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Archiver > DENMARK > 2004-07 > 1089216127


From: Paula Goodfellow <>
Subject: Danish Travel tips
Date: Wed, 7 Jul 2004 09:02:18 -0700


I got back last Thursday from my long-awaited trip to Denmark. I'll
send a more full report of what we did later, but I thought I'd mention
a few things that we learned on this trip.

First, we had a great experience with Dansk Auto Rental, which has been
recommended on this list before. The service and price were great.

On the windshield of the rental car was a little stickon clock, with a
hand that could be moved to different times. We kept wondering what it
was for, but kept forgetting to ask anyone. We speculated that maybe it
was to be set when we parked in a timed zone, but thought that sounded
far too trusting. Later we did ask, and found out that indeed, one is
supposed to set the clock when parking in a timed zone, and we could
have gotten a nasty ticket. But I don't think that we ever did park in
a zone where we needed the clock set.

A problem that we ran into was that in Denmark if you are shopping
somewhere which isn't tourist oriented, you'll need to input a four
digit code to use your credit card. The first time that happened, I
didn't think I had a code, but then remembered later that 15 years or
so when I first got the card, I had been given a PIN-- which I don't
remember at all now because it's only needed if you get cash advances
from the credit card, and I never do that. Fortunately, I always travel
with a backup credit card, and that card is linked to my bank account
with my automatic teller card which has the same pin. We ended up using
that card everywhere in Denmark. However when we got up to Ringkøbing,
that card didn't work in the grocery store. That clerk thought that
maybe they couldn't take international cards. Luckily we did have
enough cash for the food. When we got home we had a message on the
phone from that card's fraud unit wondering if someone had stolen our
card and used it so maybe that's why the charges were turned down. This
was annoying since I had called the bank before we left to let them
know that we would be travelling in Scotland and Denmark, and charging
more things than usual. A friend of mine who was in Europe a year ago
had her card stopped by her bank's fraud unit, and she had hard time
getting it activated again from Europe. So the moral of that story is
to know your PIN, call your bank ahead of time, and carry more than one
card if you're going to rely on automatic teller cards and credit cards
for your money.

On a related note, the exchange rate has dropped over the last year or
so to where a dollar is now worth only slightly over 6 kroner. It
probably cost $50 a day to feed my 18 year old son.

Finally, this has been mentioned on the list before, but I think it
bears repeating again. Opening hours are much shorter in Denmark than
we in the States are used to. A lot of attractions are open only 10 or
10:30 to 4:30 or 5:00. We knew that, but ran into problems with the
fact that a lot of stores close on Sunday, even the tourist stores in
Ribe, and then a lot of others were closed on Monday in Ringkøbing. Our
lunch in Sevel (in Ringkøbing) came from the little grocery store, but
it looked a bit as though we were going to have to rely on leftovers
from that for our dinner that evening. Fortunately, we did find a
restaurant which turned out to be very good for dinner that night-- but
for awhile it looked as though the four of us were going to be sharing
the 3 bananas and one yogurt that we had left.

Finally, we found two places in Ringkøbing that I'd never heard of
which some of you might be interested in visiting if you're going in
that direction. Near Skive, there is a castle which our guide book
described as the best preserved medieval castle in Scandinavia. It's
called Spøttrup Slot. I'll put some pictures on a website later today.
Here's a link to its website, in Danish only.
http://www.spottrup.dk/borgen/index.htm

Near the same area, in the parish of Sevel, I had ancestors who lived
in Søegaard, a little village which was part of that parish. Only one
house is left standing out there, but the area is beautiful. More hilly
than most of Denmark, with two small lakes and the ruins of a medieval
kloster, Stubber Kloster, which is reached only after a walk of about
2 km. It was very worth the walk. Here's a link to a photo:
http://www.historisksamfund.dk/ (The thatched roof is a modern
addition to protect the ruins.) My husband suggested that maybe my
gggggrandfather used to play out there in the ruins when he was a kid.

I looked at several guide books for Denmark at our local library and
ended up buying one that I liked from that group, called the Blue Guide
Denmark. I like it because it describes a lot of very small unusual
things that the other books seemed to ignore, for example, both
Spøttrup and Stubber Kloster were listed there. It also describes
anything interesting about local church buildings, which I think would
probably be of interest to many of you on this list. Paula


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