Tuesday, July 21, 2026
We didn’t even see any Danish. Breakfast at all of our hotels seemed to be very savory oriented – no sweet pastries at all. Anyway, we flew back to Amsterdam this evening and are ready to go home tomorrow. Ready? Hmmm. Packed? Yes.
We headed toward Odense, Denmark, this morning. It is “on the way” to Copenhagen, and it is definitely a more populated area of Denmark than where we have been hanging out. We went through the beautiful town of Vejle – it seemed like a place you could spend some time. What did we do? We drove through and went looking for trolls.
Troll hunting has just been the absolute best. We have driven all over Denmark and seen all sorts of things. Interestingly, we did not see any dilapidated buildings or for sale signs. I believe that is the first time I can say that about anywhere I have visited.
Today’s first troll was Vissen Per. We were only lost a very short time. We went right when left would have been better, but we came around.
The second troll was Bitten Røverdatter, playfully peeking around a tree only a mile away from Vissen. She was not far from the parking area – where all eight spots were full, plus the street was parked up. It was the most people we have seen at any site!
We went on to see Hans Hulehånd. I think he is my favorite of all. We ducked through some bushes and down a little hill and immediately found a little boardwalk. It made the nicest echo-y sound when you walked on it. We walked much farther than I expected the boardwalk to go, and then there was Hans and his little house.
Went found another street food market and had lunch. I had steak and peppercorn sauce over fries. It was fine. Keith ordered from Fuego and it was the best food we had in Denmark. He had a 1/2 pepito sandwich plus a beef and a cheese/onion empanada. His pepito sandwich was so good, I made him get me one. Bwahahaha.
Denmark is just plain expensive. That’s okay. It is what it is. But the beverage thing is killing me. You can’t carry in drinks (obviously) and they don’t serve tap water, so you have to order a drink. I really can’t eat without drinking something. My soda (16 oz) was $7.50 – but at least they don’t like their drinks cold, so they only put in 3 ice cubes! We paid $10 for water the other night and could have done it again today. Ouch!
We checked to see if our last troll, Ene Øjesten, was easy to get to. We did have a plane to catch eventually. The internet said you could see it from the parking lot. Okay! We got to the lot and looked around. I was behind the car and saw nothing. Keith was by his door and said, “There he is!” Unbelievable! There he was! In a field. By cows. Inside an electric fence.
It’s always something with those trolls.
We walked outside the fence toward him. There was a gate right by him, so we figured it was okay to go in. Several other people had come and were just walking past the cows. We went back that way, because cows are fun, too.
We stopped at the grocery store to pick up wine gums for Alexander and spend the last of our Danish cash. The cashier asked where we were from (and I was a bit boggled that she didn’t just listen to us talk and know). We said the United States and she was so surprised. I really don’t think this part of Denmark gets many Americans. We certainly heard no native English speakers this week (but most of the natives we spoke with switched to English without hesitation).
Rental car returned, we went to the lounge. It was very large, had very good food, and was nearly empty. That makes it an excellent lounge. Keith started laughing while eating a piece of cake-ish stuff. “This tastes like a chocolate sponge.” He set it down on the plate. “Want to try it?” Then I started laughing. I learned a lesson – just because they put medium sized bowls next to it and give you a giant spoon to scoop with, you should not take as many peanuts as I did.
The flight was very not full, so we got to hop up a row to sit with no one between us in a previously empty row. Nice. I was on the window and enjoyed the clouds first
then looking down on the Netherlands as we were landing. I heard all about the Romans coming here and looking at the water and saying, “nah,” and leaving, and the windmills taking away the water to make the land. I have boated on the canals. Yet, I was AMAZED to see all the channels of water in all of the fields for miles and miles and miles. It was so cool! I know my pictures will be awful because the window was very dirty and scratched, but all those straight lines of dark? Those are filled with water! So, so cool.
We shuttled into our hotel lot and next door is a McDonald’s. Keith was so excited. He walked over to get a McFlurry after asking the internet if the caramel coconut one was here. Unfortunately, as we have learned fairly often while troll hunting, the internet is not always right. Not in the Netherlands yet but coming soon!