When I left this story, I was just getting on a train bound for Odense, my second Danish backpacking destination. It runs anywhere between 1 hour 11 minutes and 1 hour, depending on whether it’s the express or a stopping service. Eight years on, I have no idea which one I jumped on.
What I know is that I immediately liked Odense more than I’d liked Copenhagen. It was sunny and bright and felt a lot less city-like, despite being Denmark’s third biggest city. Again, I’d picked accommodation as close to the station as I could get, and in this city, that wasn’t in the red light district. On the other hand, I didn’t get a palatial double room. I had something very much like a small student room, only without the huge pin board.
But I wasn’t to see that just yet. It was far too early so I left my backpack at reception and went off into Odense. Which, incidentally, is pronounced “Ern-seh” rather than “Oh-dense”. At least, that’ll do for an English-mouthed mangling of the name. It means Odin’s Lake.
So I went looking for the lake. In fact, there isn’t one. The North Sea makes its way inland to the city via Odense Fjord, which would merely be a kind of triangular delta if it wasn’t almost closed at the top by two peninsulas, the westernmost one of which appears to be a sandbar with some scrubby trees. But I didn’t see any of this. It’s a relatively long way out of the city and there probably isn’t a train to it.
I found the harbour – more of a marina; I doubt anything bigger than a midsize sailing boat can get in. More yarnbombing here – anchors, poles, railings, gates, anything that stays still long enough to wrap some wool around. Was this what I’d missed in Copenhagen? Just the sun? Because here I had a sunlit marina with dark blue water and bright blue sky and dappled patches of sky.
Odense’s main tourist attraction is the Danish Railway Museum. I’m no trainspotter but if you can resist the lure of a steam locomotive, then you have a harder heart than most. Ok, “steam locomotive” rather than “steam train” may give me away as the daughter of a transport enthusiast. Having since been to the UK version of this place in York, I admit York does it a little better than Odense. But it’s still worth a couple of hours and a quick spin on the miniature railway outside.
Next was a quick tour of the city centre. The trains might be their thing but Odense has a bigger claim to fame in that this was the birthplace and childhood home of Hans Christian Andersen. All that really means is a handful of museums in buildings, a couple of statues and a paper boat in the river – well, a sculpture of a paper boat made from stainless steel. I’m not a museum person so I just wandered the city. It felt very green and open and peaceful, lively enough, interesting enough. The sort of city where just being there is enough, without actually doing much.
The other thing I enjoyed about Odense – and I know how this is going to sound – was the drain covers. Yeah. But they’re little iron works of art, with scenes of Norse mythology on them. I’m not sure who the apparent tree giant is but this was 2012, when Marvel fans and Iceland fans alike were reading up and I recognised Hugin and Munin, aka Thought and Memory, Odin’s ravens, when I saw them beneath my feet. Sleipnir, his eight-legged horse, had been outside the station. This was the second city where the Prose Edda had manifested itself in public art.
By then I was done for the day and returned at last to my hotel, where my simple little room was ready for me. I was only spending one night there and in hindsight, had I known how much I was going to like Odense, I’d have stayed another. Never mind. There’s always an excuse to return.
I had another train journey the next morning so I spent another couple of hours following sculptures around the riverbank, where I found a magnificent and literal hippopotamus (Greek; hippos, horse & potamos, river). I also had some fairly major difficulty getting provisions in for the next leg of my journey but let’s dwell on green and sunlit river banks in lovely Odense, because the bulk of the day was a surprisingly awkward journey to my final destination, in Aalborg.