Aarhus goodbye

Another bright clear morning and we enjoyed breakfast in the pretty garden at the back of the hotel. Anne went to explore some more shops, while I did some low key organising - going through my backpack throwing out old receipts and brochures, checking our money, and doing some research for the process of getting VAT refunds.

Jeppe came round at 12 and we set off to visit the Aarhus Art Museum, only to find it was closed on Mondays. We had lunch at the nearby Musik Parken, a relaxed open spot with good views across the city, not too many people and some great sculptures.

Anne voted to have a quiet afternoon, and Jeppe took me for a walk around some of the creative spaces and nifty public buildings of Aarhus. We went through one area which was recognizably once a railway goods loading area, but now has people making furniture, prints, and most important, craft beer. Some great interior spaces with massive wooden arched girders.

Next, we visited the open air museum of Aarhus, Den Camel By. In the 1920's, when some of the older buildings in Aarhus were to be demolished, someone with a great degree of foresight had them removed and reassembled on this large site on the edge of the botanical gardens. There are buildings from the 15th Century onwards, and the place is organised into chronological zones, currently up to the 1970s. There is a Jazz bar which Jeppe visited when it was operating, but which has been reconstructed on site. It still runs as a bar, with music, on Friday nights. There are appartments which faithfully reproduce the appartments of specific people - a single mother and her son, a group of Turkish immigrants, a Somali family. They were unnervingly realistic, and I couldn't shake the feeling that I was trespassing in someone's home. There were young people photographing themselves next to a VW Beetle much like the one I used to have. There was a grocery store, a radio shop, and a hairdresser all of which faithfully reproduced shop windows and interiors from the 70s, all eerily familiar.

The really scary thing was the sign announcing that a new area, reproducing apartments from 2014, would shortly be opening. Disconcerting to see 2014 as the stuff of social history.

The last area we entered as billed as a time travel experience, showing the development of Aarhus over time. It sure has been knocked about over the centuries by various invaders. I was absorbed in the stories of the German occupation during WW2, when a chap appeared who shooed us out, as we were a half an hour past closing time. I think we were close to having been locked in for the night.

We met Jeppe and Maia for dinner up at the food market. It was so good to see them and to spend some time with such generous, interesting, energetic young people starting out on an ambitious life together. We had an icecream near the Domkirke, then said goodbye and went our separate ways. I don't like goodbyes much. I hope we see them again in the not too distant future.

So, tomorrow, up early and pack, then back to Copenhagen. Only three more sleeps till we get on the plane and begin our journey home. We have really enjoyed our stay in Aarhus, which I think deserves to be the Europe Capital of Culture for 2017.