Daytrip to S. Denmark

I've been very busy at work and haven't been spending much time with the kids and realized not long ago that we have been living in Europe a year and a half and the kids have still not been to another country in Europe (other than a brief stop in London traveling between the US and Germany, which doesn't really count). So I promised myself, that we would do more traveling together and to begin I would offer to drive them to Denmark on Saturday. (Plus, after weeks of overcast sky and on/off rain the sun finally came out on Friday.) When I mentioned it to them Friday they both eagerly accepted and wanted to do a "road trip." The next morning M had a daybag packed and ready to go; T is a little slower getting into motion in the mornings but he also threw some things together and hopped in the car. V stayed home with L for the day. We drove west and connected to the German autobahn network (no speed limit!). Then headed north to Denmark. The kids wanted to see how fast the car could go on the autobahn. We got it up to 130 km/hr (the recommended/advised speed limit), and some people were still flying past us, but I had a feeling parts of the car would start flying off or the engine would shake apart if we took the little car any faster. We crossed a huge bridge spanning the Nord-Ostsee-Kanal (shipping canal between the Baltic and Atlantic North Sea). Eventually we crossed the border into Denmark and pulled off at Padborg (a town I had been to on the train line, and I knew where an ATM was). Once we crossed the border it was very dark and foggy.



We parked and walked to the ATM, I took out some Danish Krone (Denmark doesn't use the euro yet). Then we went back to the car and pulled into a gas station. The nozzle didn't fit into the tank of what I thought was gas (I don't think it was diesel either, that was clearly marked at a different spot, perhaps it was kerosene? --good thing I didn't put that in the engine!), so I tried the next one and it fit, but then I had to pay and press a button before it would turn on, ... finally figured out how to fill the tank with gas, then we got a snack at a bakery.



Then got back on the road and headed west. One problem with driving in Denmark was I have no idea what the general speed limits are. So I tried to get behind people and follow them. It seems like outside of towns it is something like ~100 km/hr and inside towns ~60 km/hr, which is a bit faster than in Germany. We passed a car that had crashed off the road and that was a highlight for the kids, the back of the car was sticking up in the air from its angle on the bank.



We passed lots of rustic houses (thatched roofs, timber frame) farm buildings, and churches.



All in all it was very similar to Schleswig-Holstein Germany, which is not surprising. The kids got to hear Danish being spoken, and they commented that people were quieter here then in Germany. We made it as far as Tønder (Tondern in German), ate a late lunch, then it was time to head back. On the way back I stopped at a shopping center outside of Kiel and let the kids run around the stores for a while, by the time we finally got back home it was well after dark.