Planes, trains and automobiles...

Our big cross-Europe hike wasn't quite finished yet. We left Kolding on another Flixbus, end station Copenhagen. This trip wasn't so long, which was lucky, as the wifi didn't work on this bus.

In Copenhagen we switched out the bus for the train, and traveled along the Danish side from the capital up north to Helsingør.

When in Denmark, time for tebirkes (a Danish pastry with poppy seeds). I didn't have it for breakfast though, but enjoyed it on the train as any time is good time for tebirkes!

Of course we also squeezed in a short travel by boat, ha ha! Crossed Helsingør-Helsingborg on the ferry.

Our friend Karin was super helpful and picked us up at the ferry terminal to take us to the rental car place. The journey then continued by car from Helsingborg, we had about another 4,5 hours to reach Skara. Obligatory travel stop for dinner - at Max Burger of course!

Finally, by traveling through Holland, Germany, Denmark and the whole south of Sweden - we reached Mormor and Morfars house! Yay!

The Sportsvej Special

On our last evening in Kolding, Lars & Dorte had some other friends over for dinner who stopped in on their way home to Copenhagen, from a farm stay in Jylland. Us girls started the evening in the green house, where we got served with bubbly:

 

We also got a surprise visit from Lukas, who lives in Sønderborg, but came home as he was going to a party the following day. So great to see him - had to send the following photo to our Lucas of course:

Brotherly love between Lukas and Magnus:

Having dinner outside is really one of the best things with Scandinavian summer.

Once the Copenhagen-people had left, we continued with our own little party, playing board games, and having special drinks that Lars mixed up - the Sportsvej Special for example, with gin and rhubarb syrup, om nom nom!

Into the Danish summer night... great evening!

 

Hej Helmut!

Again, with just a days notice, I called my friend Kamilla (who lives not far from Kolding) to see if she was home and wanted to see us. Amazingly - she was home and free too! Gotta love last-minute plans!

I have seen Kamilla over in Copenhagen more recently, but it had been seven years since I last visited over here in Jylland. They had done a lot of work on their house since then, massive renovations all over; so we got to see all the new parts, and got especially wooed by the new kitchen:

Another new addition since I last saw Kamilla (pre-Covid, like most others) was - baby Helmut! Oh yes, a third boy, a baby brother to Hector and Herman! Such a cutie, almost a year old.

As the weather was amazing we took a walk around the estate, to see the changes there too. Kamilla and her husband are already running all the work around the estate, but are also about to renovate the big manor house with the intention of moving in there in about a years time.

Nebbegaard Gods, with the lady of the manor..!

A great visit, which ended with Dorte doing some berry shopping in Herman's kiosk! A little project run by the 9-year old in the family, who had picked all the cherries and berries all by himself, to sell here in the kiosk by the road side! A true entrepreneur in the making!

 

The Arne Jacobsen summer house

In the garden at Trapholt they showcased the Arne Jacobsen summer house. Arne Jacobsen is probably more known for his chair designs, and other interior items; but he actually also designed this so-called system house known as Kubeflex. The idea being you can add modules or change the layout to meet different needs.
Each cube-shaped element measures 10 m2, and that size was determined by what could be transported by a lorry. The intention being making this a simple system, accessible for all.

The Kubeflex house was designed shortly before Jacobsen passed away but never ended up in production. This is the only one of its kind, the prototype, having been used by Jacobsen's family as a summerhouse until 2005. That's when it arrived at Trapholt and is now preserved and accessible to the public where it stands today exactly as Arne Jacobsen envisioned it.

We followed along on the guided tour inside. The interior is incorporating many of Jacobsen's other designs, and it's furnished with his furniture and other items including the Cylinda-line and the VOLA fittings for the bathrooms and the kitchen.
Being a perfectionist, Arne Jacobsen designed everything in this house, from the door handles to the lights and the sinks.

Glass being one of the prominent materials that Jacobsen worked with, the house has large windows and sliding glass doors. This was to flood the house with daylight, and create a link between the exterior, the natural environment and the interior of the house. Just look at this view behind us, and the fabulous Arne Jacobsen Egg chairs (called the most beautiful chairs in the world!).

Trapholt

Dorte and I continued to be cultural and went one day to visit Trapholt, a museum of contemporary art and design that is located in Kolding. It is one of the largest modern art museums in Denmark outside of Copenhagen. We didn't bring anyone else, it was an afternoon just for us, and it was l-o-v-e-l-y!

 

We started by visiting the temporary exhibition by Erik A. Frandsen - The Giotto Method. This artist lived through a 2020 in a self-imposed isolation due to Covid, and ended up being extremely productive during this period. The title of this exhibition The Giotto Method refers to the experiments with perspective conducted by the Italian painter Giotto di Bondone (1267-1337); and how Frandsen's paintings are constructed around the same principles of perspective that Giotto had.

Interesting, thought-provoking and somehow sad paintings... I really felt some of them, too close to home.

Then we took on another temporary exhibition, about Verner Panton, called Colouring a New World. And boy did he colour his world, Panton applied a spectacular use of colour, material and shape in a very unique way!
I LOVED this exhibition!

Verner Panton is one of the most prominent names of Danish design history, and influential since the 1950s and still today. He had a long career, where furniture was at the heart of his creative output. Check out this super cool sofa/chair-module called the Living Tower! You can actually sit on four different levels.

Nothing "light and fresh" here (as in many Scandinavian homes), it's all bright, brash, exotic, vibrant and sensuous at the same time!

The Phantom Chair, one of his more known creations. Can be used as a chair, a bench or even a side-table.

One part of this exhibition consisted of three rooms, each with their own sound, like f.e waves or animal noises. Verner Panton had a desire to develop a theory of feeling good, by living with all our senses, which we could test out here in each room.

There was also a separate part in the museum called Light and Colour, with eight rooms also created by Verner Panton, for Trapholt specifically. Each room had its own colour scheme which really made you aware of the effect each colour had on the mood and feeling.

The museum really enjoys a fabulous setting with lovely views of the Kolding fjord, so of course we had to pause our visit and enjoy a that together with a quick fika, some cake and lemonade.

Finally we ventured down into the basement, thanks to this big spiral set of stairs, inspired by the Guggenheim Museum. Down here we saw the Among the Trees installation, also created during the Covid-winter.

This was a really cool work, created as a project by a total of 740 individuals each creating a specially selected leaf, then being quilted by the textile artist Tina Ratzer and collected into this artifical forest. Each leaf tells each persons story and relationship with their chosen tree.

What a great visit! My heart was singing and my face was smiling all the way through!