We arrived in Odense and headed straight for the hostel. It's marked in the book as an old/historic building but we saw no plaque and got no explanation as to what it used to do before letting the unwashed masses stay in the relatively clean and spacious rooms. That evening we entertained ourselves by wandering around the town, admiring the flower displays (it was some sort of festival thing that week) and then returned to the hostel for dinner. When buying dinner in the hostel, a local man gave us the useful advice that the drinking water was better than anything in a bottle, and that plastic just degraded into the water after a few weeks anyway. I was sharing a room with two guys who thought it appropriate to eat shellfish at 11pm in the room and then have a competition about who could rustle their plastic bags the loudest. I don't know who won coz my head was buried pretty far under the covers by that point. Bronwyn however lucked out with room mates. Two nice Danish girls on holiday in the area, earning money by selling jewellery they were making in the room.

   To get to the island of Ærø we had to take a bus rather than the train because the track was under service. An hour later we boarded the ferry and watched as the dark clouds on the horizon got ever closer. On the island there are three main settlements. We arrived at Ærøskobing which is a pleasant little seaside place, with cobblestone roads and the greatest ice cream :-) The petrol station rents out bikes for 45 DKK per day, so we took two and headed for the hills. There aren't really that many hills on the island, but we managed to cover what little ups and downs we could, riding in the sunshine at first. One particularly lovely lane was gravelled so we walked for a while which gave us time to stop and eat the cherries. The wind was picking up and they were falling to the ground quicker than we could count. Picking them and eating a handful at a time was just a perfect thing to do in Denmark.

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   We rode on to Vodrup Klint. This is the steeper side of the island with the winds whipping across the water to the south west and straight up the soft clay hills so fast that I was able to lean down the slope at quite an angle without losing my balance. The wind got stronger and the water in front of us got darker and darker as the rain came in. We weren't able to make it to the next village in time and were thoroughly drenched by the time we got to any sign of buildings. It came down so fast that it became hard to see and we just had to stop under a tree for a while. Bronwyn took an inner route whilst I raced along the coast, and again we were caught out by a passing storm. I made it to the St Rise church and took shelter while Bron had fun waiting one intersection over, at the point that the church was marked on the map. The weather eased and we were able to get a nice easy ride back to the town before being rained on again. After returning the bikes we strolled back through the town to the place with the warm waffle smell. This is where we had the ice creams. Ohh they were soo good. two scoops (I had strawberry and apple) in a fresh cone with whipped cream and jam on top :-P
   After a rolling ferry ride back and a two hour bus ride (taking the scenic route to cover all the little train stations along the way) we got back to Odense only to discover we had missed the bus by a few minutes and had another hour to wait. One kind bus driver took pity on us. He put on the 'not in service' sign and drove the normal route just for us, nice guy.

Biking on Aero island

The wonderful ice cream from Aero