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Saturday, July 3 , Arhus, Denmark
At 8:36 a.m. I recorded: "We are in Arhus (Yeah, I know that's an 'A' but the locals say "Ore-hoos." )It's murky, murky again. A two-umbrella day, for sure.
We chose room service for breakfast this morning, since we would be leaving on a morning excursion to see more of this Danish city that neither of us had ever heard of before. The description of today's tour: "Arhus City Tour, 2 1/2 hours. Includes a brief overview of the city and a one-hour walk through the open air museum. Photo stop at the Summer Palace."
From my point of view, this was a very nice tour--we saw a good bit of the city, without very much walking. My leg appreciated that very much.
Leaving the ship pier, our bus headed out to the southern end of Arhus where we drove by the Summer Palace of the Queen of Denmark. Apparently the Danes expect to see their queen out and about--not always secluded in Copenhagen. Today, she was actually in Greenland, but she spends a few weeks of each quarter here in Arhus. A public park surrounded the palace and it was full of rhododendrons, in full bloom. Lovely woods and it felt far away from the city.
Once back into the city, we had a stop at the cathedral. Quite a contrast in feeling from the large church in Rostock. That was very dark, while this was all light-colored walls, and beautiful stained glass windows. A special feature of the church when it was Catholic were frescoes covering the interior walls. With the Reformation, the whole idea was to eliminate all evidence of "Papistry." However, the king of the time forbade the destruction of the frescoes, so they just got covered over with white-wash. At some point, a few of them were uncovered and are once again a feature of the church walls.
There was a beautiful altar--rather showy for a Lutheran church, since it had a fair amount of carving and gilding. There were some huge wooden memorial plaques, dating to long before the Reformation. And, on the floor were large stone grave covers, many with interesting decorations, like skulls. Hanging from the ceiling was also a large (7-foot long)) model of a ship. Many churches around the Baltic seem to have a similar, but smaller ship displayed, sort of as a "good luck" charm--not unreasonable for a people who used to live by and on the sea. But this ship has a special history: it was built on Czar Peter the Great's orders--he wanted accurate models of ships of other countries, which could be copied by the Russian ship builders as Peter built the first Russian navy, after founding St. Petersburg. Well, the ship model was constructed, and sent off to Russia on a ship. But...it never made it. A storm sunk the ship, although somehow the model survived, was found floating on the sea, and ended up here in this Danish church.
This cathedral had two pipe organs, a large traditional one at the rear of the church, and a more modern one near the altar. Neither were played today, so no organ concert, or church service and sermon as we had in Rostock.
Our bus drove right through the grounds of the Arhus University--where the Queen herself studied. In Rostock the university was actually scattered throughout the town, but in Arhus, the college was all in one place, and it was a very attractive campus with much greenery, an outdoor amphitheater--and bicycles, lots of bicycles, in the dormitory yards.
Nearby, indeed within sight of the high-rise office buildings of downtown Arhus, was the open air museum known as Den Gamle By. Here, the Danes have gathered together Europe's largest, most complete and most detailed living urban cultural museum.
Something nice had happened as we toured the other parts of Arhus--it stopped raining and the sun came out (sort of). We'll call it "partly sunny."
Walking past the gate barrier, we truly walked back into a medieval town. Everything in the town was brought here from other parts of Denmark, and carefully reconstructed piece by piece. There are more than 75 homes, ranging from the modest cottages on the outer perimeter to the elegant mansions of the wealthy, who always lived at the center of the medieval towns, according to our guide. This makes sense, when you realize that towns were all miniature fortresses, surrounded by walls.
We were impressed with the thought that had gone into this restored village, and the way it was laid out. A little stream flowed through the village, dammed up to make a pretty pond and provide power through the mill wheel. They even had a miniature "tivoli" with a tiny Ferris wheel and swings, all gaily decorated. Glenn checked out the interiors of some of the home--all were furnished to the period and in some instances were museums with interesting collections like wedding costumes from various centuries. The village is still "under construction"--at present they were restoring a building of apartments including one that was the home of a relative of Hans Christian Andersen.
Again, we had the option of staying downtown for shopping and walking back to the ship, but my leg said, "nope, let's not," so we chose to come back to the ship for a leisurely lunch in the Lido buffet.
After lunch, it was time to rest up from our latest excursion. The cabin TV was showing another movie I'd wanted to see--"Under the Tuscan Sun." So we combined movie-watching and resting. Interesting, that this ship has had a great selection of almost-first run movies but their lounge entertainment has seldom appealed to us.
Last night, a sealed envelope was delivered to our cabin--inviting us to the Mariner's Society Reception in the Vista Lounge at 5 p.m. today. This is an exclusive society--everyone who has sailed at least twice on Holland America is an automatic member! The Lounge was pretty well-filled and scattered here and there among the group were people wearing a large medal on a colorful ribbon. Many of the men had little pins in their lapels, which are also a mark of membership in the Mariner's Society.
After being treated to a couple glasses of champagne and hors d'euvres, the Captain and the Hotel Manager acknowledged all us "two-timers" and then moved on to the more impressive awards--one man had spent more than 700 days on Holland America cruises, and his wife was no piker, either. She had 500 days to her credit. For this, they got a platinum medal--and, well they should. Seems to me some "frequent cruising credits" would be more incentive to sail on a particular line, but I must admit all these "ancient Mariners" seemed delighted with their awards. Perhaps other goodies go along with the medal. Actually, we DID get a goody for our two-cruise achievement. Along with the invitation to this reception we found two pretty Dutch Delft tiles on our bed. They will be a nice addition to my tile coasters.
Instead of another invitation to another party, tonight we found a notice on our bed that there has been an outbreak of "Type A" influenza on the ship. They advised that if any of us wanted a preventive medicine, they were providing it in the ship's infirmary "at cost." So far, Glenn and I are feeling fine (if I discount my sore leg), so we decided to gamble that our flu shots of last fall would still protect us, and we declined the offer to visit the infirmary.