Roots - not the movie - 8

     After a while and certainly after a lot of activity, one begins to loose track of time, or in this case, track of the days. today we begin full day xxx in Denmark and then ask, "say, how long have we been here?". Let us add and subtract, we left home on such and such a date and arrived here the following day in the morning; so we have been here 5 full days including the day we arrived. It is time to "take a day off" and just hang out and that is what we did. Conversation, food, English Mastiff and dog slobber, more conversation, more food, more dog slobber and the we decided to have dinner at a little restaurant in a small village nearby.
     This resulted in a humorous experience and a bit of a surprise as well, though the two experiences are not related. The restaurant is or was in what was a house. It didn't look like much on the outside, but once inside it looked like one of those places where one needed coat and tie and a reservation, assuming the maître d' is willing to give one a reservation. But it was not; the whole place had maybe 10 tables all of which were occupied so there was a wait. While waiting I commented on the piece of equipment sitting in the lobby and the owner of the restaurant stated that it was a "flad fisk maskine" or in English, a "flat fish machine", in other words, if there are flat fish, such as flounder or halibut on the menu, but none available, then they take whatever fish they have and run it through the rollers and it will be come flat. The machine in question was an old clothes wringer / pressing machine.


A similar type "flat fish machine" although the one in the image is not made in Denmark.
Insert regular fish on one side of rollers, crank and a flat fish comes out on the other.



      Since we had this above conversation I decided to order flounder, not the machined kind, and it was very good. I can't remember what everyone else ordered but we had a very good meal and it was time to pay. Considering that my brother and his wife had  been "supporting" us for the past several days I thought it would be appropriate for me to pay the bill and handed my American issued Visa Credit Card to the proprietor, and I quote her words, which were rather loud for everyone to hear; "An American Credit Card! I want no part of it. First of all they make us wait 8 weeks for our money and then they charge us an astronomical fee for processing and handling." Then she gave me one of those "what planet did you arrive from" looks and continued; "Do you not have a Dankort or some other debit or credit card that is readily acceptable in Europe", sheepishly I had to reply "Well, I thought I did, but I guess I was wrong".
     The situation now presented a dilemma in that I didn't have enough cash on me to pay the bill and had to rely on my brother to pay for the meal we invited them to have, however, I must say the meal was great, but if you encounter this place have cash on hand. That situation has since been corrected, not in that I paid for a meal for them here, but in that he was reimbursed.

     The following day it was time to go to Møns Klint (the cliffs of Møn) which are made out of chalk, the skeletal remains of ancient shellfish from millions of years ago, with Frank and Lone as tour guides. As a child, and Frank was way too young then for him to remember, we did visit the cliffs with our parents one summer, back when Sommerspiret (the Summer Spire) was still standing; erosion by wave action took its toll and the spire collapsed in 1988.

This painting is by Frederik Hansen Sødrig and dates from 1830.

Sommerspiret is the tall pinnacle center left. 

  





     However, along the way we had to make a short stop at Klintholm Harbor because of my love for small ports, commercial fishing boats and sailboats. We found that seagulls are the same the world over, they call for food and these actually look like they eat pretty well. For some odd reason we did not take any other pictures at Klintholm.

Some of the gulls at Klintholm Havn



 

Klintholm Havn is also know for one other reason but you have to click on the link to read about the work of the inhabitants of the village at the close of WWII.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klintholm_Havn

  

Along the way we also stopped at a Museum Farm but it appears that we only took one picture, actually we had someone take a picture of us (below). Considering the coats it is hard to imagine for those of us living in much warmer climates that this is late June.

 

      Off to Møns Klint which really isn't that far but then nothing in Denmark is very far, except the Faroe Islands and Greenland. The cliffs are impressive, as white as ever, and as tall as I remember them. The links below are full of information and photographs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mons_klint
http://famouswonders.com/mons-klint/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeoCenter_Mons_Klint (this center opened a few weeks before our visit so Queen Margaret II, who officiated at the opening, missed us, too bad.)
http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=mons+klint&qpvt=mons+klint&FORM=IGRE

      Here are our photos from the trip to the cliffs, and the many steps down (easy) and back up (not so easy).

 We counted the steps but I no longer remember how many

but there were many. Resting places can be found along

the way as in the bench seen on the right.

Norma on the beach with its very white "sand"

which is chalk and the rocks.

A view of the cliffs, note the "chalky" color of the water.



About every 4' or so (1.2 meters) there is a layer of rock

in the vertical surface of the cliffs. Ecological time can be calculated

in the millions of years based on the intervals of the rocks.

And even in this pristine natural environment mankind's

polluting touch is seen. Here is a "ketchup" container

from a fast food restaurant (you can name them on one hand)

that some brainless human being just dropped on the ground somewhere,

which then made it into the rain runoff stream which made it into

the Baltic to eventually wash up here.

The offending fast food container is in the center of this photo.

A view from above, again note the "chalkiness" of the

surf 120 meters (394') below which is caused by

the action of the surf on the chalk cliffs.

    

    One last note on the cliffs; if one opens Google Earth and zooms in on Møns Klint near 54 deg. 58 min N and 12 deg. 33 min 10 sec E one can actually see the chalkiness in the suft along the shoreline.  We also made a stop at the Geocenter which was very interesting and then we were off to visit  Liselund Slot ( Lisa's Grove / Liselund Castle). During the cold war years the Danish Air Force had a radar station situated nearby which kept a very vigilant eye to the east and south for the communists that could come out of what was then East Germany, Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and of course the USSR itself. My mother's brother, our uncle who is / was only a few years older than Max and myself was in the air force and was stationed here and met his wife, Jonna, at Liselund.

     The history of the place is interesting, but what really draws visitors is the landscaping, the beauty of the nature and the architecture. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liselund  One should not confuse the original Liselund Slot with Liselund Ny Slot (Liselund New Castle) which is of much younger origin.

http://www.liselundslot.dk/00032/

     The park is fantastic http://www.moenia.dk/liselund/liselund.html (this link is in Danish so copy and paste the text into Google Translate to read it in your language). Here are a few photos from that afternoon as well as additional links; http://www.insula-moenia.dk/liselund.html

Liselund Castle with some hopeful residents in front.

It would be nice to have such an estate but the upkeep????

A view across the reflection pond.

A reflection in the pond.

 

     The nature around the park is interesting and lends to the use of one's imagination;

"Have you seen a tree with a long nose around here?"

"If I stick my head into the tree they won't see me"

said the brown bear.

It is like being in the Pacific NW with what is

called "Temperate Rain Forest" as Denmark is just

south of the Boreal Forest climate zone.

http://www.nordicforestry.org/facts/Denmark.asp

Giant ferns, nice steps on a hill.

Another small lake in the park.

Norma, Frank and Lone with a duck flying by.

Little brother (the youngest) and Big brother (the oldest)

Another house in the park.

 

      Another eventful day comes to a close; day 6 in Denmark, not counting arrival date. Tomorrow is departure day and we have to move on, but not before we have a nice dinner and more conversation about the past and the future, often joined by the supersized dogs.

Lone and the two English Mastiff's.

 

     After dinner it is time to walk off some of the calories and we come upon one other piece of old Danish history alongside the road;

The original "council" seats as the political and practical situation

of the area was being deliberated.

We found this "council chamber" located in the small

village of Hjelm, also on the island of Møn.

 

      Go again to Google Earth and to co-ordinates 54 deg. 55 min. 32.35 sec. N and 12 deg. 15 min. 10.88 sec E and one can see the stones and the shadows they cast.

 

More to follow in the next post.