A COMPANION TO JOHN AND DIANA'S HOUSE IN DENMARK Ranunkelstien 3 Tibirke Sand 3300 Frederiksværk DENMARK CONTENTS INTRODUCTION 3 CAR MATTERS 4 Before you go Driving in Denmark Basic Driving glossary TRANSPORT HINTS 5 LANGUAGE HINTS 5 ABOUT THE HOUSE 6 AROUND THE HOUSE 6 ARRIVAL ROUTINE 7 DEPARTURE ROUTINE 7 HOW THE HOUSE WORKS Hot water 8 Windows 10 Kitchen 8 Clothes drying 10 Rubbish 8 Fuse Board 10 Bathroom 8 Hoover 10 Heating 8 Barbecue 10 Fireplace 9 Telephone 10 Television 9 Electric Plugs and 10 Sockets Miscellaneous 9 Mosquitoes 10 oddities Dictionary 10 SHOPPING 11 EMERGENCY TELEPHONE NUMBERS 13 ROUTE DIRECTIONS From Esbjerg to the house 14 From Ramløse Church to the house 15 From Frederiksværk to the house 15 From the house to Copenhagen’s Town Hall Square on Highway 16 16 From Copenhagen to the house on Highway 19 17 From Copenhagen to Helsingør (Elsinore) 17 From the centre of Copenhagen to Esbjerg 17 2 INTRODUCTION The house was designed by my father and his wife and built in 1962. It lies in a wooded area close to the beautiful Arresø, Denmark’s largest lake and a wildlife sanctuary. In a country of strict development control, the area was given over to summerhouses because of the sandy soil’s unsuitability for agriculture. Most of the houses around belong to people who live in apartments in Copenhagen who escape at weekends and holiday times. Although some ‘mod cons’ have crept in over the years, (some houses have satellite dishes), houses in this area are kept as holiday homes, with an emphasis on comfort over sophistication. Telephone lines were laid many years ago (now largely rendered obsolete by mobile phones), but there is no mains drainage, each house having a septic tank. To preserve the general atmosphere, living in these houses all the year round is forbidden. The house is ideally situated for someone wanting to sightsee with relative ease. The centre of Copenhagen can be reached easily by car or train in under an hour, the nearby towns of Helsinge and Frederiksværk are charming, and “must see” venues such as the lovely Frederiksborg Castle in Hillerød (with the famous Compenius Organ in the Chapel), Elsinore Castle and the modern art gallery Louisiana are also all less than an hour away by car. There is a good choice of other short or longer excursions. We hope you enjoy your stay. Ranunkelstien explained Danish, like German, is a language where words get joined together. Ranunkel is a flower – Ranunculus arbortivus – sometimes known as the small-flowered crowfoot, but commonly known as the Kidneyleaf Buttercup. Sti is Danish for path. The suffix –en denotes the definite article. So the translation of Ranunkelstien is The Buttercup Path. 3 BEFORE YOU GO CAR MATTERS Make sure you Bring your driving licence. Check you have car insurance which covers EU countries Fit tape on your headlights at the correct positions to prevent blinding drivers on the other side of the road. You can buy ready-made kits at Halfords and some garages. Fit a GB sign to the back of your car, if you are feeling particularly law-abiding. WHEN DRIVING IN DENMARK Drive on the Right-hand side of the Road! Go round roundabouts anti-clockwise. Keep your headlights on all the time. This is a legal requirement, and people will flash a reminder to you if you don’t have lights on, even in the brightest sunshine. Remember that Motorway signs are Green, and highway signs Blue. Be very careful to watch out for bicyclists. Many roads in the city and in the country have cycle tracks between the car thoroughfare and the pavement, so when you turn left or right you must watch out to see that you do not drive into, or get run into by, a cyclist. Petrol is about the same price as in the UK. Diesel is cheaper than the UK. Many petrol stations have a system of paying by card at the pump itself, so look out before you start. Betal means “pay”, so if you see a sign saying Betal i Butikken it means “Pay in the shop”. The technology of paying at the pump can be bewildering so it is usually easier to avoid such pumps if you can, or opt for the betal i butikken option. A basic driving glossary Ind In Ud Out Indkørsel Entrance Udkørsel Exit Fart Speed Venstre Left Højre Right Vej Road Gade Street Allé Avenue Stræde Lane Sti Path Færge Ferry Havn Harbour Lufthavn Airport Forbud – eg Stopforbud Forbidden – eg No Parking Døgn – Døgnet rundt Period of 24 hours; 24/7 4 TRANSPORT HINTS The house is some 40 miles north–west of Copenhagen, between the towns of Helsinge and Frederiksværk. It can be