In another of my travel guides I had to write an opinion about this wonderful (but small!) country. I would never have even considered taking a trip to Denmark had it not been for a conference I was required to attend for work. I had heard it was expensive and the weather was very similar ... Read review
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A review by moose on General: Denmark May 18th, 2001
Author's product rating:
Value for Money
Sightseeing
Shopping
Nightlife
Ease of getting around
Advantages:
Not as expensive as expected, friendly people, easy to get around, great beer !
Disadvantages:
More expensive than the UK, gets ignored when thinking about a short break
Recommend to potential buyers:
yes
Full review
In another of my travel guides I had to write an opinion about this wonderful (but small!) country. I would never have even considered taking a trip to Denmark had it not been for a conference I was required to attend for work. I had heard it was expensive and the weather was very similar to that of the UK...so really no great appeal to a twenty something female - how wrong was I! This opinion is not meant to be a complete run down of Denmark, more of an account of the areas that I visited in the week I was there.
Denmark - General ----------------- Believe it or not, Denmark is made up of 450 islands, most quite tiny and uninhabited. It is divided up into 3 regions; Sjaelland, Fyn and the peninsula of Jylland. The two cities I stayed in; Aalborg and Aarhus were situated to the west of Jylland so this is where I will concentrate my opinion. Denmark is probably the least expensive of the Scandinavian countries (I found this out by talking to a Swedish guy while I was there, who thought Denmark comparatively cheap to Sweden!). Their VAT is a hefty 25% so whilst a VISA card is essential, you will still be left with some change!
Prices ------ This is one of the areas that I wanted to know about before I visited, horrified that I might have to take out a loan just to eat! Here are some typical prices:
Petrol: Just a little more expensive than the UK at around 9 Kroner for a Litre of Unleaded (£0.82p)
Alcohol: This is more expensive in restaurants, expect to pay up to £2.50 for a small beer in a restaurant, £4 for a pint. In bars the prices seem to change, and whilst it can be expensive during the day, it goes down to as little as £1 for a large beer at night! Spirits and wine are expensive; £5 for a vodka & coke, £4 for a glass of wine. Soft drinks are also quite expensive £2 for a small coke and £1 for a glass of tap water (quite happily most of my alcohol consumption was free due to the conference!!).
Eating Out: This is quite reasonable (but they seem to make up for it in the prices of drinks). You can get a salad or sandwich at a cafe bar for around £5. Many of the restaurants offer set meals for around £10 for 2 courses which is excellent value, although your choice is quite limited.
Denmark - Aalborg ----------------- This is the first city I stayed in, travelling from Aarhus airport (although Aalborg has its own airport, flights are usually more expensive and you generally have to change at Copenhagen), its about 80 miles north. I paid just £45 for a return flight to Aarhus with Ryanair - an absolute bargain, so I could justify the £210 I paid for car hire (with Holiday Autos!). I would thoroughly recommend hiring a car in Denmark - it is the most civilised country I have visited in terms of driving and once you get over the right hand side of the road thing (and the left handed car!), it is relatively easy to get around. Just remember to take your driving licence with you everywhere, police frequently stop and fine foreign drivers £100 for driving without one!.
Anyway, Aalborg is Denmark's fourth largest city. It is split by a large bridge which divides the old and new town (I walked over to the new town but didn't find much there - although there is a fascinating statue on a bench!). I stayed at a very central hotel; The Radisson Limfjord Hotel - this is located opposite the infamous 'Jomfru Ane Gade' in the old town. This is quite a street! Pubs, bars, cafes, nightclubs and restaurants are crammed together, side by side in this smallish street - it is really quite buzzing! Saturday nights are the best when many locals and people from Navy boats (the port is located just a street away!) 'hit' this street. Don't expect it to warm up until at least 10pm though! It can attract quite a crowd during the afternoon as well as it is quite a sun trap, and makes the ideal location for a (slightly expensive, £4) beer. The local beer is very good! (an expert talking here!).
The city seems to stretch quite a way - the shopping area is quite good, although there is suppose to be a major shopping centre with 60 shops located nearby, we couldn't find it! There were many other shops besides this which took up quite a great deal of our time! Located in the middle is also a McDonalds and Burger King if you want some familiar food! There is quite a few squares to sit around, complete with small fountains that make ideal sunning spots on good days. This is another myth - the weather. We had 4 days of absolute gorgeous sunshine and combined with the fact that it doesn't start getting dark until about 10pm in the summer, it makes an ideal location for a short break (although I have heard that it is quite dark and rainy in the winter months!).
Eating in Denmark is quite relaxed and if you want something that isn't on the menu, I found that they will only be too happy to try and accommodate your needs! Being vegetarian is quite limiting when it comes to eating out - but don't just look at the menu (which rarely has anything veggie on it!), go into the restaurant and ask. I had to do this all the time and it proved to be no problem (in fact, comparing Denmark to the UK, they were positively falling over themselves to cook a veggie meal for me!). One restaurant I would particularly recommend is 'Spisehuset Kniv & Gaffel'. A quaint little affair situated on Maren Turisgad 10. This offers a candle lit setting away from the hustle of Jomfru Ane Gade.
