Wanderung 30

We had been forewarned by our landlady that the King and Queen of Denmark would be docking at Aabenraa on this morning, so we were on the lookout for any sign of the royal couple as we started off on our day's journey right after breakfast. And, sure enough, we did spot a police-escorted motorcade with a large limousine with flags in front, so we waved at what we presumed to be the royal couple as they went speeding past us. We also saw what I think was the "royal yacht" just steaming out of the harbor in downtown Aabenraa, and the sidewalks were still crowded with classes of excited Danish schoolchildren all waving tiny Danish flags, who were just adorable.

After our distance brush with Danish royalty, we climbed the ridge on the northern side of Aabenraa and continued northward to Haderslev across the bucolic countryside. We still had a nice tailwind, but the skies were clouded over and it wasn't nearly as pretty that way. The land remained mainly agricultural, and some crops had clearly just been harvested but we still saw some fields with a small grain of some kind (wheat? oats? rye?) and cornfields that were unharvested.

Although we kept our bicycling to a leisurely pace and only did around 30 kilometers for the day, Monika's knee was again sore by the time we reached the Danhostel in Haderslev where we had our reservation for the night. Since it seemed the bicycling was worse for her knee than walking, we parked the bikes and walked a kilometer or so into the old downtown area.

Haderslev lies at the western end of a fjord running all the way out (eastward) to the Baltic Sea, and on one edge of the old town area you can still see the dam for the stream feeding into the upper end of the fjord. That dam had created a small lake on the inland side of the town that in the old days had apparently powered a grist mill in the downtown area. The dam and some of the buildings from the Middle Ages had survived and are very picturesque.

Crossing the stream, we entered the downtown area and ambled along a surprisingly long, pedestrianized main shopping street. Somewhat incongruously, we found a Turkish pizzeria smack dab in the middle of town which seemed to be doing a booming business, so we stopped there to have lunch. (Although the Turks are not generally known for their pizza as far as I am aware, this pizzeria did offer very good thin-crust pizza and a host who spoke English as well as Danish, which helped a lot!)

After lunch we continued along the main shopping street, which was lined by the usual assortment of clothing stores, sundries stores, cafes, and boutiques. But when we came to a big cathedral, we heard the melliflluous sounds of an big church pipe organ. Curious, but not sure if there was a special service or anything, we found the door unlocked and cautiously went inside for a peek. The inside of the church was gorgeous but quite empty, and it turned out that the organist was simply practicing his repertoire.

A brochure claimed the organ was the largest church organ in this part of Denmark, and I know its booming sound reverberated through that empty church like crazy! I recognized a couple religious (Lutheran) hymns, which was no accident as the local noble was a companion of Martin Luther and had started the Protestant Reformation in Denmark when he returned home after visitng Luther down in Germany.  But much to my delight there were also a lot of secular pieces, which the organist played very well indeed. I think I even recognized "The Flight of The Bumble Bee", which I have never heard played on an organ before at all.

After a pleasant and restful interlude in the church, we thanked the organist, donated to the church, and continued our perambulation around the city. We looped back to the small, inland lake on the West side of the town and then through the adjacent town park where we saw a huge number of pavilions being erected. We finally puzzled out that the tents were for some type of upcoming music festival (jazz music, to be precise). By the time we finally wended our way back to the Danhostel, we were really tired and just put our feet up and relaxed for the rest of the day.