Aarhus - Day 1

We're on the move again today with an 8:30am bus leaving not far from the hotel. Not enough time for breakfast or coffee, unfortunately. But 3 hours later and a quick stop at Odense for what was pretty much just a desperate nicotine break, and we are in Aarhus; Denmark's second largest city. Aarhus has an old Viking history, given its strategic location at the mouth of a river, but these days its mostly known as a university town. What's left of the Vikings here are cute little pedestrian walk/don't walk lights (see below).

For once we have not arrived to stunning weather. Its drizzling, but not Baltic at least. We note there is a Street Food hall near the bus stop and head over for lunch. There are more people than you'd expect for 12pm on a Tuesday. A mix of students and workers and mums with their babies.

Man, they really do these street food halls well in Europe. I'm assuming its because only the best restaurants survive and they don't need to worry about anything but slinging good food. We are not disappointed in our roti wraps with chicken in one and beef in the other. Most importantly, the first coffee of the day.

We head to a key attraction, the ArOS Aarhus Art Museum. The exhibitions are pretty good, the ones which are more immersive were the best, like the one where you are in a room that had a window where the time of day is changing, and the lamps would come on inside and there was some pretty cooked visual art playing on the projector. Also the room where you 100% feel like its raining outside. Quite a lot of it had a post-apocalyptic feel to me.

The main event is the 360 rainbow panorama structure sitting on top of the 10 storey building. You walk around the 360 degrees in it and look out across the city while the colours and the atmosphere and your feelings change with every step. Very ambitious, I think they pulled it off. Courts is not 100% sure. She thinks its a bit out of character for the city as a whole.

We check-in to the Airbnb and are pretty pumped that we get to stay in one of the apartments of the style we have seen all over Scandinavia so far, the big, old mid-rise buildings wrapping around a whole block with the shared courtyard space in the middle. The 1-bedroom apartment is simple but charming, the high ceilings really make it.

We freshen up and walk down the narrow river (more like a canal, really) back to the middle of town. Its a nice stroll and helps us get a feel for the town. Some parts could easily have gone the way of Melbourne's South Bank, but they keep it a bit more down to earth and classy.

We hang a left and aim for a very well regarded brewery called ÅBEN, originally from Kolding. We have the best beers we've had so far on the trip and have some good chats with the guy there about what they do best. Funny again to see their best seller is a NEIPA, but the brewers themselves are right into their lagers at the moment. Jeff has a WCIPA (of course) and Courts has a sour. The setup is more like a cafe than a brewery. Beautiful Danish wooden decor and very chill music. A completely different experience to what we're used to.

Across the road is the Royal Casino, so why not. Nice that the blackjack minimum is 50 DKK (~ $12 AUD), which is surprising considering how expensive everything is. Jeff plays for a bit, we keep a few chips but lose some money, as expected.

We head across town, about a 10 minute walk up the street with lots of pubs and restaurants. We duck into the Sherlock Holmes for a couple of reasonably priced Carlsbergs and good chats with the bartender who has been around a bit. Always good to get their take on the city and country they serve beers in. A very friendly guy from Utrecht joins the chats, he's here on business for a few days, he works for a major hi-fi brand that is made near Aarhus. We learn that Amsterdam has changed so much in the last 10-20 years that the locals don't recognise it anymore. Its a 24/7 city. Utrecht is a better place to visit when we come to Holland, he suggests. I believe him.

We walk down to Dokk1, a recently re-developed part of town with a massive library which looks great. We duck in to have a look before doing a loop around by the water front. Its a nice time of evening and the water is like glass. This town has a certain charm, despite a lot of heavy industry dominating the waterfront views.

We aim for home, but it takes us past the casino again. It was very friendly and nice and the blackjack is cheap so we head back in and win back everything we lost and a bit more. But now we have a bunch of DKK to spend in a day. Should be do-able considering the price tag of this country though...

A magnum (ice cream) from the 711 for the walk home and we are happy that we've put a bit of a dent in Aarhus in our first half-a-day.