Odense, Denmark - Daily Photo Blog

Saturday, June 30, 2007

Parking Sign

posted by Erin @ 1:37:00 PM 411 comments

Friday, June 29, 2007

Building Top

posted by Erin @ 11:32:00 AM 0 comments

Thursday, June 28, 2007

Beautiful Old Danish House

This is a picture of one of the old buildings around Old Odense (you can also see my pretty pink bicycle in the shot! hehe). Unfortunately at some point, someone thought it wise to paint over the lovely old beams with that horrible yellow... and as you can see it didn't really work! They should paint over them a darker color, I think.

posted by Erin @ 9:21:00 PM 4 comments

Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Man Hole Cover

Some other DP blogger - I can't remember who - posted what their man hole covers looked like in their city and I thought it was a really cool idea. I've never really paid attention to them in my city so I don't know if they all look like this one, but the image is of one of Hans Christian Andersen's (I told you they love him in this city) famous paper cuttings.

For some information on his "paper cuts" (they are pretty fascinating) click here (link opens in a new window).

posted by Erin @ 9:18:00 PM 1 comments

Tuesday, June 26, 2007

Old Odense; take two

More photos of old houses in Odense, on the other side of the small cobbled street which I showed you all yesterday. The background is not as nice in this image, but you get a further idea of what the houses look like. It's really lovely to walk around the cobbled streets around this area. It's actually quite a bit larger than you think.

posted by Erin @ 10:15:00 AM 0 comments

Monday, June 25, 2007

Old Odense

Here are some of the old houses of Odense, right up the road from where we live. The supposed birth place of Hans Christian Andersen is in one of these homes, which as I mentioned before, has been turned into a museum. To the left of this photo and up a short path is a very large, loud main road. To construct this road, they tore up so many of these beautiful old houses to make way for this obtrusive road, which everyone hates. Even they (the people who built it and commissioned it, I guess) realized it was a BIG mistake and are making plans to remove the road. But you still can't get all those old houses back. So they really - excuse my language - fucked themselves and Odense out of beautiful building history.

posted by Erin @ 10:11:00 PM 0 comments

Sunday, June 24, 2007

Skovsøen

Last night - like they do every year around (though not always on) the longest day of the year - they had a big bonfire, gathering and music... I wouldn't call it festival but there was a large stage with music groups playing on it for hours. It's out in the forrest; "skovsøen" literally means 'the forrest lake'. A phenomenal amount of people turned up - I think it must have been all of Odense! Here - taken on my not so great camera phone which seems to turn all my photos blue - shows a very wide street usually totally empty but now filled with thousands of people. It was so much fun. Everyone brings a blanket, some drinks, maybe a disposable BBQ and has fun with family and friends. Then at 9:30pm they light this HUGE bonfire which has a "witch" at the top of it (it's an old tradition but for what I don't know - I guess the old witch hunts).

Oh yes, and to give you an idea of the scale - this is just the street in the middle of two HUGE fields. In the one on the left is the lake with a huge fountain in the middle. It goes back really, really far.
On the right of the road pictured is a large field now completely jam packed with people just like how you see on this road; some sitting, some standing and some walking around.
This picture really doesn't show how big the place is or just how many people there are. Just multiply what you see in this picture by 20 or more!

posted by Erin @ 12:43:00 PM 2 comments

Saturday, June 23, 2007

Danish Desert

I'm pretty sure the Danes didn't invent this, in fact I know little to nothing about it except the name: jordbær tarte (strawberry tarte). I kind of associate it with Denmark, because I tried it for the first time over here but I had heard of it before I came to DK. This particular one was extra good; we got it from the bakery just down the road. Very expensive (about 5.60 GBP / 56 DKK) but well worth it. I thought I would post a picture to entice you all to treat yourselves with something yummy today!

What are the bakeries like in your city? Do you frequent them often? It's a very large part of the culture here still.

EDIT: Sorry I forgot to include this part - the 56 kroner is for the ENTIRE cake not just that one little slice! Also 56 kroner is about $10 (US dollars).

posted by Erin @ 11:15:00 AM 2 comments

Friday, June 22, 2007

Bilka

Not a very good photo, but it shows one of the big supermarkets here called Bilka. It's almost hypermarket, but not quite as big (at least this one in the outskirts of Odense city center). We've started going here more often now... they're a tiny bit more expensive, but they have the best offers on so in the long run I guess it saves you more money.

posted by Erin @ 10:49:00 AM 1 comments

Thursday, June 21, 2007

Odense by Night

Taken last night while out driving. Random location around Odense.

posted by Erin @ 11:07:00 PM 1 comments

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Inside St. Knud's Cathedral (A Series) - pt. V

I think this will be the last of the "Inside St. Knud's cathedral" series - for now at least. I definitely intend to take some more (better) photos soon, when I have some free time to go back inside. I'd like to thank my little sister, Shannon, who was the guest photographer in this series :P

This shot is a close up of the coffins I was describing in yesterday's post. VERY dusty. This is in a different area than the armour I posted a picture of yesterday. There are quite a few coffins and bones lying around the church.

