Aarhus (4-7 April 2013)

I was in Aarhus(Åarhus), Denmark for a few days recently for a conference.  It is a smaller town than Copenhagen, population-wise, but I had the feeling that every bend I turned around there were more cool, tiny non-mainstream shops and awesome restaurants. They also have a pretty solid tourism-bureau presence (their 'slogan' is "Take a moment with Aarhus") and an app I can totally recommend that has offline maps of town that sync up with your GPS (if you allow it), so you can watch where you are on said map.

Here's one of the streets with cute little shops (ala google maps):

View Larger Map

And a view down another street to an odd mural of a lady being fed by a seagull:

weird mural of lady being fed by bird

I don't speak Danish, but was told by the foreign Danish-speakers that the people of Aarhus are much easier to understand (and be understood by),  basically because they actually say all parts of their words. E.g. in Copehagen, the Strøget is said, roughly "Stroy" and in Aarhus, "Stroyet".

AAHUS, which is roughly how you say Århus

The way from the hotel (Cabinn Scandinavia, Aarhus) to the department walked us (mainly) past this thing/sculpture, which I was ambivalent about:
View Larger Map


In case you weren't around for my original (from 2008) copenhagen adventures, you can read them starting here, which includes a stay in one of the Cabinn's in Copenhagen (there are several there), sharing a very small room with three other people.  Here's the room ('clearly' meant for four people, with the four beds) I stayed in in Aarhus:

Cabinn -- those are four beds. The two bunch beds are folded in against the wall

Also, because I don't know where else to put it, a random mural we came across when walking to dinner:

I don't know. 

There's also a museum that Aarhus is very proud of (ARoS), atop which sits this circular spectrum of colors that you can walk around and view Aarhus through. Their picture is much better than mine, due to the perspective which includes the harbor. Quite nice.

famous spectrum thingy atop a museum there

I have to catalog somewhere the crazy places I ate out at.

The first night, we went out for BBQ, at the most authentic BBQ place I've been to outside of where I lived in Illinois, or in Austin TX. This was Aarhus' "Memphis Roadhouse" (here's their yelp page), located along a river/canal near the hotel. I admit, I had some trouble understanding the waitress's English. I think words like "Burnt Ends" and "Misssisssipi Mud Pie" are kind of hard.  It was absolutely delicious, and they even managed to have hot sauce too hot for me (uncommon over here).  They also had sweet tea (it was too late at night for me to feel up for some, sadly), and even a gospel brunch on sundays.

We also ate out at Mackie's (website has pictures of the interior).  I split some super giant nachos and had a beer. Others had pizza and whatnot. The inside was strangely decorated, a weird scavenged-from-yardsales feel that reminded me of Chuy's. Their ''gimmick" is that they refuse to serve you utensils with your pizza, insisting that you eat it (American-style) with your hands. The pizza crust itself looked too thick to be NY style and too thin to be what I think of as "delivery-style" (e.g. Papa John's), but had some very tasty-looking possible combos of toppings. 

"Mackie's is an American inspired cafe and restaurant where one's eyes will always find something new to look at while food is being prepared. Come in and enjoy the good food and atmosphere in one Mickey's lifetime collection of rock legends, movie stars, football star, American Indian, the Buddha and our sweet staff."

Den Gamle By ("The Old Town"):
So, on day 1 I got in early and did some touristing. I went to Den Gamle By, which is the Danish answer to the though "Hey,town (insert name) doesn't have enough old stuff." That is, old buildings from Aarhus and further afield in Denmark (e.g. Aalborg) were moved, originally brick-by-brick, and now cut like big slices of cake and moved almost whole-sale, to Aarhus.

a building being assembled

I thought it was delightful, even with the 15 euro admission (which makes sense, when you think of the
work put into transport and reconstruction).

I kind of like the absurd modern building in the background.

quaint shops and buildings, near the (functioning) baker

some geese in the half-frozen pond in the middle

more quaintness

Warehouse. 1550. Something famous about the construction that didn't make much sense to me.

I enjoyed their blurb about the following Victorian-style living room:

"Cosiness, a mixture of styles and an excess of furniture, pictures, bric-a-brac and houseplants. In order to make more space, much of the furniture was placed diagonally...Wallpapers and textiles were large patterend as well as many patterned. This furniture belongs together": 

Victorian-style living room, 1890s.

