From our small campsite on the border of Germany we headed west en route to Hamburg. Stopping in a small town to post some post cards we was greeted by a man wearing clogs and blowing a rather large horn on the green of the town, in some sort of ceremony which was rather peculiar, so we stared at him confused for a couple of minutes then off we went to Hamburg, the city where Hamburgers originated and where we was hoping to experience the christmas market. We drove into the city which was rather easy and ended up parking in an old industrial docks area and ventured off to explore what Hamburg had to offer. Leaving the van alone in a large city is still pretty scary and with so many people around you never know what's going to happen.
Entering the main square which housed the Christmas Market, Robin immediately headed for the bratwurst stand and ordered a sausage before he even had a chance to take in the fact we was in Germany let alone the most perfect Christmas market we had ever set our eyes on. There was good food, amazing gifts and a small train chugging its way around the tops of the stalls whilst a life size Santa and his reindeer crew flew over head.
Lauren tucked into a doughy cheesy bun of goodness and robin gazed at the blacksmith crafting bespoke lucky horse shoes for gifts on of the market stalls. We then took a wander round the rest of the city and the shopping area there were many beautiful shops and plenty of market stalls to see but by the time we had a good look around it was already dark and we were cold and tired so we headed back to where the van was parked, we left feeling Hamburg still had more to offer.
After leaving Hamburg we knew we wanted to spend as much time in Copenhagen as possible so we decided to drive 200 miles north to the middle island of Denmark. As we crossed the border from from Germany into Denmark we had our first real border check, the customs people, although they were very friendly wanted to have a look inside the camper, I think they were more intrigued than anything because of our chimney sticking out the roof of an otherwise plain white transit. After a quick snoop about they then sent us on our way into Denmark.
We made it to the middle island of Denmark just past Odense by about 11pm and parked on a small camping ground near an old water mill. Aparently the last working water mill in Denmark. Waking up in the morning we realised in the daylight it was a beautiful location and we decided to re-charge our batteries and get some drone footage of the van because it was the first day of the trip where it wasn't crazy windy or raining. We discovered there was an ancient burial ground on the campsite which was interesting and it had been renovated so you could still go inside, it dated back 4000 years. We spent the rest of the day doing some much needed admin before we set of for Copenhagen the following day.
We woke up nice and early in the morning and we drove across the bridge into the city as the sun was coming up and it was a beautiful day. We found a pretty safe car park just outside the city and took a 30 minute walk through a residential area and into the city. Copenhagen was beautiful, there were streets of coloured houses and plenty to see.
We decided to search for probably the most picturesque area of Copenhagen, The Nyhavn canal. Plenty of historic ships and colourful buildings along with bustling cafes and a street market to top it off.
After taking in the sights of Nyhavn we stumbled across Rundetaarn which was a large tower and adjacent church built by the university hundreds of years ago with quite a magnificent sloped walkway from top to bottom which was nothing like I had ever seen before. Every year a unicycle race is held inside the tower where contestants must ride up and down the spiral in the quickest time.
We then wandered around the city for a while mainly heading towards the little mermaid statue, a gift to the city of Copenhagen from the son of the Carlsberg founder based on the Hans Christian Anderson story.
From there we headed to a rather cool looking burger bar for a well earned bite to eat and a cold beer. As it was getting dark we took a stroll back to the van, We had a thoroughly good time in Copenhagen and we cannot wait to visit again, after navigating out of the city we headed for our next county, Hello Sweden!
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