posted by Erin @ 10:59:00 PM 0 comments

Tuesday, June 19, 2007

Inside St. Knud's Cathedral (A Series) - pt. IV

Here is the far back right wall of the church, next to the altar but not up the staircase. There are a number of coffins here, along with old armour (as seen in this photo) and swords, some shields, artifacts and things like that. All very dusty!

posted by Erin @ 9:30:00 PM 0 comments

Monday, June 18, 2007

Inside St. Knud's Cathedral (A Series) - pt. III

As seen in both previous photos in this continuing series, this is the priests... uh, I don't know what you'd call it. It's a little booth which is raised over the pews and is accessed by some (blocked off) stairs. I don't think they use it today, but I could be wrong. It just seems very off limits and unused. It would be cool to go up it to see what the view is like!

posted by Erin @ 1:15:00 PM 0 comments

Sunday, June 17, 2007

Inside St. Knud's Cathedral (A Series) - pt. II

(Again, I did not take this photo).

This was taken from the altar at the top of the stairs I described and showed you yesterday. This... is the church's organ. Well, one of them. There's another smaller, newer one to the right of where this photo is taken, at the top of the staircase, but I don't know how often they use it.
THIS one is HUUUGE. It doesn't look like it in this picture, but it's very far away because the church is so long. But it is so enormous and it's actually very active in terms of people playing it. I've gone in twice and found people playing it. It actually sounds very creepy, because the church is so old and usually quite empty (during the times I go in, anyway)

posted by Erin @ 10:32:00 AM 0 comments

Saturday, June 16, 2007

Inside St. Knud's Cathedral (A Series) - pt. I

In case you have forgotten, this is St. Knud's Church, which I have posted about before. It's such a HUGE beautiful church, but I've never shown you inside it. Today I'm going to start the first part of a series which will do just that!

Sorry for the crookedness of this photo (I am not the author, it was my younger sister). But you can still get the gist of what it is; it's the inside of the church looking straight down towards the altar. Behind me is the big double doors which go outside. Ahead of me is the pews, the altar, a huge holy water holding bowl then stairs going up to the altar. It's very awe-inspiring and impressive.

posted by Erin @ 10:16:00 AM 0 comments

Friday, June 15, 2007

Shopping District View

This is exactly what the shopping "strip" or area in town looks like on a normal day, especially around 2 o'clock and after.

posted by Erin @ 2:50:00 PM 1 comments

Thursday, June 14, 2007

Roof tops II

posted by Erin @ 2:49:00 PM 0 comments

Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Terrible News

I apologize for not posting the past couple of days; something bad has happened here in Odense (and unfortunately it's not as rare as one might think). They found a baby here in the river in Odense - it had been put in a plastic bag with a rock in it. On the rock it said, "Sorry. Rest in Peace. Mom and Dad love you, my little one..." The parents did it a few weeks ago perhaps, the police say, even a couple of months ago. It's such a horrible, horrible thing. That poor baby. And the awful thing is, there is three reported abandoned baby findings by or in the river in RECENT news; the last one happened in 1999. All the babies found all died.

I know it's not directly related to me, so it shouldn't prevent me from posting a photo, but I really don't feel like walking around Odense and taking photos today. I hope you understand.

Normal posting will commence tomorrow.

posted by Erin @ 2:20:00 PM 2 comments

Tuesday, June 12, 2007

Nature

posted by Erin @ 2:48:00 PM 0 comments

Monday, June 11, 2007

WARNING: Do not enter!

Here is a picture of my boyfriend, Johannes, and I at a Mexican restaurant here in Odense called El Torito. NEVER go here, I repeat, NEVER. We'd been there once before and it sucked, but my little sister was in town a couple weeks ago and she loves Mexican food so we decided to go there. It was worse than before!

Last time, they only forgot to bring us things, like salad and so on. This time the entire table area/room smelt like sewage - and we were at the BACK of the room away from the toilets! We ordered some things we never received (but thankfully were not charged for) and most ridiculous of all, they wouldn't even give us an extra plate! Johannes and I were sharing a meal intended for 2 people and asked - obviously - for a spare plate, and they refused. They didn't say why, but we soon found out.

My little sister, for some reason, only wanted a salad and you can "refil" it from the salad bar as many times as you want. But only YOU, the person who is eating it/ordered it. The first time, I went up with my sister because she couldn't see any salad dressing (there wasn't ANY) and helped her with her salad... I got the WORST evils from every single member of staff in that room. As if I was trying to ham on HER salad and steal their precious lettuce away from them. Their eyes followed me all the way to the back of the room where we were sitting and stayed on me for quite a while.
Then... they ignored us. It's a quite a tiny room and we were trying to get our bill, but they refused to acknowledge us. Never have I felt so unwelcome in a restaurant in my life!

