Baker European Tour: First two days in Denmark

Amanda has been doing a great job chronicling all of our summer adventures on the blog, but she's been bugging me for a while to write another post, so here goes.  It seems appropriate that I should talk about our trip to Denmark, as this was the part of our trip that was most specific to my family.

For any readers who don't know, my mother's parents (the Jensens) are both native Danes.  My grandfather grew up in Copenhagen as the son of a chef; my grandmother was from a place on the Danish mainland called Aarhus (Denmark's second-largest city), and her father owned a photography business.  (More on that a bit below.)  The two of them immigrated (independently) to the US in the early 1950s after having joined the LDS church, and met in Utah after being introduced by some mutual friends at a church function.  They were married in Denmark in 1956 but soon moved back to the United States for good.  Most of my grandfather's family also immigrated to the US in subsequent years, but my grandmother's family stayed in Denmark.

My mom traveled to Denmark once with her family when she was about 9 years old and met some members of her mom's family there, but she hadn't been back since that time, so she was very eager to meet family members again and visit a variety of places in Denmark that were significant to her parents.  The rest of us had little or no memory of our family in Denmark -- I doubt Ryan and Rachelle were born yet when they were last in the US, and I think I was only a few years old -- so we were a bit apprehensive about whether our interactions with the European clan might be a bit awkward.  As it turned out, our fears were completely unfounded.  However, I'm getting a bit ahead of myself -- more details will be given shortly.  On the whole, I think most of our group was looking forward to visiting Denmark, because of the connection that we felt to the place through our (grand)parents.

Of course, one hallmark of Baker vacations is that we don't have much time to relax in between the items on our itinerary.  :)  We arrived back at our apartment from Munich on Friday night, at which point everyone proceeded to unpack and repack their bags for the next leg of the trip.  (Fortunately the single washing machine was available for my mom to wash some clothes for everyone -- we didn't quite want to imitate the smells of Europe in that way, if you know what I mean.)  Our plane left early in the morning on Saturday, so we had to be up at about 4:30 to make sure we arrived at the airport on time.  It's still a mystery to me why I force myself to get up earlier on vacation than I do to go to work, but alas.  We got on our plane to Copenhagen without any difficulty and had a nice ride up there.

Our first task on arrival was to pick up our rental car.  There were no kinks in the process until we actually saw the car.  It was a Ford S-Max, which is a perfectly nice car, but though it officially seats 7 passengers, it doesn't seat them very easily when they are also hauling at least as many suitcases.  Somehow we managed to jam everything in, though, and we headed for our first destination: the Copenhagen temple of the LDS church.  This temple isn't very old -- it was dedicated in 2004, and is built on the same spot as one of the first LDS church buildings in Copenhagen, which was incidentally the place where my grandfather was first baptized a member of the church.  My mom and sisters had particularly wanted to visit the temple.  We spent a little over an hour inside with several very friendly English-speaking members of the local church congregations, who helped us perform baptisms for the dead on behalf of some of our Danish ancestors that my mom and grandfather had uncovered in their genealogical efforts.

A view of the front of the Copenhagen temple.

When we were finished in the temple, we came outside for an important event: it was time to meet my mom's aunt (her mom's sister), who had generously volunteered to guide and assist us during our time in Denmark.  Most of our group didn't know what to expect, though if our experiences with our grandma were any indication, we assumed that her first action would be to try and stuff food in our faces.  :)  In actuality, we couldn't have asked for a more friendly and helpful guide than my mom's aunt Lene and her husband Knud.  They were clearly excited to see/meet us, and we were soon excited too.  Lene in particular spoke English well, so we were able to talk to her without any problems.  Knud wasn't quite as good (though his English was unquestionably better than our Danish), but he was a good sport the entire time and we were even able to talk a bit in German, since he knew that reasonably well and I do too.

A picture from Knud of my mom's aunt Lene and our family just after we came out of the temple.

Thankfully we were able to stuff some of our extra luggage in Lene's car to relieve the pressure on Brittany and Rachelle in the cramped back seat of our car.  We headed for the freeway to begin our drive over to the Aarhus area, where Lene had arranged a big family get-together for that evening.  While driving, we were struck by the relative flatness of Denmark, which reminded me of my experiences driving through Nebraska or Iowa in the US.  It's no wonder many Danes concentrated in the plains and midwestern states when they immigrated to America in the 19th century.