reached by public transport by train from Copenhagen central station (Hovedbanegården), changing at Hillerød to branch lines either to Helsinge or Frederiksværk stations. From either station you take the 319 bus which stops conveniently at the top of our road, some 400 yards from the house. That said, it is best to have a car. The trains are regular throughout the day until quite late. If you leave from Helsinge make sure you don’t take the train to Frederiksværk on the way back! The best map of Denmark for drivers is the Færdselskort published by Aschenhoug. If you come from England by car, you sail on DFDS Seaways from Harwich to Esbjerg, which lies on the western seaboard of Jutland, from where it takes about 4 hours to drive straight to the house. By air, the most direct is to arrive at Copenhagen’s Kastrup Airport (all airlines plus Easyjet from Stansted). Alternatively, Ryanair flies from Birmingham to Billund (for Legoland), and Stansted to Billund or Aarhus. (Note - both these are in Jutland.) It is easy to hire a car at Copenhagen and the other airports (try carhire4less.co.uk), but be warned that if you hire a car in Jutland you face a bridge toll of around £24 each way coming across the Great Belt (Storebælt) from Fynen to the island of Zealand (Sjælland) on which Copenhagen lies. Parking When curbside parking time is restricted and there are no meters, Danes use a sort of honesty system based on a clock disk you leave on the dashboard showing the time you left the car. Such a thing (Parkeringskive) is obtainable from newsagents and kiosks. There are multi-story car parks and lots of meters in central Copenhagen. LANGUAGE HINTS The basic 26-letter Roman alphabet is insufficient for the requirements of a nation of such extraordinary intellect and precision. Accordingly, to accommodate the needs of the Danish language the vowels Æ, Ø, and Å have been added to the end of the alphabet. It is impossible to do justice to the remarkable beauty and scope of this most magnificent of the Scandinavian lingua in this short note, so only two tips are offered. 1 The letter D is very often a soft letter, pronounced akin to th as in the lingo. Thus, for example, the Danish word ud meaning out is rather like ooth, and nothing like udder. (Similarly, Gs are almost always silent, except when they aren’t.) 2 No attempt at Danish vowels should be made by anyone alone. 5 ABOUT THE HOUSE The house is a simple wooden construction with a brick wall at one end into which the fireplace is set. It was designed to a layout based on the family configuration of the time – a room with bunks for the four boys, another with two bunks for our sister and an au pair, and a twin-bedded parents room. It has a definite log-cabin character, and a certain sixties feel. It was cleverly designed to make the best possible use of space, and by Danish standards it is pretty spacious. There is an emphasis throughout on the creation of “hygge” – the Danish concept of ideal living for which there is no equivalent English word, cosiness comes closest – making the house just as good to be in in winter as in summer. From the lane outside you see the back of the house – which has the front door. This is so as to emphasise the south-facing aspect opposite which has large picture- windows looking across the lawn into the wood. There are no apparent boundaries, but the plot runs close to the house through the trees to the front, right and left. There is an outhouse just by the kitchen door which contains the fridge and a weird and wonderful array of tools and garden equipment. The two house bicycles are kept here. Just further on is a woodshed which has no door. AROUND THE HOUSE The dominant landscape is a typical Scandinavian light wooded belt near the coast, making way to open fields and farmland as you come inland. The house is a short drive or cycle ride through the forest to the sea and several large sandy beaches popular with Danes and tourists. The nearby villages of Tisvildeleje, Gilleleje and Asserbo are well-known and well equipped resorts. While there are hides among the rushes around Arresø from which to observe abundant birdlife, the main wildlife interest around the house is the red squirrels and deer who are often to be seen wandering through. The flat or very gently undulating terrain make the whole district (and the whole country) ideal for cyclists. There are cycle paths everywhere in the surrounding woods, and cycle tracks on the main 205 road. It is quite safe to cycle all over the place.