Aarhus is a pretty seaside town on the Jutland peninsula in Denmark and it's the second-largest city after Copenhagen. Primarily it's considered a university town, with the main tertiary institution here having around 50,000 students - young people are everywhere we look and there is a certain vibrancy which comes as a natural result of that. This has been a very worthwhile side-trip in our visit to Denmark.
Mollestien is a quaint cobblestoned street in the centre of Aarhus, made up of tiny little houses, mostly well-maintained and waiting to be photographed! We are staying in a hotel, which is OK, but we met a lady yesterday who owns a small house for rent in Mollestien for about the same cost as the hotel room - it's 40 square metres, which is not a huge amount of space, but she has it fitted out with a kitchen, bathroom, living room and bedroom, as well as a little garden with furniture and a barbeque area! Maybe next time...
In the evening we strolled down the main street then along the waterside, stopping at a cafe for beer and a light meal to finish the day. Aarhus is a quiet town and there were many people out doing the same thing as we were, just enjoying the fresh air - couples, singles, groups and families.
Yesterday we visited
Den Gamle By (The Old Town) which is a heritage museum laid out as a fully-functioning self-contained 1700-1800s village. I was worried that it was going to be a tacky Sovereign Hill sort of experience (can you tell I'm not a big fan?) but it was AWESOME! I highly recommend a visit if you're ever passing through Aarhus and have several hours to spare - in fact, don't put anything else on your agenda, just come to Aarhus to visit the old town. We spent almost four hours there and it was only
just adequate. It's a hands-on experience of life in a small Danish village, with demonstrations you are invited to participate in or to watch - chopping of timber by hand, not machine, to form even-shaped logs for buidling houses, woodworking and leatherworking using tools from the time, bricklaying, making wood joints, a blacksmith, a hatmaker, bookbinder, cabinet-maker, baker, clockmaker, goldsmith, a dyeworks, paint-maker, tailor, tobacco worker making cigars amongst the trades on show.
Children who visit are invited to help build a huge sailboat using old carpentry tools and guided in the necessary skills by craftsmen who have studied the art. Herbs are grown by the
apoteker (today's equivalent would be a pharmacist) for medicinal purposes; vegetables are grown and chickens are kept by the vicar's wife who is happy to chat about her life.
There's even an amusement park where kids of all ages can partake of games which would have been enjoyed by children in those past centuries - horseshoe tossing, walking on wooden stilts, skittles, an organ-grinder, merry-go-round and interesting looking swings.
At lunchtime we sat outdoors and drank beer and cider but politely declined the grilled
pølse (thick, spicy Danish sausages) with mustard in favour of a picnic lunch we'd brought with us - fresh crisp rolls with cheese, smoked salmon, tomatoes and boiled eggs.
We found time late in the afternoon to visit ARoS, the centre for visual art - the architecture of the building alone is worth seeing and is a spectacular structure visible from most of Aarhus city, mostly because of the "Rainbow Panorama" - this is a massive circular three-metre wide rainbow glass gallery which sits on narrow columns above the roof of the museum. You can walk around inside it in a 360 degree arc, viewing Aarhus through every colour of the rainbow.
ARoS showcases an exhibition of the works of New York artist Tony Matelli, whose statues are so highly realistic that you really have to get up close and almost touch some of them to convince yourself they are not flesh and blood. Amongst the many life-sized human representations, there's a sleepwalking girl in pyjamas, a guy sitting on a rock at the seaside playing guitar and a young man apparently levitating. There is also a fleeing mutilated couple who have various far-too-realistic injuries and a number of primates who clearly are meant to represent human failings.
The most noteworthy and impressive exhibit, though, for my money, is Australian artist Ron Mueck's, "
Boy" - he is five metres tall and weighs 500 kilograms. What do you think?
Tomorrow we travel back to Copenhagen for one more day, before flying out to Kirkenes, a tiny village in the north of Norway, beyond the Arctic Circle and near the border of Russia. Adventures await!
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