DENMARK 2003 (Part 4)
Day five started with a great breakfast at Falsled Kro, our route rap, and then it was time to start riding. Today’s ride had myriad of little stops. After leaving the hotel, we rode for about an hour till we got to an ostrich farm. Yes, an ostrich farm in Denmark. I’ve seen ostriches in the wild before, so I was planning to make this a short stop to just stretch my legs. But withus was a young girl named Julia who was wearing a bright red biking jersey. Well the ostriches loved that and came down right next to the fence to get a better view of her. Then this one ostrich started doing this mating dance where it kind of bends over low the ground and swishes its feathers. It was really funny. Then we hopped on our bikes and headed towards Grubbe Molle. Grubbe Molle is a real working watermill where the owner, Neils, actually grinds flour. The tour of the watermill was pretty interesting and afterwards we had a great picnic in Neils garden behind the watermill. After lunch we biked to the small town of Faaborg. While Dad decided to continue riding, I decided to check out the town. I was jonesing for an email fix and Barbie thought they had an internet café. They didn’t, but I did get a quick shopping fix in. I got my nephew this really cute little hobby horse, it was just too cute. And thankfully, Monica took my gift in the van so I didn’t have to carry it on the bike. The riding in the afternoon skirted the “Alps” so it was really nice. It was only 37 miles, but it was fun. After the ride, we hit the courtyard again at Falsled Kro for a couple post ride beers and then dinner. This was our final night with the group and the farewell dinner was a 5 course meal that was just amazing.
Our last day of riding and we were taking it easy. The plan today was to ride to theSteensgard Dairy for a tour of a working dairy. The ride was easy and the dairy was pretty interesting. The owner gave us a tour of the cheese and yogurt processing plant, and then we went out to look at the barns and to see the cattle. And what was I thinking the whole time? That we were going to have say that we were on a farm on that declaration form you fill out when you come back to the US and what a potential haze we were going to have because of this little tour. Oh well. After the tour, we completed our short ride, only 7 miles, and returned to Falsled Kro to shower, change, have lunch and then head back to Copenhagen. After saying good bye to Barbie and Monica, we got on the bus and headed to Copenhagen. Again, I had one of my Tour Bus Narcolepsy episodes so I missed most of the ride back to Copenhagen. Instead of the Hotel Kong Frederik, we were staying at the SAS Radisson for the last two nights. And the most beautiful think about the Radisson? AIR CONDITIONING!!!!! It was so nice. We cranked it down and it was nice in cool in our room. After the hot hotel rooms for the past week it was real nice to have theAC.
The last day in Copenhagen Dad and I basically wandered the old town, did some window shopping, and just enjoyed a day NOT on a bicycle. It seemed like there were a lot of British in town, and unfortunately as the night progressed, they got drunker and louder. I did go out the last night in Copenhagen, but we had to get up early for our flight back to the DC. To complete our tour of the Star Alliance fleet, we flew SAS from Copenhagen to Frankfurt, and then Lufthansa from Frankfurt to Dulles.
Overall the trip was really good. The country was beautiful, the people were very friendly, the biking was challenging, but not punishing, and it was just a really good time.