We camp: A lovely day through beautiful rural Denmark

August 9, 2012

Koge is a very ancient town founded by a Royal Order as it was the first place south of Copenhagen with a natural harbour. This order was issued before 1288 and included a town plan which is still the setting for the present day town centre. This has all been very well preserved and the town sits around the large market square. In the past Koge was the home base of trade from North Germany and this square was the centre of commerce. In many ways the town must look very like it looked in ancient times but now its commerce relies almost completely on tourism. Last night we ate dinner at the Café Vivaldi and a heaving place it was jammed full of people all eating and drinking up large. Our meals were delicious but enormous. I had a huge salad which I just managed to get through and Ken the biggest heap of Nachos I have ever seen in my life, he only managed to eat half of them. The B and B was comfortable but as we are still waking at the crack of dawn breakfast at 8am is rather late. However by then we will be all packed up and ready to go.

Despite the late breakfast we were away by 8.30. Today was a different day. The flags only fluttered gently, the wind turbines turned lazily as if exhausted by the rigors of yesterday and there were some white sails out at sea. We felt invigorated and made good time at first beside the sea then later into the countryside. For the first time we saw grain being harvested. There were lots of little hamlets along the way but the rather disappointing thing is that they have no services therefore to get our coffee fix we have to go into a moderately sized town. We took a detour so we could go through Store Heddinge and there we found a bakery packed with delicious goodies and of course with coffee.

It was fairly early when we got to Fakse and found the Tourist information. The lovely lady there was very impressed with how well I spoke English! She gave us directions to the next camp ground along the way and off we set. YES we are actually camping. This is a big facility with lots of ‘fun’ things to do and is a real family place. We were most impressed by the lady with a car load of kids who pulled up shortly after we arrived. In the twinkling of an eye she had the tent up, the site organised and the kids were happily playing on the nearby playground. Ken and I continued to struggle with our tent but the good news is we haven’t left the tent pegs behind as I had feared

Fedrick 7 who was the son in that great Danish movie The Royal Affair we saw last week

Ken is the founding member of the RSPCT (the royal society of the prevention of cruelty to tractors)he thinks these need rescuing

This Ferguson needs to be rescued too it only has some goats for company

For Jennifer, Dianne, Sandy and my other dairy farming friends

Wild flowers at the edge of a wheat field

This family was having a lot of fun as they cycled towards Copenhagen

Today's ride: 70 km (43 miles)
Total: 165 km (102 miles)

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