This is the house Hans Christian Andersen was born in.

I was told I could find work in Funen (pronounced fyoon) so I traveled to Odense, which had much more charm than Copenhagen. Odense is a beautiful city and home of Hans Christian Andersen. If you want to come to Denmark, Odense is the third largest city but it is the city to see. All the charm expected of Denmark can be found here. However, things are ridiculously expensive in the Scandinavian countries. A single regular cake donut costs about $2.50. Everything is about 2 to 5 times more expensive than America (other than entertainment). The people are very nice though and I’m happy I keep running into the best people in the world. From Rotterdam on (except for Germany) people would come up and talk to me, instead of my having to start the conversation.

This is a quaint little area depicting the old style village Odense once was.

I went into a museum and ran into Ingrid, a very kind elderly woman who teaches at the university and she was such a wonderful woman full of smiles that I couldn’t help but talk with her for a couple hours. We ended up chatting in the café where she bought me a hot chocolate and a chicken and bacon sandwich on walnut bread that was excellent. I really enjoyed our conversation and wished I could do more for her.

You can't have a city with Hans Christian Anderson without a giant table and chairs.

I went to McDonald’s but my computer was conflicting with their internet connection so the manager let me connect through her own personal phone. Is that amazing or what? I don’t usually buy anything at McDonald’s but I did this time. When I bought my burger I asked for bbq sauce and it was more than the change I had and the girl said it was okay, just put what I had in the charity box and she would give me one. What a great bunch of people here. I did run into one problem in McDonald’s… I needed to use the bathroom and you had to pay so I put the 2 krones in then had a choice to open either the door with the D or the H. I didn’t know which was male and female so I figured Dave and Hannah and chose Dave but it must have been Donna because there were no urinals. I hurried and got out before I was spotted though.

One of the charming things about Denmark that I am tired of is the cobblestone streets. They are everywhere and they look cool but walking on them with a heavy pack hurts the feet. Another amazing discovery was all the very tall people. Many of the women are six foot or better. Never have I looked at women’s shoes so much in my life. When I talk to a woman looking down to me, I look at her shoes and when they are flat I have to say within me… DANG!!!

Too bad a picture cannot capture all I see in every country. I would so like to record this but it is something you have to experience to appreciate. Right now I’m sitting here alongside the river with a park in the background and along the river there is a dozen posts lining a separation in the water and I’m watching the seagulls play king of the hill on the posts. It’s funny to watch once come soaring up behind one and knock him off the post and into the water. There are also many ducks and swans (brown and white) swimming along in front of me and I love watching them come in skidding across the water as they land.

Check out the cool rock entry ways. This is actually in real rock.

I’ve often wondered if I could have lived in the old days where you claim a piece of land, cut down a few trees to build your house, clear a piece of land to grow your garden, go hunting for meat and live off the land. Now I know that I could. My addition to TV is gone having not watched it for four months. Spending only two to three hours per day on your garden and hunting to take care of your needs, and maybe building a water mill for electricity to help heat the place and have some of the conveniences of modern day… yes, I could enjoy of life like that. I doubt I could find a woman that would want to share such a life though J.

I don't know the significance of this statue but it is all over the tourist information info. I found her in a park but not in a majorly trafficked area. I like the accidental light effect my camera put on it.

This is the statue of Hans Christian Andersen.

This is a very weird depiction of Christ on the cross I found in the Odense Cathedral where I believe Hans is buried.

This is different for a Catholic Cathedral. It is all white inside. This is the same one where Hans is buried.

There was another building with similar designs but in multiple colors, which I loved, but there was a bunch of construction junk in front of it so I had to settle on this one.

This was the nicest scene for me in Copenhagen. It was a fort turned into a park.

On my last leg to Copenhagen I met a guy named Rob Smith who invited me to stay in his hotel room for the night. He was quite a good bloke from Manchester England. Really enjoyed chatting with him and he helped me out with some food and gave me the money to get a new tent so hopefully I will find something that won’t leak. Met his friends too and they also were very friendly and wanted to help as well. There are some very good people out there in the world regardless of what the people have to say about them. Rob told me about Mormon’s before he knew I was one but he allowed me to straiten out a few of the things he had been told about them like they have to give one third of their income to the church. I explained that a tithe is one tenth. I would like to remain near to be a friend to him but I do have to continue on trying to find some work shortly.

This was about the only old town looking area I came across.

Copenhagen was a disappointment for me. I guess my expectations of a charming place to visit was dashed when I observed just another big European city but without any character of its own. The buildings were flat and strait with no balconies, shutters, fancy doors or anything that would make them unique. The only thing reminiscent of its former culture was older buildings painted in different colours and even that was difficult to find. The people were nice I felt my tenure there a waste of time. The first day it rained all day long so I spent the majority of the time either in the tourist office or in the train station so my gear wouldn’t get soaked again. The next day I followed the tourist map several kilometres through Copenhagen where it was recommended to see all the sites. Other than a few unique buskers, it wasn’t worth the walk to me.

