On August 23rd, Gitte and Carlo (Jens' sister and brother-in-law) came to Copenhagen for a little weekend visit and to help us celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary at our favorite local Italian restaurant just down the street. (and No, it is never to late to send a congratulation card filled with $$$)
Chatting over some great food and delicious wine, Gitte mentioned that it could be fun to try to get together again at a summer house to catch the last bit of summer. I thought that was a great idea. I told Gitte that I will try to take off Thursday and Friday in week 38 and that would end up giving me a whole week off.
It was just before the beginning of Corona that Gitte and Carlo rented a summer house but then we canceled because we thought it would be best for me and Jens to just stay home due to Corona. But now a few months later, as things were finally getting better, we decided to give the summer house rental another try.
It turns out since all the Danes are staying home during the epidemic, most of the summer house rentals were occupied. Gitte found one still available and gave me a call to say she sent me the link to the house. "Take a look and let me know asap", she said.
I clicked the link and thought the place looked great so I said, "Book it! We'll be there!" We had to book Friday to Friday but I had to work the first weekend so we showed up first on Monday afternoon. It would be only 3 whole days, ½ of Monday and early check-out on Friday. It was a short trip but that was going to be plenty of time for Jens, however.
Where did we go you ask? We went to a coastal area at Båring Vig. Say it like: Boring Vee. And it is in Middelfart county. There's no beginning fart or end fart - just middel fart.
According to google maps, it is only 2 hours and 4 minutes/207km away from home. But even with the pedal to the metal, it took us almost 3 hours and the speed limit is 110 and 120 in a few places. In the map above, you can see Boring Bay, the star is where the summer house is located and the town of Middelfart is where we went for a very short day trip.
I will try to make this a short blog - but you know me: TMI
Instead of a million pix of the summer house, I am posting only 4 and a link of the house from the rental company so you can see more on your own if you are interested. Click here to see the summer house photos from the rental website.
above - The upstairs living room
above - the path from summer house to beach. A 2½ minute walk.
If you haven't seen the rest of the house, go back and check out the other 59 photos from the website. It really is a very nice place and I am already looking forward to going back again.
We got lucky as we had lousy weather just the week before and then some very beautiful sunny days while at the house. I only took a few pix of the area. Here they are for your viewing pleasurer.
On Wednesday I went to the market to pick up some groceries for dinner from the supermarket in cow town. The village is called Strib. You can see it as well on the map. It's just a 10 minute drive away from the summer house. It was a very nice market on the inside and it had a cute "light-house" design on the outside.
That's our white car in the parking lot.
And when I say cow country, I mean cow country with a capital Moo.
The photo below is literally across the street from the market.
Between Strib and the summer house is a big hill and when I drove back from the market, this is the view. At the bottom of the hill and a little to the right is the summer house area.
One the following day, we drove into Middelfart to check out the town.
On the way to Middelfart, we stopped at this rather unusual place called The House.
The House is a conference center for builders and entrepreneurs in that kind of business.
It has a hotel, restaurant and display/showroom. It's huge.
They sell everything from kitchen cabinet door knobs to bricks from the street to your front door, to an entire summer house. I didn't take any photos but here is one from the website...
It has a nice 20 second opening video, if nothing else.
At the corner of the main road and the entrance to the conference center is an ice-cream shop.
Naturally we stopped in to make pigs of our selves.
click this link to see a "photo in the round" and then scroll with your mouse from side to side.
From the ice-cream pit stop, we drove on to the city center.
Here are a few pix from our quick visit.
As you may have noticed, Middelfart has 2 bridges. The little bridge is called The Little Belt Bridge. It opened in 1935 - just 5 years before Hitler occupied DK. It has one lane in each direction as well as train tracks in each direction. In 1970 the name change to The Old Little Belt Bride when the new Little Belt Bridge opened. Cars only - no train.
I have traveled numerus times over the train bridge as this is the way to get to Jens' family in Kolding from Copenhagen. Then when we bought our car, we always drove over the larger of the 2 bridges. Both bridges together, I must have crossed them 200 times in the last 30 years always going back and forth between Copenhagen and Kolding. I've always only seen the town from above. This is my first time to actually stop and take a look in the town itself. It really is a very cute place with that kind of Disneyland magic.
Then before I knew it, Friday came and it was time to pack up and check out. Since check-out was at 10, we still had the entire day to fart around in Middelfart. I wanted to go back and take a look at the church. Gitte and Carlo suggested we drive back to town and have a good-bye coffee at the harbor front. Excellent idea. So after loading up the car, we drove back to Middelfart to do just that. First we went to the coffee house at the water's edge and then we walked up the street to see the church. We didn't go inside because it was undergoing extensive repairs.
This is a wonderful café right at the waters edge and just across the street from the old city center.
While sitting at the café, I snapped a few pix of the area on the other side of the fjord.
There are quite a few harbor porpoises here because of the natural feeding availability.
After coffee, we got up and headed just down the street. From sea-level, I looked up the hill and snapped this. Then we continued a litter further down the road to turn and walk up the hill.
This house is from circa 1575.
It is now the city museum
Saint Nikolaj Church was built in the 1200's and has been changed and added to over the centuries.
We'll be back once the renovation has been completed.
Would you like to join us on our next visit?
