2nd Port - Aarhus, Denmark

July 9 – Aarhus, Denmark

The second port we visited was Aarhus, Denmark.  We were able to sleep late since we didn’t arrive in port until around 11:00 and then we had about 6 hours in port.  As we left the ship there was a band playing traditional Danish music.  We toured ourselves just like we did in Oslo.  We visited the Arhus Cathedral which is dedicated to St. Clement, the patron of sailors.  This church is the longest and tallest in Denmark.  It had a lot of frescos on the walls.  There was a large model of a ship, about 10 feet long, hanging in the church.  Legend is that the model was built for Tsar Peter the Great, to show him what the ship looked like that was being built for the Russian fleet.  The ship carrying the model sank and the model washed up on shore.  Some of the fishermen brought the model to the church, and subsequently donated it to the cathedral. 

Arhus Cathedral

We also went to Frue Kirke (Church of Our Lady).  This church was originally a Catholic church and converted to a Lutheran church during the reformation.  It had a really nice wood carving behind the altar.  The wood carver was from Germany.  He would travel around Europe doing these elaborate altar carvings.

Our last stop for the day was “Old Town” (Den Gamle By), which is an open air museum of over 70 houses that were brought here from different parts of Denmark.  These buildings range in age from the 15^th – 18^th centuries.  One of the interesting things we noticed in the old buildings was that the doorways were all very low, six feet or less.   Den Gamle By has a working bakery, which we tried some of the traditional Danish cakes and cookies since we couldn’t pass it up after we smelled the wonderful aromas coming from the bakery.  The vanilla ring cookie was the best.  The town had a small beer garden, so Jay had to stop to sample the Danish beer.  The beer was OK, but they didn’t have pretzels, only cookies shaped like a pretzel.   

Bakery in Old Town

It started raining (hard) as we were walking back to the ship, of course we didn’t have our umbrellas since it was clear and sunny when we left the ship.  You think we would have learned by now.  Back into the hot tub, even though it was raining, since we walked a lot today, around 15 miles.  The same two couples from Massachusetts were there and we talked about our day.  We had dinner with a couple from Australia and a couple from Switzerland.   After dinner we went to the casino to try our luck at blackjack.  I won, which more than made up for what Jay lost.  Jay said that I’m a blackjack pro – hardly!!!  There was a man from Hungary at the table and he gave me some advice, which evidently worked.