SWEDEN, and back to DENMARK, then home

A fourth of my ancestors are from Sweden, and my name is entirely Swedish, being named after my great-grandmother on my dad’s side. I know I have distant cousins up in Linköpping, but looking them up will have to wait for the next trip.

Gerlinde, the new excited geocacher that she is, and I cruised through Country #3 in about 2 hours, finding 3 caches and stopping at a gas station to fill up and to find out how to really pronounce my name. Any guesses? That’s coming up….. meanwhile, we took a ferry across from Denmark to Sweden:

Here are the three caches:
Helsingborg 02 at a park

Glumslöv view at the rest stop gas station at sunset

Hurry Up on a freeway overpass

OK, so the guy in the gas station says my name like this:

He makes it sound so purty….

We took Europe’s longest bridge to return to Denmark, then went through this very long, well-lit tunnel:

We stopped at this shopping center:

There’s a cache under the stairs! Found it with my iPhone, as we did all of them… that’s all I brought with me. It was a little squirrelly, but it worked. Next time, I’ll bring my the Garmin Map60CSX,though.
Pleasant Distractions #1 – Fields

Gerlinde bought her new Nüvi here, and I bought a Danish rap CD for my nieces for Christmans. After that, we ate at The American Restaurant:

I ordered a steak entree, which was cooked to perfection, and a yummy warm shrimp appetizer:

Alas, my stay was just over a week. It was enough time to see everyone and enjoy being there, though, and to whet my appetites – both figurative and literal – to return. On the way back, I did get to ride the spiffy German trains and have a white Christmas during my layover in Portland.

My sleeping compartment:

Frankfurt Südbahnhof, still dark at 7am:

At the airport in Frankfurt, they still have one of these fabulous old, mechanically clacking flight info signs:

Here’s the snowfall at Portland airport, about 12 hours later:

Next week, I’ll be posting about “winter” caching in Southern California, where it’s still a good time to be working on my tan. Until then – cache on!

Denmark, a visit inspired by a cache in my honor

When I learned that Vels in Denmark had hidden a cache for each of the top ten cachers, I knew I had to go find it, since I’d be staying so close in Northern Germany. Fortunately, my exchange sister, Gerlinde, has a penchant for adventure equivalent to mine, so off we went, following the maps in my iPhone, to find caches in the next country over.

It was the shortest day of the year, so the sun only got this high:

The first cache we found was at a rest stop, and it was a film can – but a really nice variation of the hide:
Highway stop….Kongsted

Gerlinde.fi signs the log book:

Here are Jakob and Tina Vels, the cache hiders of the one in my honor:

They forgot where they put it, as they’ve hidden over 60 in this park:

I’ll need to come back to find the rest – we only had time for four:
Statcache 33 Worldtop10 – 3 EMC of Northridge, CA
Statcache F – vores alle sammens godkender
Statcache 34 Worldtop10 – 4 DavidT21 & Fisherwoman
Statcache 35 Worldtop10 – 5 Ecorangers

OK, all you other Top Ten cachers… get yourselves to DK and find your caches!

After that, we went with them to a large sculpture garden with the art of Rudolph Tegner (1873-1950). I thought his work showed more realism than would be expected, considering his influences, but we only saw the outdoor part.
More on the artist:
on wikipedia
and a link to the museum, which is out in a rural part of northern Denmark.

We found two caches, one which Vels had DNFd before and walked right up to that day!
Kunstskatten
Elna

The weather was brisk and windy, but the views were marvelous and sweeping, so the experience was exhilarating.

Our trek to the next country over took us along the northern coast of Denmark.

The Baltic Sea is really foamy:

I’ve googled “what is sea foam?” and it would seem to be a mysterious substance. Anyone know about it?

We drove by Hamlet’s castle! Is something rotten in Denmark? Ah… so many quotes, so little blog space….

Next week – our third country in one day: Sweden!

Germany and the magic of Christmas

Welcome to 2009, and a new year of geoblogs, geopix, and geoadventures!

Back in 1977, I was an AFS exchange student in Northern Germany, and I decided to revisit the family again this year for Christmas. I’ve stayed in touch, especially when I lived and worked in Germany about 15 years ago. Of course, this trip presented an opportunity to find my first caches in Europe, and I even got to three different countries!

I landed in Frankfurt and was met by my exchange sister, Gerlinde, who helped me find my first cache in the Vaterland:
Goethes Vater – Jugendkulturkirche St. Peter

She’s since become a geocacher herself, and went and bought a Nüvi for it!

My first errand upon arrival:

Old Opera House, Frankfurt

New building in Frankfurt – funky hole in it! Is it art?

Things to see in Frankfurt:

Authentic cuisine in Frankfurt:

Kaffeehaus

We spent two nights with her friend, Annagret, and their family in Rheda-Wiedenbrück. There’s a cache in these old millwheels:
Neue Mühle

The town’s manger scene had real sheep!

The town square had an oversized Christmas decoration:

This is the main street:

Houses dating from 1609:

The town is on a canal:

Speaking of canals, we found one near the Kiel canal:

There’s a cache up this hill:
Die zwei Berge

with this view:

We found a cache in Eutin that was installed in the armrest of a public bench, but it had been put back in wrong, and we couldn’t retrieve it, even with Gerlinde’s handy tool set:
De jure

This is a cache hide in Burg am Fehmarn:
Grössenwahn??

It’s next door to this church:

and around the corner from these chickens:

Other caches we found in Germany:
Forelle – Fische & Schiffe
Stoer-Faktoren
Wallenstein Eiche
Droped! Red12
Itzehoer Denkmäler – Eisenbahn

On Christmas Eve, we went to the North Pole. It’s only a few miles from where I visted – who knew?
Nordpol

There a certain magic to being in Germany for Christmas. There’s not so much commercialism, and the mood is much more relaxed. Every town has a Weihnachtsmarkt (Christmas market)

where you can enjoy a glass of Glühwein (hot mulled wine)

Next stop…. Denmark! … and the cache placed just for me!