07-07 Hans Christian Andersen in Odense, Denmark

We walked over to the childhood home of Hans Christian Andersen. Their home was really small, but they were a poor family. They shared the right hand door with the family in the middle. A third family lived in the left 1/3 of the building. They lived in the right 1/3 of this house.

He lived here in this small two room section of the home with his mother and father. The table was his father's work bench; he was a shoemaker. His mother was a washer women, standing in the cold river, washing clothes all day.

There was a bed in the corner for his mother and dad and he slept on the settee.

This was their kitchen.

The lady here was very friendly and shared more information and answered our questions. There was no running water and the outhouse was out back. They went to the town square to draw the water.

Next we split a chicken burger, onion rings, a chocolate banana shake and a Pepsi Max at Burger Anarchy.

1pm, on to the other museum. We started with the film about his life. It showed every 15 min alternating from the Danish and English.

This museum, after the film, was mostly reading through his life. There were manuscripts and paper items he had cut out. Half way through his life you went through his grandparent's house where he was born.

Then we continued reading through his life.

Interesting fact is that HCA never "owned" a home of his own. His last flat in Amsterdam looked very nice though and they had a re-creation of it in the museum.

HCA wrote his last novel, Lucky Peter, at the age of 65 in 1870 and commented afterwards, "My writer's flame has got out, my time is over...". He died in 1875.

After we finished here, we walked around town. It's a very walk-able town.

Here's a building from 1646.

We walked in a couple of shops, then had dinner. We split a pizza at an Italian place.

Walking home, we bought some water for tonight and tomorrow morning (we still have one more chocolate muffin each for breakfast) and ice cream bars, which we ate while we walked to the train station for the last Hans Christian Andersen statue.

Entitled, The Trinity, it is HCA sculpture showing his three sides, The Shadow, The Improviser and The Travelling Companion.

Lastly we bought our train tickets for tomorrow. It will be an early day tomorrow, as we plan on catching the 8:10 am train to Billund, Denmark, where Legoland is.

07-06 Odense, Denmark Hans Christian Andersen's Hometown

We leave the apt for the last time.  Thank goodness, this had not been our best AirBnB. Bigger is NOT always better.

We board bus 14 about 1/2 block away to the Copenhagen Central train station and then the train for 75 min to Odense.

Unfortunately, this is the nicest day since we arrived here. We get two seats with a table, facing two empty seats, with our two big suitcases over head. Arriving in Odense, we walk to our hotel, Cabinn Odense Hotel, which is in a building on the end of the train station.

Checking in at noon, we got into our room and dropped off our luggage and we were on our way to see a new town in Denmark. That's how a hotel check-in aught to go. Walk up to the front desk, tell them your name, they find your reservation and boom they have all the correct info about you and what you want (4 minutes tops). It's not rocket science here folks.

We walked down the street toward Hans Christian Andersen's boyhood home and found a nice cafe for lunch. I have a grilled piece of chicken and a small bowl of au gratin potatoes. Delicious and just the right amount. Pat had BBQ ribs and mashed potatoes. He's in heaven.

We decided it was such a beautiful day we would do our outdoor walks and do the museums tomorrow, because there's a good chance of rain. We stopped at both museums just to make sure we weren't going to be missing anything if we didn't do them today. Found out the time of the play in the outdoors and it was just starting when we got there, so we stopped to watch.

It was a good performance involving lots of adults and kids. We didn't understand because it was in Danish, but we know most of the stories, so we enjoyed it.

Now to start our walk. They have red feet painted on the ground for us to follow and we downloaded an app that tells us about each site. We followed them around town learning about Hans Christian Anderson and his life in Odense.

There was a plaque on the ground at each location that included what it was in a couple of languages and the location on the map. This is the church where his mother and father were married and where his dad is buried when he was just 14 years old.

The cobblestone streets around his boyhood home are still very narrow and the houses are small. It looks very close to what it looked like when he lived there.

Walking through the park Karen spotted a boat and it reminded her of a Jungle Cruise boat. We found out where it went and bought tickets for a one hour cruise and then had dinner at a cafe right by the load area while we waited for the boat to come back.

After a dinner of a cheese and ham panini we boarded our boat for a nice relaxing cruise down past the zoo and back. There were some things hanging in the trees that had to do with Hans Christian Anderson's fairy tales along the way. We went by some large houses. There were pedal boats that also cruised this river.

After the boat ride we continued finding the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tales statues like this one depicting the Emperor's New Clothes.

We stopped at the grocery story and got some water, muffins for breakfast (no breakfast at this hotel) and some ice cream bars. We ate the ice cream bars on the walk back to our hotel.

07-02 Papiroen Food, Savior Church, Nyhavn

We left the apartment at 10:15, dumped out the trash and walked down to the Stroget - pedestrian walkay. Stopped at a pharmacy for some nasal medication for Pat. (Got a spray, not what he wanted. He wanted Sudafed, which they don't sell in Denmark.)

The shop I was going to check out here was closed, so we walked over to the Nyhavn Harbor and walked the south side getting pictures with no rain.

There's one gift shop here on this side which is hardly noticeable because of the scaffolding on it and it looks like just restaurants on the other side.

The gift shop here has three out of the four paper cutting of the Nyhavn buildings I'm thinking of getting.

We walk over two pedestrian bridges to get to the Papiroen for lunch. The Papiroen is a large international food court.

I had a container of rosemary roasted potatoes and Pat had a porchetta sandwich (slow roasted wine-marinated pork) from this place.

We ate inside and when we finished and walked outside it started sprinkling. It didn't last too long.

The things they can do with plywood in these Scandinavian countries.

It stopped raining before we reached The Church of our Savior, Vor Frelsers Kirke.

This is good news because the last 150 steps to the top of this tower wind around the outside of the tower. Although it was not raining it was very windy.

It's about $7 each to climb to the top of the tower. It's Sunday and it's very busy.

The first 250 steps (wood and brick) are inside the tower with stops along the way to see an old clock mechanism (with Frederik IV monogram on it), the old bell ringer's bed, and the church bells,

Once on the outside (after the first 250 steps), there is a platform that goes all the way around for viewing the city.

Now your climb can continue on the outside. You'll make 3 1/2 revolutions around the tower on the 150 copper clad steps. There is no platform at the top that goes all the way around. The stairs just get narrower and then there is no where more to climb.

Yep, everyone going up and down uses the same set of steps. It looks really crowded at this point because this is very close to the top and the stair width is the narrowest here.

We are finished on the outside and ready to go down the stairs on the inside of the tower.

At the bottom again and the sun started coming out.

We popped into a works project dog and pony show. Hey, wait a minute. Is that Bertha from Seattle?

Walked back through the Nyhavn Harbor. We retook this morning's pictures from the opposite side with more sun in them and then walked down the north side past the famous old buildings.

We stopped at Vaffelbageren at number 49 for some ice cream. This place was really popular on the Nyhavn.

Hans Christian Andersen's home in Copenhagen is in Nyhavn at #17.

Next we headed for home because Pat wasn't feeling well (even after the ice cream), stopping at the grocery store for some potatoes for dinner. This time we found individual potatoes, not ones sealed in a plastic bag.

At home Pat took a nap. Then we had dinner and worked on the blog.