Historical Sonderborg

Last night we had the first experience of expensive Scandinavia when a single icecream cone cost €3 - we had no Krone but here they dual price everything.

We decided to spend the day here partly due to wet & windy weather and partly due to local interest. This is where the final battle was lost by Denmark against the Prussian-Austrian alliance in 1864. They lost Schleswig-Holstein, about 1/3 of their country - until a plebiscite in 1920 returned most of it (but they don't say what the vote was ... 52-48 perhaps?!). 

We learned all this and a lot more at the Castle which started in 1270 and was upgraded to its present 4-sided, 4-storey fortified house by the Dowager Dorothy in the 1570s. Unfortunately we just missed the biggest ring-riding and tilting (jousting) event in the world - 460 horses. Or perhaps it was fortunate, because the huge marina here is full by 4pm and it may have been even worse then. We were dead lucky that someone left a slot just as we hunted past and we whipped in quick. 

After 2 hours around the castle, including a chapel little changed since Dorothy built it, lunch was calling and we found a window table in a restaurant on the Town Quay (rainy pic) from where we could watch the yachts jilling around waiting for the bridge to open. The pilot book says twice an hour but it's clearly only operating once an hour. Good to know because we plan to go through when we return in Aug. The food was excellent but we eschewed alcohol - a bottle of beer is 69Kr or more than £8. The food prices were ok.

Thus fortified and informed we strolled around the town, spending quite some time in a modern furniture museum (no, we don't quite understand either) which show-cased (pic) all that is wonderful about Danish furniture design and quality. It is all really beautiful but my dear, the prices! £2,000 for a simple sofa. The town is quite sleepy and rather pleasant. Good to be among many old buildings, unlike German ports where we bombed them flat.

Back to the boat, our fragile atom of English soil, for tea and toast ... and watch all the yachts hunting for a space. They are so desperate that one tied across the stern of 3 others, using an anchor to hold himself off. Using an anchor in a marina? It's simply not done, yet we do sympathise.