My friend Ritika and I decided to visit Ødense. Ødense is pronounced as 'Oh-en-sir' in Danish. Anyway, its the 3rd largest city in the whole of Denmark! and this town is the main city on the island of Funen. Ødense is a very well known town as the birth place of the famous writer Han Christian Andersen. Hmmm.... Most people will know him as the author of many famous fairy tales like The Ugly Duckling, The Little Matchgirl, The little mermaid etc. I grew up reading his stories....
Ritika and I decided to meet 9am at Copenhagen Central Station. Hmmm.... I was late... coz i woke up a little later than I intended... so we met at 9.30am instead. I must say it's really expensive to take the train from CPH central station to Ødense! Coz it cost us about 265 DKK to and fro! Really expensive! Coz it was much cheaper for us to travel from CPH to Malmӧ. Anyway we just paid and got onto the train that will take us to Ødense. It was a 1.5hr train ride I think... or 2hr... hahaha... anyway I cannot really remember coz the both of us were talking all the way. And the weather was not the best sort of weather for travelling. Coz it was cloudy.... and I must say a little foggy. With such weather, often the pictures do not turn out the best.....
Railway tracks at Ødense train station
So we reached Ødense and the 1st place we had to visit is the Tourist Information counter! hahaha.... coz we need to get a map of the town, so that we can at least know the geographical location of the sights we want to see and also not loose our way. The guy at the tourist information center was really nice. He pointed out where are the sights that were important for us to visit and also where were the places to eat. So we decided we'll visit 2 of the churches 1st before we stop to have our lunch. Coz 1 of the church was just behind the tourist information counter. but before we cross the road to the church, we saw this pretty interesting sculpture in front of the cityhall building.
Ødense kommune
Ødense streets
Interesting sculpture in front of the cityhall building
The 1st church that we visited was the St. Canute's Cathedral. It was named after the Danish King, Canute the Saint. This church is one example of gothic brick architecture. By the way, this church displayed the remains of Canute and his brother Benedict. Its free to visit the crypt.
St. Canute's cathedral
Nave of the church
Ancient letterings on the floor leading to the crypt
After walking around, we headed to the next church, St. Alban's church. Its a Roman catholic church. Hmmmm... I must say that after I've been awed by all the churches I saw in Rome, hmmmm... these 2 churches in Ødense can't match up to the Roman churches.... very bad of me to compare them huh.....
St. Alban's church
Main hall of the church
We did not stay long in that church and wanted to head back to the town center for lunch. To get there, we decided to walk along the river bank.... it was only later that we got to know this river was important in Hans Christian Andersen's childhood days. Coz this was where his mum did the washing, he bathe etc. But I must say that the scenerey at the river was really nice... and we also got to walked along the cobbled-stone passageway with cute pretty danish houses on both sides of the cobbled-stone walkway. At the riverbank, we saw the statue of Hans Christian Andersen. I must say that with his statue in front of an orange building really make his statue stand out. hahaha.... maybe my photography skills are improving... =P
Cobbled-stone pathway with cute, pretty Danish houses on both sides of the pathway
Another pathway with the houses on both sides
Interesting window panels. They were of convex shape
That's me in the nice cobbled-stone pathway leading to the river banks
The river where H.C. Andersen was susposed to be playing and where his mum did the washing, cleaning etc.
H.C. Andersen's statue in front of the orange building
After that we headed to the town looking for food.... we were not able to find any decent small eatery... so we ate at Macdonals instead. After we had filled our stomaches, we decided to walk to Han Christian Andersen's birthhouse. Hmmm.... it cost us 30 DKK to visit his house. Anyway, we paid for it. The curator (a middle aged lady) was really nice. She told us that with the ticket we bought, later if we visit the Han Christian Andersen's musem, we can get a 20% discount if we show the ticket. She was also nice enough to tell us a little of the house of H.C. Andersen. We took our time reading all the information that was being put up in the house. I must say the house where he grew up was really really small.... It was just a room, where there was his father's work table, a small little kitchen. And behind, the house was a courtyard that the 3 families living in the house shared.
Birth house of H.C Andersen. He stayed here for the first 14yrs of his life before moving to Copenhagen.
Opening hours of his birth-house museum
H.C. Andersen's father's work table
From that tiny museum, we had quite a bit of understanding of H.C. Andersen. We headed back to the town center... coz we were thinking of going to the museum of H.C. Andersen. If the museum is a very modernised building or we can't make it in time, we'll not visit the museum. Coz it's pretty pricey to enter the museum. We shopped quite a little in the town center of Ødense. Coz everywhere was having sales going on.... pretty good sales I must say... but I did not buy a lot...but Ritika bought quite a bit of clothes....
Finally when we walked to H.C. Andersen's museum... it was close to 4pm.... and the museum was closing at 4pm. and by now, quite a number of the shops were also closing. And I was right, the museum was a modernised building.... and it was closing... so we decided not to enter it... rather we walked to the cobbled-stone streets behind the museum. I must say the alleys surrounding the museum are all very picturesque. They are the real representation of Ødense and old Denmark! Coz they were filled with the tiny colourful Danish houses. Although these houses are really old, people were still living in them. Some of them had been converted to commercial shops.
H. C. Andersen's museum. Its the white building with the nice architecure on the right.
Reflections of the buildings on the still waters
Picturesque of the Danish houses with the dusk light
Tiny pink flowers blooming in the cold winter
Rows of old houses. On our way to the train station. They have been converted to commercial shops
The oldest building in Ødense. part of it now has been converted to a restaurant
Supposedly Ødense castle. But it does not appear that majestic to me. its been converted to be a municipal building. So offices inhabit the inside of this building now.
Soon it was dark, hmmm.... although we paid so much to get there, we could not stay longer as it was colder, shops were all closed and the town was more or less like a dead town..... so we decided to head to the train station to catch the train back to Copenhagen. I told Ritika that I would like to get some Asian groceries at the Chinese shop in CPH. So our 1 day trip to Ødense has ended. I must say even though it was not the best sort of weather, but we enjoyed ourselves.... and got a better insight of H.C. Andersen & also Ødense! =D
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