A Poorly Pooch, A Wobbly Tower, and some Slutspurt Knickers!

3rd - 14th August 2011

Denmark is made up of three main parts. Copenhagen, the capital city, is on the island of Zealand to the east of the country. The large island in the middle is called Funen, and the strip of land to the west that juts up from the German border, well that's called Jutland!

Roskilde Cathedral

Leaving Copenhagen, we headed first to Roskilde to see the amazing cathedral which houses the impressive tombs of 21 kings and 18 queens. Roskilde was once the country's capital which explains why so many of the country's royals have been buried here since the 15th century.

Charlie had been a bit quiet since we left Copenhagen but when she started to turn her nose up at food we knew something was seriously wrong. We took her to the vets in Odense where she was diagnosed with a stomach infection, given some antibiotics and told to rest. Thinking ‘that was that’ we set out to explore the town.

Odense is the birthplace of Hans Christian Anderson and there's a terrific museum in the house where the writer was born that tells the story of his life. Shows are put on in the grounds during the summer which feature elements from his fairy tales.

The town does a good job of cashing in on HCA, quite amusing then that he left at the first opportunity and was only really recognised by the town long after his death!

Odense townhall and Skt Knud's Domkirke

A couple of days later and we were in Vejle where we visited the excellent Okolariet, an interactive museum which focusses on man's impact on the environment. We particularly enjoyed the quite bizarre ride entitled ‘what it feels like to be flushed down the toilet’!

Eye-catching apartment blocks on the waterfront at Vejle 

Vejle town square

Charlie appeared to have been getting better but the following day in Aarhus she nose-dived, and by the lunchtime we were seriously concerned about her. She was clearly in agony, could barely walk, and was drinking a lot of water.

Finding a vet in Denmark on a Sunday afternoon when you don't speak the language presents a bit of a challenge! We spent a couple of hours making phone calls and driving around town, so we were overwhelmingly relieved when we finally managed to get hold of one.

Charlie spent four days there. She was seriously dehydrated, had lost 20% of her bodyweight, and 90% of her kidney function had shut down. She was eventually diagnosed with Addison’s disease. Addison's is a rare disease that affects the adrenal gland, which is chiefly responsible for releasing hormones in response to stress, and affects kidney function. With the adrenal gland near destroyed, Charlie's kidneys were close to shutting down completely and the vet told us that when he first saw her she was just hours from death.

The patient with a pink bandage on!

Those four days in Aarhus were very worrying. Having been on the road for a year and a half, and with just a few weeks of our travels left, we now had doubts that Charlie would make it home with us. We seriously considered driving straight to Calais and hopping on the first available ferry, but friends were due to meet us in Berlin in a couple of  weeks time and flights and an apartment had already been booked.

We will forever be grateful to the team in Aarhus who helped us. Johan, our amazing vet, was very reassuring and honest about what was happening, and his English was superb. We probably would have headed for home if it hadn’t been for him. We hope they got our postcard from Berlin!

It took several months for Charlie to fully recover from her ordeal. She has a tablet twice a day which replaces the hormones in her body that the adrenal gland can't produce for her, and she has to be weighed and tested every now and again to see how things are going.    

Our home for four days on the outskirts of Aarhus

While Charlie was fighting for her life there really wasn't much we could do apart from see the town's sights! Of those, the one which really caught our eye was the colourful rooftop installation at ARoS, the town’s art museum.

People enjoying a colourful view from ARoS

Aarhus is Denmark's second city but it was once a small Viking settlement, and a number of finds are displayed in the Viking Museum close to the city's cathedral.

Aarhus cathedral

We have always enjoyed having our bikes with us, but the cycle paths and bike parking in Denmark and the Netherlands have to be the best in the world.

Multi storey bike park in Aarhus

We also enjoyed a couple of these during our stay in Aarhus!...

A proper Danish pastry

With Charlie seeming a lot better and having done some research on the disease and explained it to her (!!), we headed off to do a quick tour of the rest of Jutland.

Giving the patient the bad news!!

We headed first to Grenen at the northern-most tip of Jutland. The waters of the North and Baltic seas meet here causing the waters to clash in a strange way just off the coast. We took a trip on the tractor bus out to the point on the beach where the seas meet, took a trip to the top of the local lighthouse to take in the views, and stayed in the car park with around 50 other vans.

After a quick walk out to the Buried Church, most of which has disappeared under the shifting sand dunes, we started our journey south.

The tower of the Buried Church

Over the next two days we made our way down to the south west corner of Jutland. We had a quick dash around Aalborg where we visited the rather wobbly Aalborg Tower. We were going to have a meal up there but the ‘wobble’ made just looking at the menu a little nauseating!

The Aalborg Tower

Next up was the pretty little town of Viborg, situated at the meeting of two lakes - the Norreso and Sonderso. We spent an afternoon wandering around and tasting quite a few of the free samples dished out by the visiting European food market in the town square!

Viborg cathedral

Inside Viborg cathedral, which dates back to 1130

Being the mature adults we are, we didn’t find the Danish language at all amusing! We were puzzled by signs warning of 'fart control' but later discovered that fart means speed in Danish and the signs were warning of speed cameras. We were not at all amused by signs advertising special offers...

We are NOT amused!

We stopped for a couple of hours at the beautifully preserved and charming little town of Ribe, where we climbed the cathedral tower behind two rather doddery old gentlemen to take in the views of the surrounding countryside.

