Summer in Europe 2023
Denmark – Norway – Germany – Switzerland
The Little Mermaid
We recently returned from spending seven weeks in Europe — Denmark, Norway, Germany, Switzerland, and Italia. I’d like to share a few highlights of our summer travel advenure. This post will be about our time in Denmark, Norway, Germany and Switzerland.
In a later post, I’ll take you on a tour of our month in Italia, visiting Stresa on Lago Maggiore, Milano, Lucca, Volterra, and a couple agriturismos along the way.
Stay turned for that post later this month!
Copenhagen
We left San Francisco on May 31, flew to New York, then to Rekyavik, and arrived in Copenhagen June 1. We stayed with a Danish friend I had met at an Italian agriturismo, Torrazzetta, in 2016. Since then, we’ve met the family several times, once in Copenhagen on a layover, and they visited us in Monterey three times. Our time in Copenhagen was busy, touring that incredible city, taken a boat ride on the many, canals, passing by the Opera House and the popular The Little Mermaid sculpture from the story written by Hans Christian Andersen.
Anderson wrote many well-known stories including “The Ugly Duckling,” “The Snow Queen,” and “The Emporer’s New Clothes.”
Hans Christian Andersen
The Little Mermaid
One afternoon, we took a canal ride through the scenic areas of Copenhagen, past the Opera House, the Royal Palace, the Parliament building, parks, and passing under many bridges crossing over the canals.
We were encouraged by our Danish friend to have a popular Danish food treat, smørrebrød, a sandwich with sourdough rye bread base, and layers of fish fillet, boiled cod, caviar, and shrimp. Between the layers were slices of tomato, lettuce, cucumber, and a tangy white sauce.
Delicious!
We visited the Danish national art gallery, the national museum, and the Danish Parliament where we had lunch. After lunch, we climbed steps to an observation tower near the top of the Parliament.
From an observation deck, we could see over Copenhagen’s panoramic setting, its canals, and many towers.
Oslo
After six days in Copenhagen, we boarded a ferry boat for an overnight, 19 hour journey to Oslo, Norway.
We sailed from Copenhagen into the North Sea and up fjords along Norway’s coastline, passing small islands, some inhabited, and seeing cruise ships, sail boats, yachts, and smaller ferries.
The weather was glorious, sunny, warm, blue skies and cool breezes, much better than the weather we had endured in Central California the last couple months.
While in Oslo, we visited the impressive Opera House on the harbor. The Opera House was built in 2004 constructed with Italian White Carrara Marble.An amazing feature is that there are no square corners, but smooth slices of white marble around the Opera House and walkways that circle the structure. From the top, you can view boats and ships in Oslo’s harbor.
Inside the Oslo Opera House
Bergen
After two nights in Oslo, we boarded the Bergensbanen train for a journey to Bergen on the west coast of Norway. The train is the highest railway in Northern Europe. We passed through farms, villages, then up a mountain where we could see ice, snow, and frozen lakes. It was early June, but this part of Norway was still experiencing winter.
The journey started at 7 AM in the morning and lasted seven hours. We traveled through 180 tunnels along the way and made 22 stops, some in what was almost like wilderness.
Bergen is smaller than Oslo and a UNESCO World Heritage site. Getting around the town was easy on buses or just walking along scenic streets with interesting architecture.
The main attraction for us was the Fish Market on a harbor where we could see cruise ships, yachts, fishing and sailboats. One afternoon, we took boat ride up a fjord, passing islands and homes along forested hillsides. We passed under a long bridge connecting two peninsulas, an impressive structure.
Friedrichshafen
We flew from Bergen to Friedricheshafen to spend a few days with the family of our daughter-in-law. We enjoyed casual breakfasts at their comfortable home in Obereisenbach, a rural setting with forests, hiking trails, and farms with corn fields, apple and pear orchards, and dairy cattle.
And of course, we had to have one of my favorite beers, a German wheat beer or Hefeweizen. We had an early dinner one evening, sipped the tasty, cloudy beer and watched sailboats out in Lake Constance (Der Bodensee).
Romanshorn
We sailed on a ferry boat from Friedrichshafen to Romanshorn, Switzerland, a journey we have made many times in the years that we have visited our daughter-in-law’s family.
Depart Friedrichshafen, Germany
Arrive Romanshorn, Switzerland
We left the ferry boat, walked a short distance to the Swiss train station where we picked up a morning train to Zurich. When we arrived in Zurich, we transferred to a train departing for Bern, the Swiss capital. In Bern, we changed train for Murten an hour to the east.
Murten
On a visit to Bern several years ago, I had taken a train to Murten for a day trip. But this year, we were going to spend a few nights in Murten, Murten is a historic setting near the French border, a former medieval village enclosed by brick walled fortress and towers. A famous battle took place in Murten in 1476 between the Swiss and French Army.Visitors can climb narrow wooden stairs to reach a level floor and walk along the fortress walls, stopping to look out on the city below, churches, gardens, and parks.
The weather was delightful! We walked through Murten’s narrow streets, passing interesting shops, restaurants, and a couple parks. One afternoon, we swam in MurtenSee, a lake just ten minutes from our hotel. We were so enchanted by the lake, we took a boat cruise around MurtenSee, stopping at hillside villages across the lake and viewing acres of vineyards.
Cruising along MurtenSee
After four days in Murten we took a train back to Bern, transferred to another train bound for Italia. Our destination was Stresa on Lago Maggiore, one of my favorite places in Europe where I have visited many times.
I’ll post about our month in Italia soon – Stay tuned!
A presto —
Jack
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In addition to this travel blog, I write international thrillers, mysteries, short mysteries, true crime, and romantic suspense novels.
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