Tag Archives: aarhus

Road trip Scandinavia: Day 2 (Aarhus and Skagen)

This morning we got up at 08:15 after a long and restful night of sleep. After breakfast we loaded everything back into the car and drove to a the nearby automatic parking garage under the new public library. It was super cool. You just drive your car into an elevator, you get out, and the car disappears underground. (No searching for spots and 100% safe!) We are really living in the future.

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This year the European Capital of Culture is Aarhus, and you could tell that not only from the shiny new buildings and the cultural events scattered around in the city, but also from the numerous still in progress constructions along the way. We first walked up Northeast to the new residential area, the Aarhus Ø (which is being developed on the former industrial port area), because I wanted to check out some buildings there. I was especially interested in the Isbjerget (iceberg), but there were other nice apartment blocks too.

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Afterwards we walked back into the inner, older part of the city across the Latin Quarter (brownie at Graven 24), passing by the narrow cobblestoned street of Møllestien and its tiny houses. We strolled along the Aarhus river for a while, then we spent a few minutes in the Aarhus Domkirke (the cathedral). For lunch we went to the Aarhus Street Food market, where I had a nice pulled duck burger and a half slice of a cheesecake.

On the early afternoon we drove to our next hotel (Motel Nordsøen) in Hirtshals. Here we just checked in quickly and dropped most of our bags, before driving further to Skagen.

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This is Denmark’s northernmost town, and also the place where the seas meat. Or to be more precise (thanks to Wikipedia): Grenen marks the junction between the strait of Skagerrak (part of the North Sea) and the Kattegat sea, where the turbulent colliding seas have created a 4-km long curved sandbar above and below the waves stretching east, which is still growing with a speed of ~10 metres per year. Here it was extremely windy, but we could literally see the two different streams collide.

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We ended the day with a seafood burger and a hot dog at the port of Skagen, then drove back to the hotel, stopping only for a small walk to the sand-engulfed Buried Church (Den tilsandede kirke)…

Odometer reading at the end of the day: 1231 km (of which 298 km was today).

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Holidays in Copenhagen, conference in Aarhus

Five years after the hugely successful Third Kepler Asteroseismology Workshop, the annual KASC meeting (or to be precise, the KASC8/TASC1 Workshop) was held in Aarhus once again. Before going to the conference, we had taken a few days off to visit Copenhagen. We had very nice weather (especially compared to what I had had to endure later in Aarhus), and a nice airbnb apartment (if you don’t count the lack of dark curtains in the bedroom, which can be a bit annoying around the summer solstice in Denmark) not too far from the centrum. Most of our time was spent walking around in the city, especially on the 2nd day which we finished with more than 36000 steps, so we could spend all the money we saved by not using public transportation on nice food here and there (Luna’s Diner for breakfast, PapirØen for all the different kinds of street food, and Bertels Salon for the best cheesecakes). At the end, I think Clio liked the Tivoli Gardens the most, while I really loved Grundtvig’s Church.

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Then while Clio flew home, I took the train to Aarhus. It was a long ride, but comfortable, and there was also free wifi, so I guess I have no reason to complain. Then in Aarhus I had the most cozy and clean airbnb apartment ever for less money than what the most crappy hotel (which I have already tried 5 years ago) would have been, and only a 5 minute walk away from the conference venue. The meeting itself was good as usual, and I again got the opportunity to present my (and my collaborators’) results in a 15 minute talk (‘Scanning the seismic barcode of SPB stars – Asteroseismic fingerprints of rotation and mixing in the slowly pulsating B stars viewed from space’), which went also fine. Due to the horrible weather, I did not attend the excursion (to climb one of the highest ‘mountains’ in Denmark), but as soon as the sun came out (and the temperature climbed to 14°C) I went for a 10k run. The conference dinner was served in The Old Town, a nice open-air museum of old Danish buildings.

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Since the coffee breaks were filled with cakes, I gained a bit of weight (almost 2 kilograms to be precise), but with all the cycling (and running), this should not be a long-lasting issue. For even more pictures, click here.

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