Århus, Denmark
Århus (or Aarhus, if you can’t find how to type the A with the circle over it) is the second-largest city in Denmark with a population of around 270,000.
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Remember how we went to Stavanger and wished we had more time there, because a half day wasn’t enough?
Yeah. Double that for Århus. We arrived in port after noon and our tour (we booked the first one) left at 12:30. It was a three-hour walking tour. That meant we finished up the tour at 3:30 and we had to be back on board at 5pm.
Full disclosure: there’s an amusement park here, I’ve not been to it before, they have three coasters, and it’s about a 45 minute walk from the cruise terminal.
So: tour ends at 3:30. Walk to the park, now it would be 4:15. Literally, there’s zero minutes to actually go in and ride something. I seriously considered just blowing off the walking tour and going to the park instead, but the Viking Daily in-room newsletter had this photo on the front:
Damn, how cool is THAT.
I decided that I’d rather see that thing on the newsletter than to add three small, production-model coasters to my list. So I joined the tour.
Just off the ship, the guide pointed across the harbour at some apartment buildings that were absolutely gorgeous.
One of them, the “Iceberg”, is quite well-known amongst architecture fans:
There’s even a water sports park and swimming pools, including a water ski park that doesn’t need boats. You hold onto a rope and a mechanical gizmo far above your head on guide wires pulls you back and forth across the jumps and things. It’s really neat!
Mind you, all those pictures were taken as we pulled into the harbour. On the tour, it was basically “we’re standing here and I’m going to point in that general direction and tell you something about the things you see over there.” That was followed by “we won’t have time to go over there and see them, but if you visit again, it’s a must-do.”
This was to be a theme for the day.
We got a map handed to us when we left the dock. I made a note of where we were and where the amusement park was. I decided that if the tour sucked, I would bail out and run to the park. If I could even squeak out an hour in the park, I could likely get all three of the coasters and still make it back to the ship. I checked to see of Århus has Uber.
They don’t.
As long as the walking tour headed south, there was still a chance I could do half the tour and still make the park. Fingers crossed.
At the end of the pier is a new building called Dokk1 and it’s a library, TV studio, cafe, and other stuff. The reason we saw it was two-fold: First, the nifty piece of art called “Magic Mushrooms”:
I know you’re thinking, “ok, that’s nice and all, but so what?”
Firstly, it’s in the parkade. It’s kinda neat that they’d even bother putting an art piece in a parkade.
Secondly, that picture is upside-down. The art is on the ceiling.
The other reason we visited the building was the parkade itself. It’s automated. You pull into a stall and sensors let you know when your car is in the proper area.
When you get out, sensors scan the car for signs of life - kids, pets, grandma, whatever - you might’ve forgotten about in the car. Then you pay at the front of the stall, doors close, and your car drops thru the floor and robots move it into a slot underground. They managed to get 1000 parking stalls in a very small amount of space this way. Pretty neat!
From there, we saw an old church that is now offices.
Now I’m getting a little bit worried. I was hoping that the stuff on the Viking Daily would be at the front end of the tour so I could bail out early and head to the amusement park. But we were almost 45min into it and we’d seen just two buildings and they were right next to the ship. Our guide was lovely and charming, but OMFG could she go on and on and on about nothing.
OH! Do you remember that cute little town in Iceland that had the heart-shaped stoplights?
The Walk/ Don’t Walk lights in Århus are little Vikings.
Very cute.
Next, we saw the cathedral, built over many years beginning around 1190 in the Romanesque style (the right half of the picture). Much of it burned in 1300 and sat abandoned until 1449. Then it was refurbished and added to in the Gothic style (left half) and reopened around 1500.
Inside, we were told to be sure to see the altar, which is made of gold and was dedicated on Easter Sunday, 1479. So we did. We all did the appropriate ‘ooh’ and ‘aah’ and took a photo.
But there were a handful of us (myself included) that were less impressed with the shiny gold altar than we were with the absolutely magnificent pipe organ at the other end of the room.
Next to the cathedral is the theatre
By this time, we’re over a third of the way into the tour and I’ve grown simultaneously annoyed and bored with the tour guide.
Bored, because she could talk for twenty minutes about nothing and annoyed because the longer she talked about nothing, the longer it would be before we saw the thing I wanted to see, which made it less and less likely that I could get to the coasters without missing the ‘back on board’ cutoff.
It was right about that point that someone else on the tour asked when we’d see the old village.
She said that it was an outdoor museum and that it was about 2.5km away, so there wouldn’t be time to see it. But if we should come back and visit again, it’s a must-do!
That’s the point where I should’ve bailed out. But I hoped there would be more good stuff to see, so I stayed on.
We walked quite a ways through the shopping district, which was crowded and noisy. We also noticed that Århus isn’t exactly a clean city. There was graffiti everywhere and litter was abundant. It was a stark contrast to the places we’d been so far on this trip, most of which were very clean.
We saw the Contemporary Art Museum with it’s super-cool “rainbow walk” installation on the roof.
We didn’t get to go experience it, though. That would have to be “when we come back on another visit. It’s a must-do!”
I should mention that none of that is the tour guide’s fault. It’s simply due to arriving after noon and leaving at 5pm. There’s just not enough time to do anything in any real way, other than to pass by it and mark it down as something you’d like to see “next time.”
By this point, several of the group had already bailed out and were off to see things on their own. I checked my watch and the map and did some calculations… even if I could get to the park, get a ticket, ride all three coasters (assuming there was less than a 5min queue for each one), and leave the park, I’d likely have to walk very, very quickly to make it back to the ship by 5pm and that’s assuming I didn’t make any wrong turns. I couldn’t chance it.
Shit.
After awhile, Rob and I had both decided that we’d rather just go back to the ship than to listen to the tour guide any more, so we bailed out.
Once back on board, I discovered that I had left my wallet in the room.
So in a way, it was a really good thing I didn’t have time to race to the park, because I couldn’t have gotten in, anyway!
As frustrated as I was at the day now, I’d have been impossible to live with if I’d gotten all the way over there and had to just turn around and head home.
So yay? I guess?
Whatevs. We got back on board and we both had a pretty heavy nap, then headed to dinner and a show. The entertainer tonight was Toni Warne, a finalist from The Voice UK. She was really good and wow, she’s got some pipes. She sang everything from Broadway to Doris Day to Peggy Lee to Streisand. She’s going to have another show in a few days and we’re already looking forward to it.
Tomorrow is Copenhagen, my favourite city - and Rob’s never been there before. Should be fun.
I’ll leave you all with the sunset we enjoyed from our balcony tonight.