Originally written on Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Denmark; home of the Danes, famous for it’s Dens, large quantities of sliced, fried and grilled dead pig, Copenhagen with it’s wonderfully multi-coloured water side homes and buildings and it’s “green conferences”; ‘Copenhagen is Hopen-Hagen’ as they announced in 2009 when Copenhagen hosted the Climate Change Conference; puns and word play in somebody else’s language, that is sophisticated…..

Winter 2010 is the first time I have been to Denmark and, having been here now for a about a week, I do wonder what has taken me so long to get here. Denmark is a wonderful place.

Arriving by boat into Esbjerg, on the Danish west coast the very fist thing that struck me was just how dammed cold it is here. Biting cold. Not so much because of the -7°C temperatures but the biting lazy wind; so called because it does not go around but through.

The drive across Denmark was largely un-eventful, on until the bridge linking the mainland of Denmark, to Zeeland , the island, as big as it is, containing the multi-coloured Copenhagen on the east side of the island. The bridge is actually two bridges, one a multi arch viaduct type of construction leading to a small island in the middle of the estuary, which in turns leads to a two tower suspension bridge, in the style of the Humber.

While the suspension bridge itself may not be the longest in the world, over all, the two bridges combined are somewhere in the region of around 15 miles. And 220kr to get over; around £18. Pretty damned expensive, but, for country that it is essentially self sufficient and basically does not receive any EU subsidy, it is a pretty damned fine achievement.

Denmark is a fairly flat sort of place. One could imaging the Dutch feeling very much at home here. There are even a few ‘olde worlde’ wind mills here, fine establishments for grinding wheat into all sorts of wholesome foodstuffs, such as bread, bread and alcohol; of which the Danes make a fine selection. There are also an awful lot of new modern wind turbines, making use of the one common element that seems to be in huge abundance pretty much all over Denmark .

Driving east, then north, the Land Rover eventually arrived in Odsherred, negotiating the snow, the wind and the very early setting sun. Once there, it became clear that this is possibly once of the most beautiful places I have been to. Now, for those of you who are regular readers of these pages will know that I a not,not, a hot weather bird. I do tend to get my gander up when the temperature reaches the heady heights of 90+°F but, to my chagrin, my ramblings have always taken me to hot places; Libya, Madagascar, Algeria, even though that was a brief sojourn, Gabon and lately, Congo.

However, now, I have two weeks in the sub-zero temperatures of Denmark, two weeks up to the knees in Scandic “white gold”, two weeks of having to wrap up warm and remember to wear the gloves, two weeks of base layer shirts, thermal jumpers and hiking socks….. if there is a afterlife for atheists, I damn well hope it is in Denmark.

The area of Denmark I am in is essentially a spit, a finger of land that juts out into the sea, in this case, the Baltic, that very warm sea that joins together the Scandic countries that gave the Vikings their relaxed attitude pillaging, travel and thick jumpers. That means there is ocean to the north of me, ocean to the south… get it on.

It also means that the weather on the north side of thespit can be very severe, windy with horizontal snow whipping across the fairly lively water. On the south side, peaceful, calming serenity. One can imagine how the famous Herring Sandwich experiment was devised here. ‘I like Herring sandwiches…..’.

The Danes also seem to a fairly relaxed attitude to snow, unlike some parts of europe, or the UK. The Danes seem to have the attitude that it snows; live with it. There is very little of the panicking that seems to grip some parts of europe at the appearance of a little chilled water, nor is there is the over-reaction to snow that besets the UK. Snow is a fact of life here, it happens at the time of the pagan ‘new year’ festivals and is taken very much in their stride. Some people could learn a thing or two from this attitude.

Snow is why I came here and I have not been disappointed. There is snow here in abundance. Drifts of three feet over night are not un-common. Six to eight inches of fall have been regular here for the fortnight I have been here. Bloody marvellous!

The roads here are treated in a pragmatic way; large lorries with ploughs on the front push their way through the snow on the main roads, most days, but not every day. The Danes, like most of the rest of the world, drive cars. Cars are not people and are more than capable of getting around when there is a little snow on the ground. The Danes just drive. Tremendous.

København, or, as the Angles would have it, Copenhagen, is on the east of the island of Zeeland and is one of the more interesting and sophisticated capital cities in europe, if not anywhere. As far as history is concerned, København is swimming in the stuff. Stuffed to the gills in old stuff. More history than a stick could be waved at for a twenty minute heavy stick shaking session. But that is not what makes København so interesting.

For me, København is a small city. It is a city where you feel you will never really get lost. There is a blend of the astonishingly old, with the Kings Castle dating backs around 420 years, bang in the centre of the city. There are some wonderful ‘arts and crafts’ buildings, dating back to around 1890 to 1910, , all knitted together with the ultra modern buildings of a vibrant, liberal and utterly relaxed city; a city that is comfortable with it’s history, a city that is comfortable with it’s heritage and a city that is comfortable with open attitudes and it’s expensive cafés with it’s really excellent cakes.

Københavnites, as it seems, along with the rest of Denmark, are astonishingly polite people, and as befits a people whose language is astoundingly complicated, even for other Scandinavians, also speak pretty damn near perfect English. Our American cousins could learn something from the Danes…..

Everybody I spoke with, from the chap who offered me the remainder of his parking ticket, to the man who asked for help getting his car out of the snow, to the woman who served me hot chocolate and a rather delish’ cake in a Christianshavn coffee shop, all spoke damn near perfect English; often even without me saying anything in the first place. Perhaps I lookEnglish.

The Københavnites, like the rest of the Danes, seem to be a fairly pragmatic bunch. And it is nice to see. Yes it is cold here, and they do keep warm, but not to the point where they look like they are going on a polar trek with Adamsson; short skirts and long boots seem to be de-rigour here right now. Nice. The Danes, like most of the Scandics, cycle a lot; indeed, there are well marked out cycle paths which seem to be better cleaned and cleared of snow than the roads. The Danes do not wear cycle helmets. Magnificent.

Public transport, at least in København, seems to be pretty good. Even in the ‘out of town’ areas, there are lots of very yellow buses around, taking the Danes from place A to place B, with a possible stop off at place C. Not a single ‘bendy bus’ amongst them.

In the centre of København there is, what seems to be a man made, or at least planned and laid out, lake. It is almost like a canal, running through the centre of the city, but with no apparent beginning nor end; it is just there. There are three bridges running over the canal, dividing the mass into four sections; this bridge being the Louises Bridge, looking from the south to the north. This view is from the same bridge, looking south. And yes, it is frozen. Which made for a wonderful walk across the canal, in between the skaters and other city ramblers. One can see how the idea of a ‘city skating rink’ is perhaps a Danish idea.

The city has water running through it’s veins, but not just for the aesthetic of water front living. If only it were not quite so cold, the frozen canals would be teeming with Venetian style canal cruisers, yachts and barges, plying their trade in slow, but ecologically sound fashion. . Sadly, this December, it was that cold….

Denmark is one place I to which I would love to return, either in the summer, or again in the winter. This winter has for me been the epitome of what a winter should be; cold, lots of clean, crisp white snow, , heavy lashings of snow atop a forest of trees, some excellent food, really nice people, a mixture of rural isolation and the city sophisticate with some suave and rather stylish women who manage the seemingly impossible job of keeping warm and looking rather foxy.

I like Denmark.

That is all.