As we neared the end of our European adventure, little did we know that the worst was yet to come. Sometimes that happens. Nobody plans a trip and intends on a having a bad time or things going wrong, but sometimes the best laid plans still go awry. We averted a potentially bad day in Frankfurt by planning a little side trip at the last minute. We laughed off our little run in with the red light district in Hamburg, and continued toward our final destination in Denmark before flying back out of Copenhagen. Denmark is a strange place. Copenhagen had enough classic European flare (and we were only there for a day) that we weren't spooked off. We stayed in a big, modern hotel in and only the strange cuisine wrinkled our eyebrows slightly. Western/central Denmark, however, is another story entirely.
We crossed the border from Germany into Denmark in the middle of the afternoon on Monday, August 19. Thanks to minimal traffic and no speed limits, we cruised through Germany, lickety-split, but as soon as we crossed into Denmark, we had to obey those pesky speeding laws again.
For the evening, we stopped in the quaint Danish village of Broby on the Island of Funen. This place couldn't have been more picturesque, and we had beautiful weather. Our hotel, Brobyvarek Kro, seemed more like an quaint, historic inn set on gorgeous grounds. Unfortunately, the rooms themselves left a lot to be desired. The hotel didn't provide any in-room amenities like soap, tissues, or drinking cups for water. There was, however, no shortage of BUGS in the room. Spiders galore and all manner of flying insects (no doubt potential spider supper).
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| Stream out the back of Brobyvaerk Kro - Denmark |
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| Brobyvaerk Kro - Denmark |
We arrived late in the afternoon and enjoyed walking around the hotel grounds and the little town. We stopped in a small market store, and then ate dinner at the hotel before turning in for the night. Dinner was surprisingly good, though they gave us an English menu with many German options, so we knew what we were ordering.
After killing yet another spider in the morning, we were glad to leave this rustic, yet charming guesthouse. Our activities for the day were all on the central Danish Island. Denmark is a series of islands; the far eastern island being the location of Copenhagen and the ferry that we took to cross into Germany at the beginning of the trip. The previous day, we drove up through the larger western island before stopping near Odense which is the largest "city" in the big, center island.
We drove about 25 minutes away from our hotel to Egeskou Castle. We arrived before they opened, so we went through an open hedge maze right at the entrance. I mentioned above (and in a previous post) that travel fatigue sets in toward the end of a long trip. We really felt it by this time. After the hedge maze, we didn't even feel like going into the castle. So, we just got back in the car and left.
Another 20-30 minutes away was one of our main activities for the day: the Funen Village. They advertised this place as a town representative of where famed Danish author Hans Christian Andersen may have grown up. They took historic buildings from elsewhere and deconstructed and reconstructed them in his place to create an outdoor living history museum. Truthfully, this town looked more like a primitive village. If someone had told me, these dwellings and buildings dated back to the fifteenth or sixteenth century (Medieval or Renaissance period), I would have believed them. Instead, the signs and literature they had on the village, claimed that it dated back to about the 1800s. Imagine, in 1850, the United States was merely 10 years away from the Civil War. We had railroads, factories...brick! This place looked like what I imagined the first American settlers might have lived in or like a historic medieval time capsule.
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| Clog Maker Funen Village - Odense, Denamrk |
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| Funen Village - Odense, Denmark |
We ate lunch at the little restaurant they had though after spending nearly 2 weeks in Germany/Austria, the language on the menu really threw us. I thought I ordered stew but instead received some sort of fatty, gelatin ham loaf. The others in my group got a bleu cheese platter and a mayo glazed pulled pork sandwich. No one's plate looked terribly appetizing to me.
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| Gelatinous Ham Loaf - Odense, Denmark |
From the Funen Village, we continued driving clear across Denmark. Between the two islands we drove across a gigantic bridge and (unfortunately) paid a gigantic toll. After about 1.5 hours, we arrived at a viking ship museum. This place intrigued us because we always thought of the vikings as Norwegian. The museum itself wasn't anything too amazing, but the 3:00 English tour was fantastic. The guide explained that the Danish people always felt a little bad about their ancestry because they lacked archeological evidence that they descended from vikings. That changed when they excavated a few viking ships on Danish soil. Our guide was funny and gave a very entertaining tour with brilliant English.
