Denmark Trip - Day 21 - Tved, DK

Summer House, Tved – Woke around 6:30 AM, showered. Lotte came by the summer house around 7:30 AM and we all had bread, cheese, and coffee for breakfast.

Lotte took us to see the standing stone barrow near the house where she and Bill used to live. According to Wikipedia, the Poskaer Stenhus, as it’s called in Danish, is the largest round barrow in Denmark and dates back to 3,300 B.C.

Carol and I originally saw the stones when we visited Lotte and Bill 30 years ago. I was in awe then and I think even more so this time.

The central burial chamber has a granite capstone weighing 12 metric tons. The bottom of the capstone is flat and thought to be half of another stone weighing 21 tons 1.2 miles away.

The center ring was originally surrounded by a circle of 24 standing stones but in 1859, the landowner, Ole Hansen started to dynamite slabs off the stones and destroyed one before he was stopped. As a result, the area was given official protection in 1859. Since then, the area was given additional protection in 1994 and in 2009, became part of the Mols Bjerge National Park.

After visiting Poskaer Stenhus, Lotte took us on a scenic drive where we saw other stones that marked burial mounds.

Lotte then surprised us by taking us to a little ice cream / bike rental shop (Is Pa Toppen) where we all got ice cream and sat outside on a patio overlooking a lake surrounded by beautiful rolling hills.

It was hard to imagine how things could have been more idyllic. On our next to last day in Denmark, Lotte invited family, friends and neighbors (Marie, Andres, Ann-Doerthe, Noah, Andrii, Natalia, Sevastian, Andrii’s sister and her boyfriend) over for an old-fashioned American style dinner.

In the spirit of cultural exchange, Carol and I made one of our favorite meals, chili con carne and quesadillas using ingredients we brought from the U.S. I used an old family recipe (McCormicks Chili Seasoning) to make a big pot of chili con carne and Carol used her secret family recipe to make quesadillas. Lotte also provided a salad using fresh vegetables from her garden. To cap things off, beer was provided from our road trip to the Ærø Brewery on Ærø Island. As far as I could tell, people enjoyed the chili and quesadillas. Hopefully, there were no problems the next day 🙄 Today was the last day we would see Marie and Gismo so before Marie left, I felt a little obligated to take a few photos 😎

At around 10 PM, Carol and I returned to the summer house and were surprised by a hedgehog scampering across Lotte’s driveway. We walked down to where we saw it run into the field and were surprised to see it was still there and let me take a quick photo. The walk back to the summer house was beautiful with the moon rising over golden wheat and barley fields. A perfect end to a wonderful day.

Things I Learned On This Day (#TILOTD) –

• According to Wikipedia, there are no native hedgehogs in the Americas or Australia