly not forget, the unprovoked agression by the Germans in WWII. On a more cheerful note, we also found quite whimsical roadside displays of modern sculptures, apparently installed by the local homeowner or farmer. We found the oddest artistic pieces located in some of the most unexpected places throughout our bicycle tour of Jutland.

Since we were early for our room when we reached the bay on which Aabenraa is located, we drove straight on into Aabenraa rather than out along the southern coast of the bay on which our B&B was located. Once in town, we parked and locked our bikes, and then hiked uphill to an Information Center in what looked like the old Town Hall. The lady there told us where an ATM cash machine was (embarassingly it was right across the street) and where two grocery stores were located, but was surprisingly unfriendly whilst interacting with us, which was noticeable because all the other Danes we met were quite friendly and welcoming.

We then walked along the pedestrianized mainstreet, just looking at the shops. We found a "kabob" type of small restaurant on that stretch and stopped in for lunch on our way back to the bikes. I started to notice that although we religiously locked up our bicycles, the local Danish folks tended to just put their bikes in the bike racks without locking them at all. That had also been true out on the Danish Islands in the Spring, and by this time I was getting the picture that the Danes were by and large a very honest and trusting folk, at least when it came to their bicycles.

But before leaving town, we first just coasted down the street a block or so to the harbor past some more odd but impressive sculpture, this time located in a parking lot! At the harborfront we found one of the local grocery stores and stopped to pick up supplies to make our own supper and breakfast. Loading up the bikes, we backtracked eastward along the shore of the bay a couple miles to find our place for the night. That shoreline road had great views out across the bay and that was fine as long as we had a good bike path or wide shoulder, but when the bike path ended and we were forced to ride out in the traffic, I felt rather like a duck in a shooting gallery, which is a very unpleasant sensation.

Fortunately, it was only a mile or so after the bike path ended that we found our room for the night, which turned out to be in an old farmhouse on the hillside right above the bay, a truly beautiful setting. Our room was a complete house with four other bedrooms, a kitchen and a living room, but we were the only people there that night so we had it all to ourselves. Oh how I wished I could have had my two sons, their wives, and my three grandchildren to fill up that house--we would have had such a great time together!

After resting a bit we walked down to the small beach attached to the farm and took some pics of the shoreline before retiring for the night. Unfortunately, after riding a total of about 3 hours and 39 kilometers, Monika's right knee was hot and swollen that evening. Apparently, she had slightly twisted her knee when she crashed into the fence and fell, but neither of us had paid much attention to that injury given the much more obvious trauma to her face. So clearly we had to take it easy on the bicycling if we were going to be able to continue our bicycle trip at all.