Tag Archives: tourist

Planning a bike trip to Ærø

Spring is here and soon it will be more comfortable to enjoy the outdoors more again.

Ærø is a tiny island, around a 3rd of the size of Als, which is part of the South Funen archipelago of islands. It is well connected to Als via a ferry leaving from Fynshav 2-3 times a day. Also, once you get there, due to its small size, it is easily manageable by bike or even on foot (especially with the help of the free bus service). But how would you plan your trip?

Skjoldnæs Fyr, Ærø

Last year we went there for a two day stay. These are two route suggestions based on our trip depending on the time you have. For other routes read the last section.

One day on Ærø (cycle 16km or 36km)

Taking the early ferry at 7:45 ferry from Fynshav (every day except Sundays and public holidays), arriving in Søby, in the north of Ærø at 8:55, means that you can get a decent amount done in one day.

The route is 16km from Søby to Ærøskøbing and if you loop back on the bike it is 36km. If 16km is enough for one day you can take the bus back to Søby.

If you are doing the trip with turist-erria (as we did), grab the picnic lunch from Cafe Arthur just next to the ferry and get on your way.

From Søby cycle down cycle route 90 to Ærøskøbing along the east coast, getting great vistas over the Danish Baltic seas and the Ærø countryside. This is around 16 km and should take 1-2 hours at a leisurely but reasonable speed.

Once in Ærøskøbing park your bike and have a walk around town, to enjoy the town landscape kept intact since the middle ages. Grab lunch here in the centre of town – we had a really good lunch at På Torvet right in the centre of town. If you are not yet hungry (or you’ve had the picnic lunch) but want something sweet, ice-cream from På Torvet or Cafe Aroma by the harbour will probably hit the spot.

After a quiet lunch/snack and a walk around the town, get back on your bike and cycle the 10-15 km to Marstal along cycle route 92. This route is much flatter than route 90 and although around half of it is on gravel road, most of that is really nice to cycle on. Once in Marstal, if you have time, drop in at the Marstal Maritime Museum close to the harbour or, alternatively into Marstal church, which has votive ship models attached to the ceiling.

By now it is probably time to start thinking of getting back to the ferry. The best option to get the most out of your time is to take the bus at 16:08 from the Marstal harbour, arriving in Søby at 17:00, just in time for the ferry at 17:10. If you are using bikes do be aware that the bus will only take 2 bikes on each trip. You are now back in Søby, ready for a restful trip back to Fynshav after a very busy day.

Two days on Ærø

Two days on Ærø will allow you to experience the island at the more relaxed pace the island is probably meant to be experienced. It will also allow you to walk rather than cycle if that is the way you want to unwind.

If on bikes, start the trip as you would a one day trip, cycling from Søby to Ærøskøbing, stopping at pretty locations along the way for a rest, a picnic, or a quick look around the various shops and stalls set up along the way. Once in Ærøskøbing, rather than quickly rushing off to Marstal, we would recommend spending the night in Ærøskøbing, which is the prettier of the two. By now you are probably in need of a well-deserved break, so have a drink and a leisurely lunch, before checking in to your accommodation. We stayed at the holiday accommodation offered by På Torvet in the centre of Ærøskøbing.

Cozy cafe "På Torvet"

Once you’ve had a rest go on an amble around town to get your orientation and learn more about the town. We used the plan as set out in the book Byens Rundt, which took us round most of the streets with information on what we were seeing. If reading all the book and seeing all the sights this will take around 2 -3 hrs, especially if you get distracted by all the shops selling pretty items in town. If it is good weather you can also go for a swim in the beach off Vestre Strandvej. It was May when we went, but we still braved the ‘fresh’ experience!

For dinner you have a number of options. One of the options is to have dinner in one of the restaurants in town. Alternatively, you can do what we did on the recommendation of Gunnar, the owner of På Torvet accommodation, and grab a bottle of wine and a picnic and go see the sunset on the beach next to the beach houses before collapsing into bed for the night.

The next morning buy some rundstykke (Danish rolls) and pastries from the baker in town. Continue as in the plan for the afternoon of a one day trip, with a cycle to Marstal, which should take around 1 hour. During the trip you can make a short detour at one point to see a stone age Jættestuen (burial mound), which we would recommend just for the experience.

Once in Marstal you have the time to properly check out the museum, before having lunch. We had lunch in town, but for our next trip we have our eye on Fru Berg, a fish restuarant on the harbour.

After lunch, grab a bus back up to Søby harbour, even though it is still a while till the ferry is meant to leave. From Søby cycle up to Skjøldnæs lighthouse, which is around a 5 km trip. This is the first thing you see on the ferry when approaching Ærø from Als, so is a fitting way to finish your trip. Once there you can go up to the top to see the views all around. The lighthouse is in a golf club and, if lucky, you may be able to buy an ice-cream or coffee from the club house.

Cycle back to Søby where you can grab a hotdog or ice-cream at Cafe Arthur if you haven’t managed to buy one at the lighthouse and enjoy the last few minutes of relaxation before the ferry arrives.