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| Viking Ship Museum - Denmark |
Within another hour, we found ourselves just north of Copenhagen at our last stop of the trip: Kronberg Castle (think Hamlet). Absolutely unable to stomach another Danish meal, we gladly stopped at McDonalds for dinner and ate along the water with the castle in our view. We took a walk around the castle itself and looked across the coast to Sweden. (We had to resist the urge to drive across the bridge into Sweden just to tell ourselves we've been there.)
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| Kronberg Castle - Denmark |
It took about an hour to get to our final destination for the evening, the Copenhagen Airport Hotel, AKA the Dragor Badehotel (it has the word BAD in its name...should have been a giveaway). Never in my life has the expression "if you can survive one night here, you can survive anything" been truer for me! I have never stayed in a worse hotel or written a more scathing review. It astounds me that this hotel still has a 3.5/5 star rating. You can read my full review if you're curious about just how bad it was, but I'll give you the highlights. Bugs. Dirt. Mold. Noise. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.
Take a look at this picture. It's lovely, isn't it?
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| Worst hotel EVER - Copenhagen, Denmark |
This isn't where we stayed. Our room was in an "annex" off to the side of the building that was no better than a glorified trailer. Hmm...perhaps glorified isn't the right word. There was nothing glorified about it. The single worst part was that our room had a door that adjoined to the room next door. When we arrived, we noticed the door and thought (like we'd seen in all other hotels with adjoining rooms) there would be another door on the other side protecting the privacy of the individuals staying there. Because the room itself had been a complete shock, and we were simply stunned by the appearance, we unlocked the adjoining door see what was on the other side. Instead of seeing another door (or perhaps a closet of some sort?) we found ourselves staring right into someone else's room. Apparently the lock was on our side of the door, and the other room had no second door. We closed the door, re-locked it, and then when we heard someone enter (clear as day because the walls were paper thin) on the other side, my husband knocked and opened the adjoining door. We just thought we should mention to the British gentleman on the other side that we could easily access his room and that if he was staying another night, he should complain about the lack of security. We laughed because as soon as we closed the door and locked it again, we heard him call someone on the phone and relay our conversation to them...which we heard word for word. But think about how scary that could have been if we were the ones on the other side. When we first opened the door, we saw his briefcase and laptop. We could have robbed him blind. If we were in that position, I would have raised hell on the hotel until they changed our room. Fortunately for us, we were on the side with the door lock.
Honestly, it was so bad we would have just packed up and gone somewhere else if it hasn't been for 2 things. First, it was the first day of the Pride festival in Copenhagen and all of the hotels were either sold out or ridiculously expensive. That's what drove us to pick this hotel in the first place and not the Crowne Plaza where we stayed upon arrival in Copenhagen. And second, we did a thorough inspection of the beds (bed bug fears!) and the sheets and mattresses seemed ok. We laid towels down everywhere in the bathroom and didn't take off our shoes until we went to sleep.
The next morning, we complained to the front desk as we checked out, and they literally laughed at us. "No one has ever complained about our rooms before," the lady said. Yeah...right! We couldn't leave that place fast enough even if it meant getting to the airport 5 hours early for our flight home. We just didn't care.
Adios Denmark! What a bad note on which to end an otherwise great trip! Few lessons learned from this experience. Even if you have 2 weeks...and even if there are so many amazing things are within "close" driving distance...do not run yourselves ragged like we did. Spend a couple of days in one place.
Did I learn my lesson? My next blog series will feature my trip in 2015 to Southeast Asia (specifically Thailand, Cambodia, Malaysia, and Singapore). Clearly, my friends, I still have a lot to learn. :)
Thanks for reading!
- Foxy the Traveler
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