SUMMARY Off to Kolding, Denmark by train. Walk to our hotel, store our bags, and head back into the town center for an excellent (wait for it) - French lunch. Afterwords we visit the old town, the castle - not much else on offer on a Sunday. We stop at the train station to buy tickets for tomorrow but are unsuccessful. Back at our hotel we (meaning Scott) continue to try and figure out how to get ourselves Hanover, Germany. No planes, trains or automobiles for us so we end up buying bus tickets. Should be an adventure! - Karen
DETAIL We sleep in til 8. Outside its overcast, 62° with a light drizzle. In Kolding, where we’re going, the afternoon looks sunny. We enjoy another overly good breakfast at the hotel. We try to be good but fail. The hotel has lots of good food for us, but they also have a colorful cart with breakfast for the kids. Colorful paper plates and bowls with cartoon zoo animals. All the good breakfast choices a kid might want: small glazed doughnuts with sprinkles, waffles with syrup, sugar cereal. Yum.
We pack and walk the short distance to the station. At track 6 sits our train. We do have reserved seats this time. The man behind the counter at the rail office could have sold us (charged us for) first class, but this being a regional train they only have 2nd class service. Thanks mystery man! Still, it’s plenty nice. It’s a fairly full train. We don’t see any other Americans.
The listings about Kolding explain that the city isn’t fully a tourist hot spot destination yet. There’s a castle, zoo, botanical garden and an art museum. We’re interested in the indoor pool and laundry facilities at the hotel. We’re just here for a night, then off to Germany (Hannover) for two nights. We picked Kolding mostly because it’s kind of half way from Aarhus to Germany. Bring on the sausage and schnitzel, pretzels and beer!
On the way to Kolding our milk-run-train stops in (or more likely glides through) many smaller towns. Lots going on in Denmark. Plenty to see and the train isn’t a bad platform from which to see it.
Off the train its grey, cool, and breezy. The sky threatens to spit but behaves. It’s 7/10ths of a mile to our hotel, slightly uphill, with many perfectly ripe blackberries along the way. Oh, and oh so many slugs making a break for it on the damp sidewalk. Karen’s focus is elsewhere and the subject of sidewalk slugs doesn’t come up til we’re way past them. How many are lodged in our luggage wheels, I don’t care to know.
It’s a nice looking hotel. There’s a big ‘conference center’ attached and I think that’s a lot of their business. Our room’s not ready, we’re to check back at 2. There’s a pool if we care to use that in the interim. I ask if we might be able to upgrade our room to a nicer one that’s ready now? It turns our we’re in one of their two nicest rooms and neither are clean yet. Who made all these nice room reservations!??
We walk into town to a French bistro (Den Blå Bistro-“The Blue Bistro”). We sit in the shade so as to not get too hot. Many diners are wrapped in blankets from the restaurant. What this all about? Hygge? At one point they even turn on the quartz heaters. It’s 68°.
Over lunch we try to book our train online for tomorrow to Hannover, Germany. No joy. All sold out? It’s Sunday and the ticket desk at the train station is closed, so that wouldn’t help. They do have one of those kiosks machines, but it only handles trains within Denmark. Hm.
Back at the hotel our room’s ready and we check in. “You have a car?” we’re asked. No. The receptionist looks confused. “We have a train” I explain. Ah!
Up in our room it’s OK. Big but very spartan. Their best room? OK. It’s warm, where’s the thermostat? The plug-in fan on the table is our clue: there’s no A/C. “At least there are two windows” we think, which becomes “At least there’s one window we can get open”. We set up the fan to pull in cool air from outside and soon it’s more comfortable.
We try online again to book our train tickets. No luck. Might they be sold out?? Nah, they can just add another car, no? How about going at a different time? Or to Hamburg instead of Hannover (half the distance)? Nope and nope. Hm. This is really weird. The front desk says it’s not the fact that it’s Sunday that’s causing the rail ticket office to be closed. The town is just too small. But at the 7-11, at the station, they can help us buy tickets. We’ll try that tomorrow morning.
As we’re gyrating, coming up with different city and date options to continue our trip, we look to tie in to the upcoming hotel and car reservations that we do have. When? Where? What can be canceled? Our car reservation... Wait. Where’s our eight day, one-way car reservation from Hannover to Hamburg? We what? We never made it? Yikes.
Being Hertz Gold (one tiny step up from ‘mere mortal’) I log in to the app and try to book the car. No joy. Yikes. I try Costco Travel. Whew. No problem. (Well, we don’t have a car in our hands yet, but it seems like we now have a reservation, at least).
The Rome2Rio app says we can get to our next destination (Hannover) many ways: car, bus, train, plane. Train is fastest but we’re singularly unable to make it work. Bus is just a few hours longer than the train, so we buy tickets for that anyway (just in case). Flying takes more than seven hours (most of that time spent on a layover in Berlin). Can we rent a car, one way, from here? Hertz and Costco both say ‘no’. We’ll try one more time in the morning to make Rome2Rio or eurorail.com work (for a train ticket).
In our bathing suits we head to the indoor pool. It’s gorgeous and it’s all ours. Ditto the sauna. I don’t think it’s actually wallpaper but much wall space is devoted to signs, in multiple languages, reminding us to shower well before getting in the pool. The pool’s nice, though not warm enough for Karen. The sauna’s nice, though not hot enough for Scott.
Later we split their promoted 2-for-1 Sommer Drink Special and it’s quite tasty. For dinner? Snack food from our backpack: the end of the herbed soft cheese from yesterday, bread from lunch, the rest of our crackers. We feel like hobos. Oh and some yummy red wine we bought way back in Oslo. Hobos or not, life is good.
Photos
One last look at our nice room in Aarhus. Very comfortable and nice view.
Access to our 5th floor room was via a skybridge from the other tower. Below is Karen and tables full of breakfast stuff.
Similar view from the 1st floor. The cart on the left is sugary stuff for kids to have for breakfast. The mini doughnuts, with the sugar sprinkles, hadn't arrived yet.
On the train. Blue sky and pastoral scenes out the windows.
On our 3/4 of a mile jaunt to our hotel we see they've limited traffic in the city center proper. These human versions of cattle grates ensure buses can get in and out and normal cars can not. Interesting!
Lots of bikes here, like everywhere else in 'mostly flat' Denmark. They have their own traffic lights. Nice!
The castle on the hill, in town. Better to attract tourists.
Delicious French lunch at The Blue Bistro (Den Blå Bistro) in town. Yummy ravioli and tasty vol au vent (chicken in cream sauce with chantrelle mushrooms in puff pastry). Oh, and fries and beer.
Touring the "Old Town" (pretty much just these two buildings).
At the city hall they're prepping for their annual velo-fest. We did like, but didn't try, their rocking couples recliners.
The other side of the castle. It rotted, or burned down, or something and was derelict for a while. It's been redone (but not enough for us to go inside). On one side is this wood in place of stone. Like the mask on the phantom of the opera!
I was super intrigued by this schoolyard play equipment. Like the things of nightmares.
Our walk back to the hotel. Blue sky and a view of the bottom of the "fjord" and the castle off to the left.
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