Pitches in Denmark, part I

We'd just reached Copenhagen - previous post - and one endearing features of Danes are their love for bikes. Even if the way they throw themselves out in heavy traffic on bikes might be consider more than slightly death contempting... Not really my cup of tea, riding a bike under those circumstances, but I do like the environmental and health aspects of it all! And the Christiania bikes are just lovely, often with these little moppets riding in front. It all seems so sweet, in a very liberating, non Swedish way...

This time around, for various reasons, we did stay in Roskilde and not in Copenhagen. I think that leaving Copenhagen, and just heading a few miles outside, it's strangely enough a whole different Danish world, a very different mentality. I've felt that before, but it hasn't really been as tangible as I felt it to be now. Or perhaps it's just me being that city girl at heart...

The town of Roskilde is probably most wellknown for its annual rock festival Roskildefestivalen. And it's enormous cathedral, built in the 12th century. The cathedral hosts concerts all year around, and we managed to go to one of the organ recitals - which made me think a lot about Until I Find You... - with, let's say a very varied quality of the pieces played... The acoustics were just lovely though. Other than that I generally only see Roskilde as a good basecamp in exploring the Danish countryside, not very interesting in itself...

But then there's the exception, and it has to do with food. Outside Copenhagen I think it's really difficult to find decent vegetarian alternatives, so it was with great surprise and utter delight I met one of the best meals I've ever had there... It was unfortunately just too much food to even remotely being able to enjoy every little piece of, but simply everything I took a bite of was divine tasting. So I'll just take it from bread to dessert, without to much superlative fuss, which everything deserved -

Walnut bread

Freshly squeezed orange juice and a most inventive salad buffet

Creamy, chanterelle pasta with garlic, basil and parmesan - I don't much fancy chanterelles, which most often are badly prepared and really slimy in consistency, but now I at least know how they ought to taste, and oh my were they good...

Grilled peaches in raspberry sauce with sabayonne icecream - the icecream was homemade and absolutely fantastic, there was a blueberry one on the other plate that was nearly too good to be true...

A *slightly* round tummy and a blissful smile on my face walking back to the hotel - a simply amazing dinner indeed! The place of such culinary delights? Hotel Prindsen in Roskilde.

The one and only - apart from stopping and a bit of shopping in Copenhagen - thing we had pre-planned to do when in Denmark this time was to visit Möns klint, the impressive chalk cliffs of the island Mön. So one day was spent on Mön, mainly at the cliffs. And with doing really heavy workout, because if you want to get as much views - and photo opportunities - you have to climb a l o t. I insisted on going down to the beach too - which turned out to be far from a good idea...

Let me introduce you to the most hellish stairway to the beach of the cliffs at Mön - it took about 20 minutes to get down there. And on our way down these winding stairs we met all stages of exhausted people, some crying, others huffing and puffing at what seemed like the verge of a heart attack, some with a very strange, tense facial expression, not to mention the poor dogs some were accompanied by...

It was just a question of which stage of exhaustion oneself would be in while having to climb all those steps returning up again... Finally reaching the beach it turned out it was just a muddy, chalk mess and not a lot to see, nor taking pictures of. So it was just a case of getting back up again - which was really no fun. At. All.

If it's of any interest, my stage of exhaustion was the tense-facial-expression-and-lactic-acid-legs-one. Luckily enough there were some benches to relax on beside the stairs, I'm no sure if I'd made it alive otherwise. But I did finally see the daylight at the end of the stairs, and not the other kind, and I felt quite satisfied in a rather exhausted way, having made it.

Situated nearby the cliffs is the lovely small castle and gardens of Liselunds slot. Really fairytailish in the tiniest way.

Lunch was had at the little gem of a restaurant right beside the bridge heading into the main town on Mön, Stege. Café Laika was its name, tiny dining area inside and a large wooden deck on water, basking in the sun, absolutely lovely. And so was the food *hurray for decent veggie alternatives*, delicious hoummus sandwich.