Our trip to Ærø was sponsored by Ærø turist (ferry ticket), turist-erria (picnic pack and books on Ærø) and På Torvet (accommodation and lunch).

Impressions of Sonderborg

Now and then people email us with questions about Sonderborg. We are happy to answer (to the best of our abilities). Sometimes we can turn our answers in to blog posts, so feel free to send us your questions.

Ed Yandek from Ohio, US was heading to Sonderborg for a conference and his wife came along. They spent a week in town and we had an email correspondence before their trip. After they got back to Ohio Ed sent us his impressions and thoughts.

Hi, Michael—
We have been back in Cleveland now for one week but are still having very fond memories of our visit to Sonderborg. We had a nice room at the Comwell overlooking the water and that was also the meeting site, so it was very convenient to walking all over town. We found the people very friendly, especially when I would ask questions, such as why all the young people had nautical looking caps– found out it was for graduation, and then we saw them running all over the city celebrating. Weather was really fine as we came prepared with jackets and umbrellas. We had mostly lovely weather that week, except for the very wet evening of the bonfires. The Castle museum was amazing and we learned a lot about the history of that region. We also went to the mill museum and the military museum across the bridge. It was a nice walk. It made some of the old history lessons I had many years ago seem more real, since Americans really are not very knowledgeable about the Danish-Prussian issues of that period. After a week there we can see why it is a popular town for visitors. I think it would make a nice staging point to explore the larger area with a car some time. I assume there is a local rental place in the city somewhere?

 

We had only been to Copenhagen before and liked it a lot, but find we are more and more liking smaller towns like Sonderborg when we visit in Europe.

 

One thing that surprised me was how prosperous everything and every one appeared yet I would say that from an American point of view the cost of living is pretty high. Mainly it seems due to the tax structure. But, I suppose this is part of the social history and wanting to elevate the standard of living for everyone. It does seem to be successful, at least for a country such as Denmark…

 

Anyhow, we enjoyed your country and town immensely and I want to thank you again for your tips, which were all very helpful.

 

Kind regards–
Ed

 

The email is published with Ed’s approval. If you have travelled to Sonderborg we would love to hear your story or see your pictures.

A cycling holiday on the island of Ærø

Denmark has more than a thousand islands but the neighboring island of Ærø in the the South Funen Archipelago is something special. For a long time we have had our eyes on making a trip over here and looking back I don’t know what took us so long to make the short trip to this pocket of charm. We spent two days in Ærø and this is the story of what we did.

Off to the bicycle island

We put our bikes on the back of the car and drove to the ferry in Fynshav, the port of the east coast of Als. We left our car behind and brought our bikes on the ferry.

There is always room for bikes on the ferry to Ærø

If you are not bringing your own you can rent a bicycle so it’s waiting for you when you arrive to Ærø by ferry.

Bike or hike

The island of Ærø is best experienced on foot, by bike or by the free public busses. Bringing a car on the ferry is relatively expensive so a lot of tourists choose to come here by other means. That also means that once you hit the roads in Ærø you meet very few cars on the secondary roads.

The tour operator Tourist Erria organises a package deal similar to what we got – so everything is sorted from home. The one-day package they sell included ferry, bike rental and a picnic for the road. So all you have to do is show up, cycle and enjoy it.

The ferry from Als to Ærø
Skjoldnæs Fyr, Ærø

From the ferry the first sight we got of Ærø was of the the Skjoldnæs lighthouse as we rounded the nothern tip of the island.

When we arrived in Søby on the northern tip of Ærø we walked over to the harbour cafe where Kaj, one of the local men hanging out on the pier, was helping out the cafe’s owner and giving us our packed lunches.

Kaj bid us a safe journey and off we went on the road following the marked bike route.

Route 90 Østersøruten on Ærø

There are three signed bike routes on Ærø that are easy to follow. Route 90 (16km) goes from Søby to Ærøskøbing, route 92 from Ærøskøbing to Marstal (13km) and route 91 from Marstal back to Søby (31km). There is no online version available of these routes but a paper map can be bought on the island.

route_90-91-92_aeroeskoebing-soeby-marstal

You can buy also buy a PDF version of a cycle guide books with turn by turn descriptions of five bike loops of various lengths here. (In Danish there are two books available)

Enjoying the view

On our trip from Søby to Ærøskøbing we had varied scenery. There was almost always the view of the sea to one side. On the other side there were cute houses, an old water mill, art galleries and a valley with cows grazing.

The road was mostly paved but there were a few sections with gravel road. There was some hills and dents in the landscape that meant that a few times we had to get off the bikes to walk them up the hill. But none of the hills are long and once you are on the top it has to go downhill again – weee!

After about 45 mins of cycling we got too curious about the content of the packed lunches and we settled down in the grass outside a small gallery with view over the fields and the water.

The packed lunch from Cafe Arthur was two delicious sandwiches that really hit the spot.

Onwards and upwards we went and after another stretch of about 45 min we reached Ærøskøbing.

Going back in time

Many of the houses in central Ærøskøbing date back to the Middle Ages. The small one-story houses in a wide variety of colours ooze character. If walls could speak I bet this town would tell you many tales.

