Leanne & Mark's 2023 European Travels

Today we caught up with Lone (Tonny is unwell), Bente & Peter together with Mette and Søren for the day. Most of the day of the was spent catching up and having a lot of laughs.  We visited the cemetery where my Dad's parents and siblings are buried. It is a beautiful and well-maintained cemetery. We then drove out to Ferring, where my grandparents rented a summer house that I first visited about 64 years ago. It is still there, although modified. We walked along the beach from Ferring to Bovbjerg Fyr (Lighthouse) as the weather turned feral - up to 100 km/hr winds (unusually) from the east. Fortunately the beach faces west and was protected by the high cliffs, so it wwasn’t too bad. But it was unusual for the Nortb Sea to be so calm with the off-shore wind. We climbed the 150 steps to the Fyr. There we enjoyed a simple but tasty selection of local meats and cheeses (and a beer) well protected from the 1:100 year gales outside.  After a quick tour of the adjoining gallery ...

We breakfasted at 44 Vestergade and wandered around the property and beautiful garden. It was a real experience staying in a 250 year old building built by an ancestor, despite the expense. We moved the car to the harbour in anticipation of the ferry trip, intending to wander around the town. When we saw the ferry sitting in the harbour, I relaised in the haste and panic to get on the ferry the night before I had cleverly booked the trip to the island again instead of the reverse trip. Fortunately, it was 40 minutes until sailing time and i could cancel up to 30 minutes beforedeparyure, so i did that and rebooked for the correct trip.  That gave us an extra hour to explore Ærøskøbing. It is a gorgeous old town that has done a lot to preserve its look and feel. It was also a beautiful still morning and the harbour was beautiful as well. The ferry trip was smooth and uneventful. We were then on our way to Lemvig in northen Denmark - the town my father grew up in.  We found Mett...

Today we flew from England to Denmark for the last week of our travels. 7am Acacia Minicab to the airport, then the usual wait, which allowed us to have a nice cooked breakfast.  We were delayed getting away, but otherwise the flight was short and sweet and we got to Copenhagen a bit after 1pm. We picked up our car  - a cheap-and-nasty compact manual turned into an automatic Kia plug-in hybrid with all the mod cons - now I just have to suss out how it works and drive on the wrong side of the road without killing us! We just made it onto the 17:05 Ærø ferry and got to our accommodation.  This just happens to be in the house built by my 5x great grandfather was built by Rasmus Lauritsen Kock 1784 in a little town called Ærøskøbing on the island of Ærø.  It has a gorgeous little old village centre, with cobbled streets and half-timbered houses.  The house itself is all you'd expect, with wonky original floorboards and low ceilings. While certain...

Two of my cousins (sons of Dad's youngest brother) live near London and we had agreed to meet around 1pm for lunch to catch up. The British Museum was near where we were meeting, so we caught the train in and walked up to the Museum. We joined the thousands of others in wandering through the amazing spoils of the British Empire and its explorers. We were there 3 hours and went fairly quickly though about 25% of it. It would take days to do it justice. We then met up with Michael and Lars and spent nearly 6 hours catching up, I hadn't seen them in at least 37 years, so we had a lot to catch up on. It was a great afternoon and we had a lot of laughs and a fair bit of reminiscing, along with a wine or two. It was nearly 8pm when we got back to the flat, so a toasted cheese sandwich snack was dinner.