Looking across the flat Danish landscape.  Wind turbines are a common sight; I think Denmark derives a larger percentage of its electricity from wind power than any other country on earth.

The first major landmark we saw on our drive was the Great Belt Bridge.  This is a huge suspension bridge that crosses the sea lane between the two main Danish islands of Sjaelland and Fyn.  The bridge has only been open to cars for less than 15 years, and is the longest bridge span in the world outside of Asia.  We stopped for lunch at a small rest stop and park on the far side of the bridge and had some sandwiches that reminded us of the ones my grandma used to make.  Then we continued driving toward Aarhus.

A shot from the front seat of the car as we're about to cross the Great Belt Bridge. 

A hazy view of the Great Belt Bridge from the place where we stopped for lunch.

Mom and Dad reviewing the route with Knud when we finished lunch.  (For any of you kids reading, the thing under his hands is a book of paper maps.  That's what people used back in the old days before Google Maps.) 

One thing I should note in my explanation here is that the pictures you'll see on our blog aren't necessarily fully representative of the things that we did while we were in Denmark.  On the way to Aarhus we started my mom's favorite activity on road trips: stopping at little churches and cemeteries that have something to do with our family's genealogy.  I'm guessing we would have complained a lot if we had to stop so many times on a trip in the US, but I suppose we were willing to humor her in Denmark since she had wanted to see these places for so long.  During our few days in the country, we probably stopped in almost a dozen small towns where someone-or-other from the Jensen or Sorensen families had been christened, married, or whatever.  In fact, many of these towns were pretty cute, and it was neat to see the graves of some family members that we'd heard our grandparents discuss.  Unfortunately I don't have many pictures to show here, because my mom took most of the pictures at these stops.  Maybe I'll get some pictures from her and post a link later.

A unique barrel-shaped church that we visited on our tour of small towns.  I can't remember exactly what the significance of this one was; I just remember that it looked different from most of the others. :)

A view of the farm landscapes that we passed while driving between small towns.

We arrived near Aarhus around 6:30 pm and had our biggest test of the trip: meeting all of my mom's extended family, who had gathered to see us.  We met at a bowling alley so that we could have some fun while getting to know each other a bit.  (Not sure whose idea that was, but it was genius.)  Perhaps somewhat unexpectedly, we found that all of these family members spoke almost perfect English, and we were able to have great conversations with them while we bowled for an hour or two and then ate a buffet dinner afterward.  At least 3 of my grandma's siblings were there with their spouses and some of their children and grandchildren, so we had quite a range of ages, but everyone did some great bowling.  (Unfortunately I didn't have a single picture of the activity on our camera, so that's another one I'll have to track down and post later.)  I think we could have stayed and chatted with the family for quite a long time, but by 10pm we were definitely feeling the effects of our 4:30am wake-up, so we bailed and headed for our hotel in Aarhus.

The hotel where we stayed in Aarhus.  I've stayed in a few of these Radisson Blu hotels and really liked them, though they tend to be quite expensive. 

Sunday was all about touring in Jutland (the mainland peninsula of Denmark, where Aarhus is located) and on the island of Fyn.  In the morning we took a short drive from the hotel over to the city center of Aarhus to get a firsthand look at the photo shop that my great-grandfather owned.  It has stayed in the family for decades and is now operated by my mom's cousin, Robert.  Though the store was closed on Sunday, he was kind enough to meet us there and give us a quick tour.  The shop is fairly small in terms of its floor area, but it's actually one of the largest and most successful in Denmark in terms of its volume of business.  They have all kinds of photo-related businesses: prints, equipment sales, graphic design, and a portrait studio.  I don't think the family is getting rich from operating the store, but it's great to see that something that was started by my great-grandfather nearly 100 years ago has been able to adapt and thrive during the intervening decades.  After seeing the shop, we walked around a bit more of old Aarhus -- the city is one of the oldest in Scandinavia, and dates from at least the Viking age more than 1200 years ago -- and also drove over to the see the apartment where my grandmother grew up and the school that she attended. 

A main street in the old city center of Aarhus.  The photo shop is about halfway down on the left.

The front of my great-grandfather's photo shop.  It's actually set below street level, under a big pharmacy. 

My mom's cousin Robert (blue shirt) gives us a tour of the photo shop while Mom (with camcorder),  her aunt Lene (behind her), Dad, and Ryan look on.

A cool collection of old cameras in the photo shop.

A copy of an old newspaper that included an ad for the shop.  (Notice the "Mimosa" name toward the bottom right.) 

