Hamburg, Lubeck, Ribe, Legoland, Vejle and Jelling

After leaving Antje we stayed two nights in Hamburg and visited the city centre.  There is a big lake in the middle with sailing on it which was impressive.  However the jewel in the crown is their park they call Planten un Blomen it is very large with numerous notable features, gardens, water features, playgrounds. The town hall was pretty impressive and they were building an interesting modern building on the waterfront. It is known for it's red light district, however it leaves a lot to be desired on a sunny weekday afternoon. We also visited several of the churches.

Hamburg

One day was enough and we moved on to Lubeck which has a UNESCO status old town full of patrician houses (like everywhere you look), a magnificent 15th Century gateway, town square and several churches.  We walked the town and visited the Willy Brandt museum (former West Berlin Mayor and West German Chancellor).  On this day we had two strokes of luck, firstly we stopped at a motorhome service place and they fixed the problem we were having with charging the leisure battery for FREE YAY.  Then in the evening we went into a supermarket during it's last trading hour and on looking at the receipt turned out it was 'happy hour' 10% off, we were way too overexcited about saving 67 cents but after last week having a good weekend with friends and a good day or two on the road our spirits are right back up.

Lubeck

The day after Lubeck was sunny and we had planned to go and see a U-boat (german WWII submarine) they have at a beach called Laboe near Kiel so we decided so go in that then spend the rest of the afternoon on the beach which we did and it was great :-).

Our last day in Germany started in Glucksburg near the border where we looked at their castle which is in a lake and checked out the beach, they were having a small craft market there which was nice.  In the afternoon we crossed into Denmark stopping briefly in Tonder before getting to out main stop in Jutland Ribe.  Ribe is known as the first town in Denmark and the cathedral is the oldest in Denmark, you can still imagine it as the old town because it mainly occupies the same footprint it always has.  The next stop was Legoland in Billund.  You can get in free 30mins before the rides close and 90mins before the whole park closes.  So we did this and managed to get on a couple of rides, Viking Splash and the Dragon Coaster (twice) then we walked around looking at everything.  The miniature land is very impressive it has models of all sorts of places (see photos).  I managed to figure out that there is Harness Racing right next door to Legoland on Wednesday afternoon so we are staying close by to come back.  So we visited Vejle County including Rands Fjord (a former inlet cut off from the sea forming a lake), a nice beach area called Hvidbjerg Strand and the modern town of Vejle itself.  We had read that Denmark has glossy tourist brochures for everything even if it is nothing special.  We have found this to be true the info centre in Ribe was full of glossy brochures which was good but we'll have to see how the town shape up.

Ribe

Vejle

Today we visited Royal Jelling Viking Graves and Runestones.  There was a good quality exhibition which helped us appreciate the site as it's significance is not entirely obvious to a modern eye. Tomorrow we are going to the Harness Racing in Billund and then we'll go over to the next island of Denmark - Fyn.