I enjoyed staying in Aalborg although much of the life centred around the Jomfru Ane Gade. I stayed there for 5 days and wouldn't recommend staying much longer as there is only so much to do. It really is a short break location. I then drove 80 miles south and stayed for 2 days in Aarhus.
Denmark - Aarhus ---------------- This is Denmark's 2nd largest city, after Copenhagen. It is huge! The city has a real young persons feel to it - the centre, next to the canal (Clemensstraede) has a great cosmopolitan cafe atmosphere. A great place to sit and have a drink during the day, or at night when the place is littered with white lights and oil heaters. It really is the social point of the whole city and it starts getting really busy around 5pm when people who work in the city stop off for a social drink on their way home. Again the drinks are quite expensive but the food is very reasonable, but has more of a cafe bar menu. For restaurants head down one of the nearby side streets where you will find sushi bars, Chinese and Greek restaurants.
I have to admit to spending 6 hours shopping on my last day! It is a shoppers paradise! The clothes shops are divided; you have the high street names (the only one I recognised being H&M, of which there are about 4, and here they also sell a great range of toiletries - very recommended!), and down the back streets you have the designer brands. Word of warning though....do not venture into this city with heels on – there are cobble stones EVERYWHERE, even wearing flat shoes is a nightmare!
One of my favourite stores was the massive 'Magasin'. A huge, kind of House of Fraser department store located in the centre of the city. They have some great clothes - look out for 'inwear' and 'Mexx'. Clothes are a little more expensive than the UK, but there seems to be so much more choice. Most of the stores will (willingly!) accept VISA and Switch although they seem to have some kind of machines to take them that require a pin code (don't worry if you haven't a clue, I didn't - they will also take them using the old manual credit card system!). Look out for the shoes shops as well - they have some great designs that you won't find in the UK. I was in shoe heaven!! (My VISA card was in shoe hell!!).
One word of warning though! Make sure that you book accommodation before you arrive in Aarhus as hotels are few and far between. We stupidly didn't, and found that there was a small conference being held in the city and it took us 4 hours to find somewhere to stay! There doesn't seem to be many B&Bs or smaller hotels in the city centre, just the bigger names like Comfort Inn, Best Western and Radisson. We ended up staying just outside the centre, at the Hotel Mercur (which only had one room left!). Expect to pay around £70 a night for a 3 star hotel room and £100 for a 4 star. I also found that the hotels in Denmark aren't of the same standard of those in the UK. I stayed at a 4 star which was more like a 3 star in the UK, and the 3 star seemed to be more on a par with a UK 2 star.
One place to visit to gain a sense of culture whilst in Aarhus (I couldn't shop ALL day could I?!), is the Moesgard Museum. This is located about 5 miles from the city centre and can be reached easily by bus or car. The main building houses some pieces from archaeological digs, such as pottery, weaponry and bones (!). There is also some outer buildings, replicas of Viking and Thai houses. By far the 'centre' piece is the rather gruesome 'Grauballe Man'. The only bog body to be discovered complete from the Early Iron Age (250 A.D.). He is crudely 'draped' over a pile of peat in a glass case. I have never seen anything quite so amazing! Even his hair is complete and facial features. They know exactly what he ate and how he died - this is a real 'must see' and I really do recommend a visit (see www.moesmus.dk). It is open from 10am - 5pm and costs around £3.50 (although if you have a student/OAP card you get a discounted rate). Most of the displays have a English translation although you also get to borrow a guide book.
Conclusion ---------- Sorry to have written such a lengthy review (as you can see, even though I stayed just one week there is so much to see and do). My trip to Denmark has really opened my eyes. I loved the place, the people are friendly, EVERYONE speaks English (it really does put our language skills to shame) and it is very easy to get around. Its not as expensive as I first imagined - in fact, with such a cheap flight it makes up for quite a bargain short break. I really would recommend hiring a car whilst over there as the countryside is well worth a drive (there are picnic areas everywhere!). It looks a little like the Dairylea advert when the sun is out - dairy cows grace the grassy fields! I would thoroughly recommend using the internet to find somewhere to stay before you arrive otherwise you could be faced with the problem that I had with the lack of hotels. I will certainly be returning, probably for a weekend break. Great country, great scenery and great people....simply put, I love Denmark!!
Advantages: Beautiful Country Disadvantages: It can smell
I feel all inspired! I thought maybe I could write a little something on Denmark as a country. I have spent so much time in Denmark that it's my second home, but as it's where my mum was born, that's hardly surprising. It's not possible to cover every little nook and cranny in Denmark (buy a guide book if that's what you want), but this is the edited highlights for me, my choices of places to visit, plus a few things to note about the country and ... ...West Jylland
This is the piece of Denmark which juts out from North Germany. Visitors who arrive by sea will often arrive here at the port of Esbjerg. This is not the prettiest of towns - but then how many ports are? As you come to land, you will see factories and docking areas. There is a museum in Esbjerg which documents the development of the town from 1900 - 1950. Although, I've not visited here!
Fanø
An island just off the coast ...
