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Viking Tour Denmark - Sweden 1999

In the summer we set off on another of our epic 900 mile cycle tours of Europe. This year we cycled across Denmark from Esbjerg to Friedrikshaven and then caught a ferry across to Gothenberg in Sweden and cycled down the Swedish coast to Landskrona, catching the ferry back to Copenhagen to continue cycling across Denmark back to Esbjerg.

This epic journey included many of the famous landmarks of Denmark and Sweden including bike shops, caravan shops and supermarkets to buy spares and to repair Jonathan's bike!!

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These Danes must be big blokes look at the size of their Bikes!

It’s still the original bike but with new spokes, tyres, inner tubes, bottom bracket etc. - in fact the only thing that hasn’t been changed is the frame, it’s a bit like ‘Triggers’ broom - “It’s the same old broom, it’s only had four new heads and five new handles!!!” On the occasion in Sweden when JH broke his spoke we were miles from anywhere, there was no campsite for 40 miles, we were forced to slum it overnight in the only accommodation available which just happened to be a four star hotel. How did we cope with the comfy bed and fluffy clean towels - an absolute nightmare?!! We must admit we did like Sweden, the only problem seem to be that it was shut!

We had arrive just at the end of their summer season, apparently they have a very short 5 week season over the month of July when all of Sweden takes their holidays and it’s a manic month of crowded resorts and beaches and then that’s it - amazing.

While in Denmark we also visited the world famous Ertebølle Midden - a life changing experience for JH, ask him about it sometime - I didn’t like to tell him it looked like a field with cows in it to me.

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The Fortess at Landskrona

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I nearly had a T-shirt made for him with the message “You haven’t lived until you have seen the World Famous Ertebølle Midden” he was that impressed. We only joke as although the actual site is not very impressive (see the picture) the intrepretive museum in the village is impressive. They have recreated the midden as it would have been in Stone Age times and there is an interesting display of the artifacts found at the site.
The trip was very much on the trail of the Vikings (I think it was JH trying to get back to his Viking routes) as we visited a lot of the main Viking sites such as the ship graves at Lindholm Høje, the Viking fortress at Treleborg, the Viking ships at Roskilde and the Rune stones at Jelling.

We both enjoyed our stay at Roskilde the most, as the campsite was overlooking the fjord where the ships were found and the views were absolutely stunning.

The weather was really quite kind to us this year as we had prepared for and expected rain, as in the last 2 years we had been very lucky with the weather and during last year’s tour we had met a Swiss couple who had just come back from 2 weeks cycle touring in Sweden and had had 2 weeks of solid rain. In fact it only rained for two days in Sweden and three days in Denmark, one of which was so heavy that when we finally arrived at our campsite at Asaa most of the campsite was under six inches of water, weren’t we glad that they had a cabin to hire for the the night. Let's hope the weather is good next year.

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Replica boat at the Viking Ship Museum Roskilde