Danmark to Deutschland
We've finally arrived at the most northernly point in our travels! That does unfortunately mean that we are now on the long drive back to the UK through western Germany and the Netherlands... Maybe we should book our ferry soon...?
Given the lack of time left on this trip we sadly couldn't go much further into Denmark than just beyond the border but we did pop into the weirdest concentration camp that we have ever seen or heard of.
The Froslev camp was set up in 1944 and only operated for less than a year until it was liberated in May 1945. After increased Danish resistance to the Nazi occupiers, the Nazis decided to deport Danish resistance fighters to the German interior. To save them of this fate the Danish authorities struck a deal to set up a camp within Danish territory to save their citizens of this fate, and to a large extent it worked.
Since the camp was largely run by the Danish authorities it had significantly better conditions than the other concentration camps. This included heated barracks, a library, and inmates could even choose their own rooms. During the 8 months of the camps operation only one inmate was killed and that was a seriously shocking affair.
To be clear unjust imprisonment and foreign occupation still make this a site of deep pain and emotional scars, but this was a very different place from the other camps.
On our drive from Denmark down to Hamburg we stopped off in Flensburg to get some local beers from a super cheap shop, potentially due to duty-free reasons at the border? Who knows
What I do know is if this Toblerone was vegan it wouldn't stand a chance.
On Friday we went to the largest of the Hanseatic cities, and the second largest city in Germany, Hamburg. Something that was super exciting about Hamburg was the different way they approach their Nazi-era flack towers. While Vienna largely hid theirs in parks and Berlin blew up theirs, Hamburg chose to convert it into an enormous modern hotel.
Being turned away from the Miniature Wonderland due to its nearly 4 hour wait and 20 euro entry fee, we stumbled across this funky little museum. This was a museum solely about the 19th century warehouses in the Hamburg docks. Something particularly cool about these was that every building had a crane hidden in the attic to hoist good up the outside of the building on both the road side and the waterfront.
On our way back across the city we stopped at the very funky looking philharmonic building. I assume that these need some crazy architecture to make the sound better inside but the experimental design of these buildings in almost every city always baffles me.
Love an attic crane
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