A portrait of my great-grandfather, the original owner of the shop.

A customs building at the port of Aarhus, right next to the harbor. 

The Aarhus Cathedral, less than a minute's walk from the photo shop in the center of town.

The 3rd-floor apartment (the 4th floor by US standards; it's the one right under the eaves, with the planter boxes on the balcony) was where my grandmother grew up.  We had to drive for a few minutes to get over to this neighborhood from the old town center.

The most notable stop that we made after leaving Aarhus on Sunday was in the city of Odense.  This city is best known for being the hometown of the Danish writer Hans Christian Andersen, who is of course famous for his fairy tales (though he wrote other literature as well).  Hans Christian Andersen's house, where he is believed to have lived as a child, is in a neighborhood of old buildings that date from the mid-19th century.  The house itself has now been converted to part of a museum about Andersen's life.  The museum was moderately interesting; we spent about an hour walking around it before it closed, and then did a quick circuit through part of downtown Odense before heading back to the cars.

Hans Christian Andersen's house in picturesque Old Odense. 

Inside the house, which was part of a museum dedicated to HC Anderson.  Evidently people in his day were somewhat shorter than Amanda.

Walking down the streets of Old Odense.

A Scandinavian-looking street near the old town.

The Odense City Hall.  They're cleaning up some kind of a fair in the front, so it looks a little messy.

The Odense Cathedral (also called St. Knud's Church) with a statue of its namesake, St. Knud.

By the time we got back to Copenhagen, it was already 8:30 and getting dark outside.  Our hotel was on the outskirts of the city and appeared quite new, but it didn't have a proper restaurant that was open on Sunday evening, so we had to get a late dinner in the bar.  (More than a few comments were shared about the irony of a bunch of Mormons paying for food in a bar on a Sunday evening.)  Then it was off to bed to be ready for the following day's tour of Copenhagen!  

Baker European Tour: Bavaria

After driving back from Zermatt the night before, we all got a few hours sleep before we left early the next morning to visit the Bavarian region of Germany.  Our first stop was Neuschwanstein Castle, which was built by the Bavarian King Ludwig II beginning in 1869.  The king died shortly after, so the castle was never finished, though what was completed was amazing.  When we arrived there, we took a tour of some of the completed rooms, but we weren't allowed to take pictures inside, so I can only show you the exterior and the great views from the castle.

Waiting inside the main courtyard for our tour to start

The great view from a balcony on an upper floor of the castle

Looking from the castle over to Mary's Bridge (Marienbrücke)

Walking over to Mary's Bridge

The view from the bridge, what a great view!

An older castle (Hohenschwangau) next to the base of Neuschwanstein, we didn't visit this though

The great Bavarian hats that Ryan and Darren bought

After our great visit to Neuschwanstein Castle, we drove over to another, smaller castle that was used by King Ludwig II.  While Neuschwanstein was not completed and the king didn't really live there, he did spent a lot of time here, at Linderhof.  Again, we couldn't take pictures inside, but I can say the interior was very ornate and quite impressive.  The royal bed chamber was much more impressive than even the bedrooms in Versailles.

The small castle of Linderhof

A really funny fountain with water coming out in strange places

The king had his own cave (yes, a cave) built

Me at Linderhof

After visiting the two castles, we stopped at the cute Bavarian town of Oberammergau to do some souvenir shopping and get dinner.  This town had a lot of shops that were selling cuckoo clocks, so I would recommend this place to anyone who is looking for one.  After that we drove to the outskirts of Munich to where our hotel was and crashed for the night.

An example of the cute buildings in Oberammergau

The next morning we drove from our hotel over to the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial and learned more about the camp and its history through a great audio guide.  I think everyone is very familiar with the concentration camps from WWII from school, so I won't go into any detail, but one thing I did learn was that they continued to use the camp even after the end of the war.  The Bavarian government used the space as refugee housing and it didn't really become a memorial site until the 1960s.  I'm not going to post a lot of pictures from the concentration camp because they are just too sad, but here are a few.

The gate the prisoners walked through when they first entered the camp (In English, "Work Makes You Free")

 

Part of an art memorial that was built 

The pathway between each side of prisoner barracks, which were dismantled in the 1960s

A recreation of the crowded situation of the barracks towards the end of war

We left the concentration camp memorial and spent some time in downtown Munich.  Darren and I didn't take many pictures since we had already been there.  It was great to be back though, since we both liked Munich.  We did visit one new site, which was St. Michael's Church.  The outside is under major renovation, but the interior is still worth seeing.

