Ribe, Denmark (Scandinavian Tour 2012)

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1st leg of our Tour - Ribe, Denmark with day tour in Esbjerg and Copenhagen



After our overnight train travel with the City Night Line (CNL) from Baden, Switzerland via Hamburg, Germany our first stop is in Ribe, Denmark. Ribe lies on the southwest of Denmark, just a hop from the Wadden Sea National Park where land and sea provide daily entertainment in the form of unparalleled nature phenomena.. The Wadden Sea is Denmark’s largest National Park and the salt marsh are among the most valuable wetland areas in the world and of crucial importance for breeding birds, fish, ocean mammals and plant life. The Wadden Sea is part of the east Atlantic migration passage used by millions of birds crossing up to 30 countries. Having flown all the way from South Africa, migrating birds use the mudflats as a rest area on their way to Canada or Northern Siberia .

Though we haven’t got much luck with the weather in Denmark in the duration of our stay, as it only rains almost the whole time that we are there. We have also not found a guided tour in the Mando island due to the bad weather and lack of interested tourist to make the tour. So we are limited to museums and tour of the church in the area. Even the Viking Center, the reason we went there so our daughter could experience and see it live was also not open. But the visit to the Viking Musuem has worth our visit to Ribe despite the bad weather.

Ribe is the oldest town in Denmark, with history that marks from the beginning of the 8th century and up through the Viking Era and the Middle Ages to ca. 1700 AD. Ribe was especially vital during the period from 710 AD to 850 AD, and the many local artifacts on view in the museum testify to the fact that Ribe was an important town not only in Denmark, but throughout Western Europe.

Ribe Cathedral was also well worth the visit, it is Denmark’s oldest and best kept cathedral that was begun around 1100 AD and is among the few attractions in the West Denmark. The apse of the Cathedral will instantly catch your attention, the seven large mosaics with biblical motives, then the stained glass windows and the frescos of the vaulted ceilings. All created by Carl-Henning Pedersen druing the years 1982-1987 using 3 million small stones fort he mosaics. In Ribe Cathedral, history speaks to you through epitaphs, commemorative tablets, paintings and good craftmanships. It is the best cathedral that I have visited so far where my mouth stayed open in awe of all what’s all inside this Cathedral.

We enjoyed our stay as well in the Bed and Breakfast ( B&B ) of Radhus Conditoriet with Jette and Torben Moller as our host family. We were pampered with the finest danish breads for „FREE“ every evening after the bakery closed. The room was also quiet big enough to accomodate two adult and one child. They have also a kitchen with all the utensil you could used to eat your own food bought outside as you cannot cook there, and also a coffee machine and water cooker to make your own warm drink. It comes to us in much used as we are on tight budget for we still have a long travel before us. So a daily visit to the nearby supermarket (Kvickly and Fotex, they have Netto too a discounter market) to buy our own food was quiet a relief for us, as Scandinavia countries really stands to it’s name as one of the expensive countries to make a holiday. We have made a visit also to Esbjerg and Denmark’s capital Copenhagen to visit the statue of the Little Mermaid as we have promised it to our daughter, although she was disappointed when she found out that it was only a statue of her.

Our next stop is in Öland, Sweden.

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Photos

Scandinavia Tour 2012 255
the concert must go on...even in the rain..