This was a rather unique Catholic church in that it was round.

I slept on a park bench next to a church but when I woke up and looked around I saw this sign. I don't know what a Slutspurt is but I'm glad I wasn't slimmed by one while I slept. I saw this again in Odense so it must have some specific meaning for them.

My tent is the little speck of orange just right of the center of the picture.

Hamburg was a bust. It rained constantly the entire time I was there. I still walked around but it is not much of a tourist town. The highlight was that I stayed in a tent city with the Occupy group. They are the last one in Germany. They had tents set up in the city center and one was a big black tent with a hole in the top so they had a fire and everyone sat around the fire at night and chatted. They had to move their city about 100 yards/meters away because next week they will be setting up for a Christmas display.

I found out my waterproofing only lasts about 2 hours and then my tent started to rain again. Everything was soaked by the time I left.­­­­­­­­­­­­­­

This is taken from the other side of the church that was blown up during the war and is left as a memorial to those who died in WWII

Here is the bottom of the church. What you are seeing is the view from what used to be the inside of the church.

This is what the church used to look like before it was blown up.

Outside of St. Micheal's Cathedral.

The inside of St. Micheal's Cathedral which I believe is a Lutheran church because of the statue of Martin Luther outside. It was very beautiful inside but I couldn't capture the sides which were very cool actually. 

This was the end of all I took from Hamburg.

From Lubeck to Kiel Germany, there are several little lakeshore towns that were so picturesque that I wanted to stop at all of them but couldn’t. That is the life I want except with mountains around. If I found the people nice and could speak English, it wouldn’t be hard for them to convince me to live there when I was done with my pilgrimage.

This message was part of the Rotterdam post below. Missed

My next stop was Rotterdam. What a beautiful city. Hardly any graffiti, it was clean, the people were very friendly and spoke to me without me speaking first. I loved Beritz, France for the character of the buildings and the beauty of the city. Rotterdam ranks right up there with Beritz. However, in Rotterdam, their modern buildings are what grabs the eye. They have so many cool shapes, colours and twists in their skyscrapers that you just walk through the city looking up. I had to take several pictures and there were many more worth taking pictures of but I already have too many blisters on my feet that I couldn’t walk to the other side of the river. I have already been to Amsterdam so I skipped it on this trip to try and get to Denmark to find work before the season is over.

I don't know what black Santa was holding but this just looked odd to me.

This sculpture is huge and made out of chocolate.

Unfortunately, they would not let me take a pic from inside the galore so the pic is not very good but a very high end French artist made a pair of these chairs and the pair is on sale for only $50,000.00. They were awesome but I can't fit them in my backpack.

From Paris I went to Brussels, Belgium. That was a very cool city. When I served as a missionary in Ireland, about 28 years ago, I had a companion from Belgium and he told me the main tourist attraction was a little statue called the Manneken Pis so I had to see it. It was a very small statue but there were many tourist versions all over the city. When I was in Lourdes, France, the entire city was filled with Catholic souvenirs and that stood to reason. In Brussels it was chocolate. There are chocolate stores everywhere… and boy is it good!!! I think they have the best chocolate but it is a close call between theirs and the Swiss. I loved the city and it is one well worth visiting. In the main market area there were so many tours for tourists, I didn’t have to go on one to learn all the history (yes they were speaking mostly English there).

This was a cool set of old style building I happened to come across.

This building is huge and but hard to capture because it is part of the next few pictures which are situated in a huge market square.

This building was built to commemorate the discovery of Australia in 1699. The world apparently only knew of 4 continents before this time.

If you didn't like Belgian waffles before, you will now. Have some ideas on what you can do with them. ||The next pic also.

I had a bit of a struggle getting out of Bordeaux but I made it as far as Rennes. I arrived about 11:00 pm so I slept on a marble slab used for sitting. It was cold but not too bad as my sleeping pad provided some insulation. However, about 4:30 am the cleaning crew came through on their little sweeping machines and they sprayed water on me. They did it just to be funny because they weren’t spraying anywhere else.

I made it to Saint Malo, which was a nice little old fort city. The interesting thing here was that there are several little rock islands around the city and most of them have little forts on them. I read a memorial that said 80% of this town was destroyed during the world wars so it had to be restored.

I don't know what this statue was all about but it was in the entrance of a school in Saint Malo.

Arch of Triumph at night.

My son told me about another cool place to go but after talking to the locals, they said I would be hard pressed getting a ride out of there so I went to Paris instead. I arrived at night so I only have evening pictures but I did the tourist thing and walked several miles through Paris to see all the tourist sites. I slept in a little grassy area near the Eiffel Tower along the river. It rained quite a while and I am happy to report that the waterproofing  spray I used worked and I woke up dry.

Eiffel Town at night.

Louvre Museum at night.

Arch outside the Louvre

The Paris Obelisk