Monday, September 14, 2026

On our way to Odense


 Sunday, September 13, 2026

We've been so lucky with the weather.  There's been rain at night, but rarely during the day, which has been great for our touring.  This morning it was a bit misty as the sun struggled to wake up.

On our way to Odense (pronounced Odin-say), we crossed over another large bridge connecting parts of Denmark.  It was another large toll too!

The bridge is the Great Belt Bridge 18km long..  The 4-lane bridge was completed in 1998, costing $28 billion Euros!  It used to take 1 hour to cross the strait via ferry, and today it takes about 10 minutes (along with the toll) to cross the water.  
These windmills were actually mounted in the water!
After crossing the bridge, our stop was at Egeskov Castle.  It is an unbelievable place...so much history and so much to see...
It has been in the family for 9 generations, while the family still lives in the private section of the castle. 
The castle rooms were beautiful.  The Hunting Room was full of hunting weapons and trophies.
This impala's 90 centimeter long antlers is a Guinness world record!
This iron stove was made in 1693 in Norway, and one of only 10 ovens produced.  Three of these ovens are located at Egeskov.
This renaissance money chest from the 1500's is made of wrought iron--check out the locks!
This Viennese clock in the Yellow Room
There were great views of the garden from the castle.

The Egeskov castle area has developed into an excursion center...a complex of gardens, museums, playgrounds and food.  All I can say is that this family loved to collect things... lots and lots of things.  They have separate buildings dedicated to displaying the items.  Cars, motorcycles, emergency vehicles, camping vehicles, airplanes, helicopters, you name it, they've got it! 
They had a full display of campers and tents...many owned by family members over the years.
 There was a camper from 1950's--it had more room than our rv today!
Here's a Lego ambulance made of 255,000 bricks that took 1100 hours to build!
There was an exhibition of dresses from the 1870's, and a gown that belonged to Marie Antoinette.
We checked out the "tree top walking", a series of suspension bridges.  It was fun, but a bit scary too.
And then we tried the labyrinth maze.  We ended up coming out the same way we entered without reaching the center but got lots of steps in trying to conquer the maze.

Needless to say, you could spend days at this place taking in the amazing and unbelievable collections.  After our exploring, we treated ourselves to an ice cream cone!
 and watched the swans in the lake...the swan is the national bird of Denmark.

Someone asked how we're doing with the rv.  Well, we've almost gotten used to the small space and stepping over each other.  We agree that we'll appreciate our little rv at home a whole lot more after the past 30 days.  Because of the small space, we have not used the shower in the rv, but use the campground showers, and that's another part of the adventure.  Each place is different.  At some campgrounds the showers are free; others require a pass card and charge for a hot shower.  It's a challenge figuring out the different systems.  At one place, I used the key card to get to the shower but didn't realize you had to swipe the card again to get hot water.  I saw the additional keypad AFTER my cold shower (Brrrr....)
At another campground, I pushed every button and turned all the knobs and couldn't get water.  After moving to another shower (yes, dress and undress) I figured out the trick was to wave your hand over the motion sensor! Duh!
Here's another example of an early morning challenge!
Another interesting and quite different situation is that most of the facilities are unisex...meaning both men and women use the same facility.  Since we've been together for 30 days, we all know each other quite well!! 







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Hanging it up in Hamburg