I think they are doing incredibly bad for business, which is why they were refusing to give us an extra plate (in case we "stole" salad or whatever) but the staff were so unbelievably rude and the quality of food and the atmosphere (especially the awful smell) was so unbelievably poor. I am not one to complain usually, so you know how bad this place must really be!

Hopefully they will go out of business soon and someone else will replace them, someone who runs a better restaurant. But all I have left from this is a beautiful photograph of us both, which I love :) So maybe it was worth it anyway.

posted by Erin @ 7:49:00 PM 3 comments

Sunday, June 10, 2007

Close up of the He/She statue

Here is my little sister posing in a close up of the he/she statue I've posted about before, which sits right in front of the city hall and across the way from St. Knud's church. Like I said before, kids love climbing on it and apparently my sister is no exception! :P

posted by Erin @ 7:47:00 PM 0 comments

Saturday, June 9, 2007

Pretty Fountain

I hope my sister doesn't kill me for posting this, but it's the only picture I had of this pretty little fountain in the back streets of Odense and she just HAPPENED to be in it :P
Anyway, I am posting this because Odense is FULL of statues and fountains, often in places you never visit or would think of. I just love finding a new fountain. I've known about this little one for a while; you see it as soon as you come out the back entrance of H&M in the shopping high street of Odense center. Not too many people walk back there, so it's a nice surprise when you walk by it :)

posted by Erin @ 6:30:00 PM 5 comments

Friday, June 8, 2007

Old Bed

When my little sister was over from England, we went to the Hans Christian Andersen museum here in Odense, which is actually a museum adjoined onto the house he was allegedly born in (it's not proven and it's not the house he grew up in here in Odense. You literally walk from the museum, which has a collection of his personal effects, drawings, paintings, paper cutouts and stuff, right into this really old Danish house. It's pretty cool.

Anyway, here is one of the little beds in the house, which me and my sister loved because it's like a little cubbyhole! It's under the stairs and when you go to sleep, you just pull the curtain across.

Visit if you get a chance! You wouldn't think there's much to see... but you'd be wrong! There is TONS!

posted by Erin @ 6:27:00 PM 2 comments

Thursday, June 7, 2007

H.C. Andersen Museum

Here is a picture of my little sister, who came over to visit last week from England, as she sits and listens to one of Hans Christian Andersen's fairytales. All throughout the museum, they had these telephones where you could select which story you wanted to hear on a computer and then listen through the phone. We listened to the Princess and the Pea story :)

posted by Erin @ 4:19:00 PM 0 comments

Wednesday, June 6, 2007

Some Beautiful Old Buildings...

posted by Erin @ 12:30:00 PM 6 comments

Tuesday, June 5, 2007

Unidentified Ruins III

God summer is just zooming up on me. Is it coming up quickly for everyone else too? I don't mean weather wise, I mean... gosh, it's already June! I'm going on holiday in a month to the south of France, near Perpignan where my dad has a house. So excited!

Anyway, today's picture is of the staircase at the side of the unidentified ruins in town. I was surprised to see it was a very old looking wooden staircase. They were big fat beams of wood leading right down to the outside cellar door. I still haven't found out what it is!

posted by Erin @ 11:25:00 AM 0 comments

Monday, June 4, 2007

Unidentified Ruins II

Here is another photo from this post about the unidentified ruins in town. Shown is my 12 year old sister standing in what used to be the chimney so you can get an idea of the scale. It's actually pretty big! I have another picture of the stairway going down to the cellar from outside which I'll post tomorrow.

posted by Erin @ 9:43:00 PM 0 comments

Sunday, June 3, 2007

Abandoned Bike

An extremely common site in Denmark, an abandoned bike. They're everywhere. But they generally don't tend to stick around for long, someone will always come to pick it up whether it be a new owner or the police (they auction them off). This one was in a fountain in town and I thought it actually looked quite pretty in the water. It was removed sometime before the next day, though. Usually put there by drunk people who destroy the bikes first.

We actually had one sitting outside our house for 5 days a couple weeks ago. Nobody came to get it and it was in perfect order so we thought we may as well keep it. You're meant to turn it into the police, but you can always do with a spare bike, especially as we're always having guests and tenants stay with us.

posted by Erin @ 9:40:00 PM 0 comments

Saturday, June 2, 2007

Tivoli Fair... Leaving!

Here is a photo of the Tivoli fair I posted about previously (when I went to the fairground here in Odense that they'd set up). I was surprised to see them driving along side us on the E20 (motorway) as we were driving to Billund airport last week!

posted by Erin @ 9:38:00 PM 0 comments

Friday, June 1, 2007

St. Knud's Church from Behind

Here is a photo of what St. Knud's church looks like from behind and it also shows how close it sits to the river. It's sooo beautiful around this part. One of my favorite places to go and sit in Odense.

We did a lot of tourist-y things today, because my little sister is here (as I think I've mentioned). We went inside the church pictured after a nice picnic by the river. So nice! But now we are all so exhausted.

posted by Erin @ 6:01:00 PM 1 comments

A daily photo from Odense, Denmark - the third largest city in DK! Situated on the island of Funen.

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