Global Tales from Two Young Travelers

Århus, Denmark

By Emily Reisch and Jon Minor

Although our home university had Spring Break in March, the schools in Sweden have a few days off in May. We took advantage of this break to leave Sweden for the first time since our arrival in January.

It’s humorous to us that it takes longer to drive from Brookings to Nisland than it does to cross countries in Europe. Four hours in a bus, including a very short ferry ride, took us from Jönköping to Copenhagen, Denmark. It was another two hours by train to Århus, which is Denmark’s second largest city.

We nearly didn’t make it however. When we were changing from bus to train at Copenhagen, the bus departed for Berlin while Jon was still in the restroom of the bus. Lucky for us, the driver was only going to fuel up before leaving. We were reunited and on our way only 30 minutes later.

Many tourists only visit the capital or famous cities in a country. We consider ourselves travelers, not just tourists. We want to truly absorb other cultures and not just see a few things we’ve read about before. This is one of the reasons we chose not to only see Copenhagen.

Even the man working at the Århus hostel asked us why we were there and not in Copenhagen, but agreed when we said we like to see more than one city in a country.

The first night in Århus we stayed at an 1850s dance hall that is now a youth hostel. We had a bit of trouble finding it, due to it being in the woods outside of town and our lack of knowledge of the bus system. Hostels seem to be in the most interesting places and buildings.

In the morning we walked through the green and peaceful Risskov forest. Many people were jogging, but simply hiking up the hills left us out of breath. Most of the trees were very thin and tall. Peace lilies blanketed the forest floor.

Preserving nature is extremely important in Scandinavia. We noticed that short branches had been driven into the streambed to prevent erosion. They were at many different levels so the water would flow over them like it would over stairs.

For a taste of Danish history, we toured Den Gamle By, a historic village showing various occupations and lifestyles of the past. The quaint, colorful wood buildings contrasted sharply to the sleek glass of a high-rise office building a couple blocks away. Most of the buildings were half-timber houses painted red, white or yellow.

“The Bog Man” was the main attraction at the Moesgård Museum. The Grauballe Man is the most perfectly preserved bog person out of about two hundred found. During the Iron Age people were sacrificed to please the gods and thrown into the bogs. The chemical composition of bog water is such that it actually preserved the bodies. The Bog Man’s throat was cut from ear to ear around 55 B.C.

We were fascinated with his dark skin and red hair, which were both due to the preservation process. It is also amazing what scientists could tell about him. He was about 35 years old, had a diet of mainly grains, and was healthy when he died, but was very sick when he was about two.

How was he chosen to die to please the gods? We’ll never know that, but we learned a lot about bogs and the people of the Iron Age.

We then walked through the Moesgård forest on a historical trail, guided by large white rocks with red dots painted on. They led us through a pasture with ewes and lambs watching us as we meandered by several ancient burial sites with different types of tombs. We hiked over a small waterfall and on a wooden sidewalk through a marsh-like area. The trail ended at a white sandy beach.

The Viking Museum is in the basement of a very modern bank. Artifacts were found while constructing the bank. Customers in the busy bank took numbers and waited for a teller while we went down the stairs into an entirely different era.

Of course, no visit to Denmark would be complete without a visit to Copenhagen. We’ll tell you about that city in our next column.