There is a man lying in front of me who is 2,000 years old. You’d think his hair would at least be greying by now but it’s a sort of copper colour; his nails can still be seen (and his fingerprints have been taken), as can his facial features. This is the Grauballe Man, named after the village near where he was found, and is said to be the best preserved bog person in the world. 

It feels rather bizarre to be staring at this man, lying naked inside a glass box for almost 200,000 visitors a year to gawk at. I think of his family, who would probably be quite upset to see their son displayed in this way, but it’s impossible not to gape at his dark leather-like skin and the remaining teeth seen in his half open mouth. I shouldn’t feel weird for looking, though, because Mr. Grauballe has now become an educational talking point, teaching those who come to the Moesgård Museum in Denmark’s funky city of Århus about who the Danes were in the Iron Age. 

Denmark is filled with many other unusual things that are worth pausing to appreciate. Earlier in the day I was at the ARoS Århus Art Museum and found myself staring at another male figure, this one an almost five metre high boy. This giant yet realistic fibreglass sculpture by Australian artist Ron Muecks, called simply, “Boy,” has a young boy crouching in a pair of beige shorts while peering over his left arm with watchful blue eyes. His big toe rings in at a whopping 18 cm high, 29 cm wide and 22 cm deep. 

In Copenhagen, I find myself dazzled at the Danish Design Centre, where the Danes have space to show off their retro designs like the Rabo Trike (tricycle), Lego, Kompan’s Hen and Panton Chair in the Denmark by Design exhibit, which covers the years 1945-2010. The gift shop had some amazing (and practical) finds.

Perhaps the most iconic of all Danish exports is The Little Mermaid. After Hans Christian Andersen wrote the story of the same name, sculptor Edvard Eriksen was asked to create a sculpture of her, which he did, using his wife as a model. The beloved statue was mounted at the Langelinie Quay in Copenhagen in 1913, where she still sits today.

While I was in Denmark, the statue was taking a vacation from her post and had travelled to Shanghai to be exhibited at the World Expo 2010. While she was away, a copy of her was displayed in Tivoli Gardens, a vintage amusement park from 1843. It is the heart of Copenhagen for families and most Danes from the city will tell you stories about all the times they visited the park during their childhood.

From Copenhagen I took the train west to the charming city of Odense, the home of author Hans Christian Andersen. As well as penning The Little Mermaid, he wrote The Ugly Duckling, Thumbelina, The Little Match Girl and The Show Queen, among many others. But it is the Little Mermaid who again stole the spotlight. 

At the Lotzes Garden in the Hans Christian Andersen Museum, children put on a show of the author’s fairytales in 21 minutes a few times a day in the summer. During one such performance, the girl playing the mermaid sat upon a rock in the lake as her co-stars sung their way through the show, her face growing more miserable with each song. It was hard to take my eyes off of this poor little girl who clearly had somewhere else she would have rather been. Wearing pants, perhaps.

Inside the museum, I learned a curious story about Hans Christian Andersen. Solveig Brunholm, the Museum Assistant, told me, “Andersen, after 1857, always carried a rope with him. At that time, no hotels had fire alarms or security fire stairs. 

“In 1857, one of Andersen's best friends, Henriette Wulff, died on the Atlantic Ocean due to a fire on the ship. She had no chance of getting rescued – among other things because she did not have a rope. After that time, Andersen always had a rope with him to make sure that in case of fire, he could lower himself to the ground in safety.” Although taking a rope with you to, say, the pub, may be just a tad paranoid...

Still in Odense, I capped off my time in Denmark by going to Den Gamle Kro (The Old Inn) for dinner. This restaurant sits inside a stunning half-timbered house from 1683. Waiting for my food to arrive, I wandered through the house, walking upstairs for the full visual effect of the building: the dining room was actually an open inner courtyard and the second floor hallway and balcony looked down onto the tables in the square below. The floors were laid by young schoolboys who were paid with hot chocolate, a photo of them in the restaurant’s history book. Now, the roof is glassed in, the balcony railings have been taken over by greenery and a cozy dining room has been created in the middle. 

Downstairs, the washrooms can be found through skinny little wooden doorways painted green that speak to a day when being overweight was not the norm. Also downstairs is a cellar-type dining area with low vaulted ceilings and wrinkled walls of aging bricks.

I was back at the table in time to devour a fillet of trout resting on a layer of asparagus, onions, tomatoes and potatoes, when the strangest thing happened. As the clock struck nine, I heard a man’s voice begin to sing a song in Danish. He stood just outside the front door of the inn and, once he had finished the first verse, could be heard slowly walking down the street.

I looked around in confusion as the server smiled and came over to tell me that the man was playing the role of the night watchman. These men used to roam the streets after sunset to both protect the inhabitants when they walked through the dark streets at night, as well as warn them if there was a fire or flood. To be sure that the man didn’t fall asleep, he was required to sing a verse of a song at certain intervals to prove that he was awake. In Odense, you can now join the night watchman as he tells stories during his nightly walk during the summer.  

The night watchman was just one of many quirky surprises that I found in Denmark and yet another reason to love this intriguing country. 

IF YOU GO
Eurail Group (rail passes) 
Visit Copenhagen
Visit Århus 
Visit Odense 
Visit Denmark