We cycled into the center of Ærøskøbing and settled down on the town square outside a cozy cafe called “På Torvet” for a well deserved break and a beer from the island’s brewery.

Cozy cafe "På Torvet"

We met Gunnar the owner of the cafe who told us about how him and his wife had fallen in love with the island and recently started the cafe/apartment rental business. Just behind the cafe they have a number of newly remodeled apartments and one of these was going to be our home for the night. The apartment was bright and spacious with a big bathroom and a fully equipped kitchen so we could cater for ourselves. Here’s a wobbly 360 of our room:

paatorvet 360

We dropped off our luggage in the apartment and went down to get lunch. The lunch for me was a delicious assorted plate which had some interesting things like garlic-herring, broccoli muffins and brie with fig jam – nomnom!

Frokost platte fra "På Torvet" i Ærøskøbing

After lunch we were ready to go out and explore more of Ærøskøbing – and there are many nooks and crannies, quirky shops and museums to explore.



Hammerichs Hus, Ærøskøbing


For the evening Gunnar had given us a hint. Go to the beach outside of town, bring a bottle of wine and some snacks, take a seat next to the beautiful boat houses and watch the sunset. It sounded like a great idea so that was how we ended the day, watching the sun sink into the South Funen sea.

Maritime Memories

Next day we cycled over to the next town, Marstal, the biggest on the island. We came across signs for a “Jættestue” and decided to check out what it was.

Around the island there are a number of ancient burial mounds, some of them dates back to the stone ages. The one we came across – “Kragnæs jættestue” is from around 3200 B.C. and was a chamber built in stone covered in a mound. It was used as a burial site used for many generations by the upper layers of society.

If you are like me and interested in sail boats and their history the Maritime Museum in Marstal is the place to see. Marstal was for a long time a big player on the worlds oceans as the artifacts and stories can tell in this museum. There are dozens if not hundreds of model ships of different ages and proportions, all either built on Ærø or sailed by Ærø people.

On the pier of Marstal the maritime theme continues in the cozy fish restaurant Fru Berg.

We felt we had cycled enough so after lunch we grabbed a free bus back up to Søby harbour, even though it was still a while till the ferry was meant to leave.

You can bring your bicycle on the bus – also for free. However do take note that there is only room for two bikes on each bus, so if you are on the island in a busy time you need some luck to get this to work out.

From Søby we cycled up to Skjoldnæs Lighthouse, which is around a 5 km trip. This was the first thing we saw on the ferry when approaching Ærø from Als, so is was fitting way to finish our trip.

You can go to the top of the lighthouse and see the grand views all around. The lighthouse is in a golf club and, if lucky, you may be able to buy an ice-cream or coffee from the club house.

Udsigt Skjoldnæs Fyr

We set our wheels in direction of Søby for the last strech. However, we had to make one more stop as in the middle of nowhere stood a shiny golden cow in a field. We stopped to check it out and we came across a beautiful sculpture garden on the other side of the road belonging to a skilled stone mason.


Back at the harbour in Søby we had time for a last ice cream. Our little island adventure was about to come to an end. Soon the ferry arrived, opened it’s mouth and swallowed us with our bikes. It dropped us off back in reality on Als – refreshed but with slightly sore behinds.

Learn more

The American travel journalist and tour operator Rick Steves that hosts travel shows on public TV and radio in USA has a tour of the best in Scandinavia and the Danish section visits Copenhagen, Roskilde – and tiny Ærø. Read or see more of Rick on Ærø.

If you want to get some of the island history before you go to Ærø do pick up Carsten Jensen’s novel We, The Drowned.

If you can read Danish there is an excellent book by Allan Harsbo called Ærø Bogen which in great detail and with humour tells about the geology, nature, history and culture of Ærø and its inhabitants.

The island is a bit challenged by its name with the Danish characters. Which means there are several ways to write Ærø in English. The official website calls it “Visit Aeroe“. But you can also find people refer to it as Aero or Erria.

Disclaimer: Our trip to Ærø was sponsored by Ærø turist (ferry ticket), turist-erria (picnic pack and books on Ærø) and På Torvet (accommodation and lunch).

Sonderborg: A Cruise Destination

As the tag line to this blog says, Sonderborg is a ‘town on an island’, so as you can guess there is a lot of water-related activity. When I was in Sonderborg earlier in summer I could easily realise that kayaking, sailing, fishing and other similar activities are a big thing in the area.

What I didn’t realise, however, was that Sonderborg is also being advertised as a cruise destination. This helps reinforce my idea of Sonderborg as an aspirational city and helps calm my qualms about moving to a a smaller city after having gotten used to the excesses of London.

The video is made by Avid Cruiser a specialist in reviewing ports and cruises. Apart from the video above Avid Cruiser also has a comprehensive run down of things to do in and around Sønderborg and how to dock there which is probably useful for boaters. Maybe he is commissioned by the city to create the video to explain what it has to offer to potential tour operators and cruise guests. I’m not sure, but it’s a great introduction to Sønderborg.