Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Oct 21 -- Drive to Denmark, Start the Ancestor Search


Hamburg harbor cranes
Hamburg railroad bridge -- interesting suspension design
We headed out after the major rush hour in Hannover and took the autobahn north towards Denmark. Our biggest slowdown came in Hamburg, where there was  huge line of trucks apparently waiting to exit to go to the harbor -- lots of big cranes hovering over the harbor. Our route took us UNDER the Elbe river, and it seemed to go down quite a ways. As a non-tunnel/cave person, this 4k segment of the trip was the most uncomfortable. North of Hamburg, we entered the section of Germany called Schleswig-Holstein, which had an entry sign that said something like 'land of the horizon'. This place was VERY flat. Lots of fields, but amazingly, also lots of woods.

Even though Denmark is in the EU, there was a border guard. Most everyone was waved through, but our tourist license plates got us a chance to meet our first Danish officials. Fortunately, their English was pretty good (my Danish is non-existent and I managed to misplace the page of the guidebook that had simple things to say like "Do you speak English?"). We told them about our journey with the car and they seemed really interested in the whole European Delivery concept and let us continue after checking our passports.

Jutland, southwest Denmark
Driving through southwestern Denmark (Jutland, the peninsula attached to Germany), two things were noticable: 1) in Germany, there were lots of little farming villages in the midst of big fields, but in Denmark, it was more like the US with singular homes/farms spread across the scenery, each with its own land to tend. 2) There were trees planted along the roads that had a noticeable slant to the east, especially along the top half. I suspect the wind from the North Sea blows all the way across the flat land, deforming the trees in the windbreaks.
Jutland road - can you guess which way the prevailing winds blow???

Our car, our B&B in the back.
We're in the end room, top floor
We got to Ribe, the oldest town in Denmark, and site of our B&B for two days, about 45 minutes early and remembered we were supposed to have called an hour in advance of arriving.
So I dug out my cell phone, turned off airplane mode, and tried to call. Calling inside Europe with a US cell phone is like calling from the US: you need a country code. I had neglected to research this before we left Hannover, and data on an international plan is prohibitively expensive, so I tried a couple ideas, then called my carrier for help. The first person told me the number already had the country code and to try a 0 in front. That didn't work, so I called them back, and was on hold wondering if I will have to pay the $2.50/minute rate for calling them! Finally a person arrived and told me not just to dial 0 before the number but to hold the 0 down til it became a +. Lo and behold success, but now we had an hour to spare.

Lille Darum farm buildings
So we gave Alice the chance to locate one of the villages the Hansen side of the family came from -- there were two: Lille Darum and Store Darum (after seeing them I guessed that meant Little Darum and Big Darum, and later the tranlator app confirmed it).


Store Darum church with cemetary
I picked Lille and as soon as the map came up, I could see they were related but they were only 1k apart so no big deal. There were some very interesting old houses in the little town, and the first thing we saw in the big town was a church that had a cemetary. Pay dirt! Jim and I wandered around for about a half hour looking for old headstones with the proper names, but didn't come up with any that were on my list -- none were old enough -- though a few looked like they could have been the next generation that stayed in Denmark, so I took pictures.

Old Store Darum home
Old hotel & restaurant in Ribe
Back in Ribe, we got into our room, which appears to have been an old warehouse with the rope and wheel for hauling things up still in our room. Very cool! Our host gave us suggestions on where to eat and how to find an ATM (we have to pay in cash(!) and Denmark does not use Euros). We set out to explore the town, which is very quaint. We found the two recommended restaurants and only one was open tonight, so we made reservations at his suggestion -- and were glad we did. The place is TINY -- room for 3 tables of 2-3, 2 tables of 4, and 1 large table in the back that looked like it could handle 8-10. That one was filled with a family. We were the next to last people in and then they started turning people away. Very good food, but a bit pricy (like everything else here).

Our first restaurant, the red brick building, in Ribe, along the river that leads to a bay on the North Sea

It has been raining on and off all day, and drizzled on us while we walked to and from dinner. I am hoping the weather forecast for tomorrow is correct and we get no rain and more sun. In addition to searching out a couple more towns, we want to visit the North Sea shore too because we are very close to it.

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