I really liked the bold color choices made on walls and in wallpaper. E.g.
The blue walls in a hat-makers shop:

Mid 19th C hat-maker's shop

The awesome (original?) wallpaper in a clock makers shop:

19thC clockmakers shop and workshop. The wallpaper is of a similar age.

The rich red of the tobacconist:

Mid 19thC Tobacconist. This sort of shop was somehow snooty/high-class.

The bright yellow of another room somehow involved in the tobacco/cigar-production facility:

part of the same tobacco/cigar shop/complex.

Also in Den Gamle By were various other shops, including the following for yarn/cloth:

yarn/dying workshop

I did not take a picture of the baker, in part because it was actually a functioning bakery and I felt a bit weird taking a picture of a place & person without asking first.

Here's a view down a side-street:

view down a side street

And this was above a doorway:

It looks like a bear is getting into the beer?

One of the houses/rooms was set up as a shop. People tended to bring their lunches and their employer would often sell them something to drink. This was the counter of such a drink-selling-area. The flasks below the counter are labeled as "Aquavit" ((popular) Danish spirit):

counter to buy some drinks

The room where people would eat and drink had a fireplace with an inscription above it that something like how they hoped the fire would burn, but not higher than it should (and then burn your food):

something about wanting the fire to burn high/sure, but not higher than it's supposed to (i.e. don't burn the food or the whole place down). 

I enjoyed the Museum-within-the museum:

Museum in a museum 

Which was set up according to sketches they had of an 1820s-era Danish museum

Not a great pic; included for the "forrige aarhundrede" label 

woo pottery 

I have to say, I think I prefer modern museums that try to tell stories. These were just sort of shelves with stuff on them, behind glass, and hardly any labels.

Moving on, we had still other shops and combination living-working quarters.

a post office, with real messenger bags! 

The following is a pretty swank (in my opinion) teacher's room. I think the couch looks especially nice (the wood, at least, and the cushion was at some point nice):

schoolteacher's living quarters, adjacent/in the same building as the schoolroom

The schoolroom (which I didn't get a good picture of) talked a bit about education and how it used to be very informal (children teaching younger children) until at some point some king passed a law mandating public education, and this introduced requirements about the people doing the teaching.

Moving on to more modern stuff, some signs:

Sale! Cheapest prices (~ billigste Preisen)! Biggest selection (~größter Auswahl)!

Drink Jutland beer in Jutland (?)

Nearby there was another museum-in-museum, this one for delftware and clocks, next to one for posters.

I enjoyed the delftware story. Apparently the king (Fred IV) was not happy that the Netherlands were making all the delftware than Denmark was buying, so he granted a certain company exclusive rights for 30 years (starting in 1722) to make all the delftware in Denmark (in hopes of encouraging people to buy Danish-made stuff).  The first manager, in 1725, stole all of the blue cobalt pigment (which was freshly acquired and super expensive) to set up his own factory in Sweden. Life went on, and after the monopoly was repealed, the place shut down for good. For the record, it was made in Kellinghusen, which is west of Itzehoe, in Schleswig-Holstein, which was nominally 'Danish' at the time.

so, creepy delftware.

There was a big Danish sea battle in 1677. In honor of it, they made a giant medallion (diam of 12.8 cm, weighs 457g and made of 24 carat gold). It is "the largest, and, technically speaking, the most perfect numismatic item ever struck in Denmark" (translation: biggest and most awesome coin minted in Denmark):

giant coin-medal

Also, a nod to the clock part of the museum: A map of denmark with clocks which are somehow characteristic of the specific regions:

Denmark clocks

Back to the streets and out-of-doors.

I enjoyed this little street of shops, including the travel bureau:

travel bureau

I don't know what the people who were persuaded to go to the states by this poster ended up actually experiencing, but I hope it was awesome:

America! All indians, all the time!

There was also a door covered in old signs (showing that Roskilde has been going on since at least the 70s):

I also enjoyed the retro-style mural advert for "jolly cola" next to the advert for the place itself (Besøg is pretty clearly "Besuch", meaning "visit"):

I'd definitely be up for visiting again, hopefully getting to see a bit more of the town. Seems like a great place.