After our rest day Sunday we set out for our Danish adventure to see if we could find where Beverly’s family came from. It was in the area of Aarhus (Århus) which is the 2nd largest city in Denmark. It was much larger than I expected and learned this after we arrived. I had no idea what we were going to find. We traveled from Malmö, Sweden towards Copenhagen, Denmark and past Odense and up to Århus. The roadway was very nice.

Denmark is a series of Islands and a large bit of land all connected by bridges and ferries and at the southern border connected to Germany. I never knew this because I have not spent much time in Denmark aside from the one shopping trip I took for my Strictly Scandinavian shop, in February of 2010 and I was staying just outside of Copenhagen. Driving through was an experience. It was mostly flat but with some low hills. Farmland dotted with villages and blossoming cities and towns. Lots of building happening here as well. The architecture was a mix of old and new in the cities and was interesting to see. We crossed over two bridges which both reminded me of the Tacoma Narrows bridge in Washington state. These large bridges were different lengths, and both had tolls. There were smaller bridges as well which did not have tolls.

We drove about 3 1/2 hours to get where Beverly’s family records show they are from. We stopped at the local church (which was sadly closed) where the records indicated the family came from and found markers with the same family name but not anything very old. We drove past the sign and 5+ houses indicating the town of Ravnholt. Beverly spoke to a woman who had come to water flowers and she said the name she was searching for was very common. Despite not making much genealogy progress It was a beautiful day with sunshine making it a bit warmer than we have experienced so far. It was fun to see how excited she was to see her name everywhere. I also got to have a short video chat with my youngest sister and my newest nephew!

We stayed the night in a suite with free parking and breakfast included. Breakfast was great with bread, egg and more. Once we were fueled up and showered, we set out to find a yarn store. We ended up at the mall and walked all around where she found some treasures to take home. We were confused about how to get into the mall to start and getting back to our car was also challenging as we came from a completely different direction.

After the mall, we parked the car again after finally locating a parking spot and we found the yarn store. We walked along the shopping street as well, ate lunch, and did some shopping at the Royal Copenhagen shop. We were searching for postcards and found the train station hoping to find some but found none only then did we realize the mall was connected to the train station, precisely where we had been. We could have left the car where it was and skipped the trouble of finding a new spot. We wouldn’t have had to be stressed out about the amount of time we had on the meter. So it is.

After this, we decided it was time to leave town and start heading home. So we set out to the location indicated on GPS without postcards. As we were heading out I saw a place with souvenirs just a short way from where we had just been. Bev hopped out of the car to go look while I drove around the block and when I did not see her I kept driving hoping I would find my way back. I was heading in the opposite direction than she expected so she had to run across the street while I double-parked. It was something but we made it.

We plugged in our destination and started driving. It told us it included a ferry which seemed odd but we kept driving on the route. We ended up at a ferry dock which apparently only has a noon ferry at this time of year and we were there at 4 pm. It was a cute little seaside town with a tall ship parked in the museum harbor, which was closed, and lots of campers in the nearby campgrounds. It was a nice place to be detoured too but we would have preferred not to.

We decided after the hassle of parking we would head home and come back to Copenhagen on the train one day. We weren’t sure we would make it the entire way home that night because of the detour we had previously taken but we did. We took turns driving which helped. The views were amazing. Beverly takes some amazing photos some of which I used for this post. A few more days left with Beverly. Look forward to them.