The interior of St. Michael's Church

We left Munich in the late afternoon and drove back to Zurich.  We hit some traffic at the German border and were stopped for an hour, but we had fun anyways.  We eventually made it back and had to try to get a few hours sleep before we left on an early flight to Copenhagen the next morning.

Baker European Tour: Switzerland, Part Two

Whew, we had more visitors in town, but I'm still posting about Darren's family's trip!

After everyone arrived, we spent three days in Switzerland going to the Interlaken region and Zermatt.  On the first day, we went to the Swiss Open-Air Museum Ballenberg.  This outdoor museums sits on 160 acres and contains about 100 historic houses from all over Switzerland that were dismantled, moved, and reconstructed here.  The buildings are grouped according the region where they came from and you are able to tour inside most all of them.  The museum is located just outside of Interlaken on Lake Brienz. The forecast had called for heavy rain all day and as we were driving to the museum, there certainly was heavy rain, but we were fortunate that right where the museum was, it was not raining and even a bit sunny at times.  We spent most of the day visiting the different buildings and learning more about the different regions of Switzerland.

The home of a wealthy family near Bern built in the 19th century

The special types of bread made in all the different cantons in Switzerland

Goofing around inside one of the houses

An old house from the Ticino region

Most of the old buildings, as you can imagine, were farmhouses.  So to give the experience of rural Switzerland, some of the old farmhouses and buildings still house farm animals.  We saw chickens, roosters, pigs, horses, and goats.  There was even a section where you could go in and pet the goats.  Darren and I spent some time at the pen petting and feeding the goats as well as some rabbits that were there, too.

Nervously petting a baby goat

Some of us at the museum

The Richterswil House, built in 1780, was one of our favorites

After visiting the museum, we made our way over to the Jungfrau region because we were staying in a hotel there that night.  We parked our car at Lauterbrunnen and took the train up to Wengen to get to our hotel.  One of the rooms had a fantastic view of Lauterbrunnen valley!  Even with the clouds, it was still beautiful, but it did clear up for us the next day, as scheduled.

The view from the hotel room when we first arrived

The view from the room the next morning!

We spent the day exploring the Jungfrau region.  We took the cable car up to Mannlichen, and hiked over to Kleine Scheidegg.  Then we took a train up to the Jungfraujoch, which is the highest train station in Europe.

Taking the cable car up from Wengen

The view from the cable car

Roger made a friend!

Another great Jungfrau shot

A fantastic shot by Darren, it has everything I love about Switzerland!

The couples in front of the three famous peaks

The view from the train on the way up the mountain

The train travels through the Eiger and the Mönch to reach the train station

Me and Darren at the Jungfraujoch

The view from the observation deck, which looks back down at Kleine Scheidegg

The Baker family in the ice cave

Darren showing off our current home's flag

This next picture needs some explanation.  Switzerland, and specifically the Interlaken region, gets a lot of Indian tourists, thanks to its frequent appearance in Bollywood movies.  I learned about this from a recent NYTimes article.  So as proof that there are a lot of Indian tourists, Darren took this picture below. :)

An example of the massive amount of Indian tourists that visit the Jungfraujoch

After visiting the Jungfraujoch, we went back down to Kleine Scheidegg, then back down to Wengen to grab our stuff from out hotel, and then went down to Lauterbrunnen to get the car.  That evening, we drove from Interlaken to a town near Zermatt.  Part of the road was very windy, which meant it wasn't really fun for me, but the scenery was still beautiful.  We stayed in a town just outside of Zermatt because the home of the Matterhorn is a car-free zone.  

We all got some sleep and then woke up the next morning to head out and see Zermatt and the Matterhorn.  We took a train to Zermatt, then a train up to the Gornergrat peak (10,134 ft) to view the Matterhorn and some glaciers.  Darren took a video that shows the view from Gornergrat.

The view of the Matterhorn and the train we rode

From Gornergrat, all of us took a short hike down the mountain to see a small lake that has a nice reflection of the Matterhorn in it.  After that, some took the train back down to Zermatt, while some of us hiked most of the way down.

The Matterhorn reflected in the small mountain lake

On our hike back down

The hikers with the Matterhorn in the background

We then spent some time seeing the town of Zermatt before we drove back home to Zurich.  That was our quick, initial tour of Switzerland!

The cute town of Zermatt