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Advantages: lovely countryside, nice people Disadvantages: quite expensive
Yes, yes, everyone knows Copenhagen and the Little Memaid or the Tivoli. But how many of you know about the rest of this wonderful country? To understand my fascination, you must know one thing:
Unlike like most people at ciao.uk, I do not live on an island surrounded by the sea. No, I, as a boring German, live in the boring German countryside where the nearest bit of sea still is a good 8 hours' drive away. *sniff* And so, as I love those high, ... ...so hard that it's difficult to breathe, the smell of burning wood wafting across the heather, so I spend most of my holidays in Denmark, preferably somewhere on the North-Sea coast. In my opinion, there is nothing better than a small holiday house a stone's throw away from gigantic sand-dunes. Go for a walk, get soaked, sit by the fire or use the house-own sauna - that's my perfect holiday. As I am not sure whether this kind of holiday will appeal ...
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This year we cruised to Greenland via the Faroes and Iceland and back to Scotland stopping on the north side of Iceland and then the Orkneys. You may say WHY?
Iceland was pretty much as you would expect, you know geysers, whales, dolphins, puffins (strange, strange birds whose wings are not very efficient) and a lot of tourist type stuff, but Greenland was magnificent.
Great snow topped mountains fall straight into a blue, blue unpolluted sea, ... ...three houses, painted such bright colours, only accessible by sea. A sea, littered with icebergs that have broken off the enormous glaciers,that slide gracefully into the sea. Small rivers of water cascade into the sea down the sides of the mountains forging picturesque channels. We entered the iceberg-strewn waters at about five in the morning. It was breath taking. I have been up the Norwegian coast and round the Land of the Midnight Sun but nothing ...
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Advantages: i never paid Disadvantages: i caught the flu when i came back
This is the place to be if your never out of your long johns for more than 5 min we went on a weekend break the hotel was beautiful it was the first time i had raw salmon sandwiches the view from our hotel was magnificent even though the big lake outside was frozen as was the fountain as was i (what kind of english was that) it is not somewhere that i would really choose to goto again but the food was value for money and there were plenty of things ...
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Advantages: Explore the whole Capital on foot in less than 30minutes Disadvantages: No night life!!
Qaqortoq when translated means “The White Place” and although there are only just over 3,000 inhabitants it is still regarded as “The Big City”. It is also the hub of life in South Greenland.
It is naturally centred around the harbour where you can find trawlers, cargo ships
and some yachts belonging to the more adventurous traveller. The fact that icebergs are often found in the harbour is just a reminder of how far North we are and of the hazards ... ...the waterfront was shipped to Greenland log by log in 1797. It was designed by the Danish royal architect, Kirkerup and prefabricated in Denmark
The blacksmith’s shop, which was built in yellow stone in 1871, now houses the Qaqortoq museum. This is one of the best museums I have seen. It shows Greenland culture right through the Ages. Displaying drawings and photographs, of later times. There is a large collection of tools and artefacts from the ...
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Advantages: Location - easily reached by car and public transport Disadvantages: Cleanliness leaves a lot to be desired, expensive rooms and substandard service
...seemed to me. The breakfast buffet was also OK, but nothing special. There was no hot water for making tea and no staff in sight so I had to knock on the kitchen door and get one of the chefs to boil up a pot. The one saving grace in this area was that the scrambled eggs were delicious… but the dingy surroundings rendered even that small plus point null and void.
To summarize, the Hotel Mercur is far from being a three-star establishment. It may charge prices that are standard in Denmark (about 120EUR per night) but the service and general standard of the hotel falls far short of what you might reasonably expect. Arhus has much to offer and is worth a visit, but if you can possibly find a different hotel there, I would recommend that you do so and give the Mercur as wide a berth a possible....
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...After reading and enjoying Moose’s op on Denmark, I felt I should enter the fray and add an op about shopping in Denmark. My mum is Danish and I estimate that if I add up all the time that I have visited Denmark through the years, I have spent 2 years of my life there. Shopping in Denmark is something that I am a bit of an expert on – mainly because I spend so much time enjoying this relaxing past time on my visits!
Ciao suggested that I should write my op as part of a town. I’ve chosen Holstebro as this town contains most of the shops that I have highlighted in my op and it’s the site of my favourite store – Bahne. Plus, there really isn’t much else to do in Holstebro except shop! Holstebro is in Northern Jutland (Jylland if you’re Danish). But this is a general op, as I wanted people to...
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Advantages: Amazing summer experience, cheap, visa sorted Disadvantages: You have to go home at the end!
...their ability. This allowed the lifeguards to ensure they were only swimming in an area appropriate to their swimming skills. There was a slide and a collection of pedaloes, canoes, kayaks and row boats.
The toilets were basic to say the least, there were flush ones for the smaller children near the entrance but the main ones were long drop style (think Glastonbury toilets!) and the showers were insect infested with just a shower curtain between you and everyone else. All in the name of good fun though!
The other counsellors were mainly girls, some were assigned a duty, such as waterfront, maintenance or in the kitchen (they had chosen this option before arrival) and the others were just general counsellors. The counsellors were recruited from many countries; America, UK, Korea, Poland, Australia, Denmark, Spain, South Africa...
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