View from the top of Ribe cathedral

We spent our last night in Denmark on the west coast at the end of the causeway which leads out to the island of Mando. The following day we went to the beach on the island of Romo but it wasn't exactly a factor 30 day!

David enjoying the summer weather on Romo

Baywatch Danish-style

Overall, we enjoyed Denmark and would certainly pay a return visit. It's a small country which is largely quiet and rural but the larger towns and Copenhagen, the only really large city, have plenty to liven things up! If anyone can explain why we saw so many Italian vans in Denmark though, do let us know as it really puzzled us!

As our travels continue we visit Autostadt, the home of VW, and have a wunderbar week in Berlin!  

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Sudoku, Strays, Cliffs, and Clocks!

20th March - 2nd April 2011

When we arrived on the Algarve we headed straight to one of our favourite wild camping spots from last year at Boca do Rio near Salema.

A favourite with motorhomers: Boca do Rio

It doesn't get much better than this!

The far western corner of the Algarve is a conservation area and development is prohibited. It means that this stretch of coast is pretty unspoilt; the rugged coastline dotted with high cliffs, cove beaches, golden sands and a few small fishing villages.  

Salema

Fishing boats at Salema

The Portuguese Land's End: Cape Saint Vincent

There are quite a few motorhomes in this part of the world, mostly from Germany, the Netherlands, and the UK. A lot of retired couples spend the winter down here, staying for several months to escape the worst of the UK weather....and who can blame them!!

No motorhome parking allowed in Fuseta!

There aren’t many facilities down here apart from at campsites and it can be quite frustrating waiting at the only free water tap for miles around while some hippy/crusty/surfer types do all their washing and then spend another half hour giving themselves a good scrub down! Being English we of course said nothing and waited our turn in line.... for an hour!!!

We spent a couple of days camped at Ingrina beach which is hugely popular with surfers. It was here that we nearly adopted a stray dog who seemed to attach herself to us – nothing to do with the barbeque which we left outside the van overnight and which looked remarkably clean the following morning! 

The dog seemed to be sleeping under the van. She followed us on an hour-long walk along the cliffs to the neighbouring beach at Zavial and hung around while we had our lunch. Charlie also seemed quite fond of her, which is quite rare for our moody old pooch! We even started to think through the practicalities of getting her home but in the end we had to be sensible and leave her there. It was heartbreaking when we left though as she chased the van down the road for nearly half a mile.

Charlie with a new friend

Zavial beach

Whilst staying on the Algarve we’d planned to do nothing apart from eating, drinking and sleeping. We managed this pretty well but managed to fit quite a bit of sudoku into our busy schedules too! Oh and reading the Portuguese English-language newspaper. Good grief - they could do with a few plain English lessons! Their sentences are so long you could die of either boredom or asphyxiation just reading the front page! 

Alvor is a charming little town to spend a bit of time in. Not as built up as some of its neighbouring towns and resorts, it still has a lively harbour and main street where fresh fish is cooked outside on grills in front of the restaurants. It also has a beautiful stretch of beach with huge rocks and cliffs at the far end.

Charlie near Alvor

We got chatting to an English couple in Alvor who were a little confused about which time zone they were in. This, mixed with the fact that the clocks had just changed, had lead to quite a bit of confusion in their van - something we could sympathise with having had the same problem last year!

One of our favourite spots on the Algarve remains Ferragudo, primarily for the popular wild camping spot which has a great view of the town and across the estuary to Portimao and Praia da Rocha.

Ferragudo

A highlight of this trip so far was the fantastic cliff-top walk at Benagil. Sink holes, caves and tiny bays that are unreachable by foot litter this stretch of coast. The landscape has been created over thousands of years as the porous limestone has been eroded by the sea, rainwater, rivers and streams.

Cliff top near Benagil

You do have to watch your step and there were a few time that Charlie got a little too close to the edge for comfort in her desperate attempts to get down to the sea for a swim. The most dramatic recent rock fall here was in 1998 when an arch collapsed to form a new stack.

As you head east the coastline completely changes and you come to the huge sand spit islands that are connected to the coast in places by narrow causeways and shuttle ferries. The one at Tavira is one of the largest and we followed the miniature railway line across the mud flats from Pedras del Rei to the huge stretch of golden sand which was pretty much deserted.

The crossing at Pedras del Rei

Railway out to the beach on Ihla de Tavira

An amazing beach on Ilha de Tavira

A collection of anchors on Ilha de Tavira

As our favourite ice-cream stall in Tavira was closed, we moved on to a nearby beach for the night where we met up with the same confused English couple and again helped them out when they realised they had no wine to cook their fish in! We got some good tips from them about our journey north so it was a fair swap! 

Tavira

For our last day in Portugal we headed inland following the course of the Guadilara river which forms the southern border between Spain and Portugal, to Alcoutim. 

The river Guadilara en route to Alcoutim

A lovely little town, Alcoutim faces a pretty much identical town across the river in Spain. They even have matching forts!

Alcoutim

The Algarve News we saw in Alcoutim featured an article about Charles and Camilla’s visit to Portugal. We like to think they will have sampled one of the countries traditional pastries – the Belem tart – and mocked up what this may have looked like! Further evidence that we really have had too much time on our hands!!

So for the second time in as many years we crossed the Guadilara river and entered Spain heading for Seville. This being our second trip along the Algarve, we were surprised at just how much we've loved it. If we were a few years older and able to do so, I think we'd spend our winters down here too!

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