↠ sponsored post ↞
This year, the Danish summer came way earlier than anticipated and since its arrival in May, life has been a continuous europhoric blessing. The passing months have perfectly encaptured those mesmerizing summer feels of hot weather and long bright days we all love so dearly. With Sheena passing by Denmark for a weekend, we made the most of it and relished ourselves in the warm embracing sun while nourishing our souls with well-missed Danish cuisine. After previously having spent time in the old market town of Skanderborg and its surrounding forest area, we were happy to come back to enjoy more of Skanderborg Lake.
WEEKEND HIGHLIGHTS
Situated in the middle of Dyrehaven and directly along the shore of Skanderborg Lake, we stayed at Danhostel Skanderborg which fitted our weekend plans perfectly. From there it was a breeze to bike to the city centre of Skanderborg for some shopping, take a splash in the lake at Skanderborg Søbad, go for walks between the old trees in Dyrehaven, visit Skanderborg Bunkerne to brush up on some history and conquere the water in a canoe. We spent one of the days bicycling along the Southern part of Skanderborg lake, making stops at Junges Plantage, Hylke Strand, Skanderborg Golfklub and Fårbjerg before ending the 15 km trip at Vestermølle Museum, where we took the tour boat M/S Dagmar back to the hostel.
The weekend was a well needed break for both of us and Skanderborg Lake provided us with the perfect combination of both relaxation and action. This is one of the reasons why we have fallen so much in love with our local area, The Lake-Highlands (Søhøjlandet): adventure, nature and a calming atmosphere goes hand in hand here.
↠ A Weekend at Skanderborg Lake (Part I)
↠ A Weekend at Skanderborg Lake (Part II)
Situated in the middle of Dyrehaven and directly along the shore of Skanderborg Lake, we stayed at Danhostel Skanderborg which fitted our weekend plans perfectly. From there it was a breeze to bike to the city centre of Skanderborg for some shopping, take a splash in the lake at Skanderborg Søbad, go for walks between the old trees in Dyrehaven, visit Skanderborg Bunkerne to brush up on some history and conquere the water in a canoe. We spent one of the days bicycling along the Southern part of Skanderborg lake, making stops at Junges Plantage, Hylke Strand, Skanderborg Golfklub and Fårbjerg before ending the 15 km trip at Vestermølle Museum, where we took the tour boat M/S Dagmar back to the hostel.
The weekend was a well needed break for both of us and Skanderborg Lake provided us with the perfect combination of both relaxation and action. This is one of the reasons why we have fallen so much in love with our local area, The Lake-Highlands (Søhøjlandet): adventure, nature and a calming atmosphere goes hand in hand here.
↠ A Weekend at Skanderborg Lake (Part I)
↠ A Weekend at Skanderborg Lake (Part II)
↠ Inside the military bunkers hidden among the forest trees ↞
With our weekend-home neatly encircled within the beech forest of Dyrehaven we felt encouraged to bewilder ourselves among the trees and took a step back in time. During World War II, the German Luftwaffe had their headquarters among the beeches and traces from the occupation still remains. The main building of Danhostel Skanderborg is in fact the old officers' mess and just a stone throw away from the hostel is Skanderborg Bunkere (The Museum of Liberation) - two bunkers that have been transformed into a museum. We had a guided tour by an employee from Skanderborg Museum, who took us through the two bunker exhibitions that focused on the Luftwaffe activities, and the Danish activities during the German occupation, respectively. It was an intriguing little museum filled with information, small insightful stories and many preserved artifacts from the war time. Travelling around Denmark we have come across several bunkers, but this was our first time inside one of these secretive stone blocks. We both loved the fact that photography was forbidden as limited exposure maintains the mystique of the bunkers and feeds to the curiosity of bypassers.
↠ The imaginative & cheeky univers by Ole Lund Kirkegaard ↞
The annual festival "Sløngeldage" which celebrates Skanderborg-born and late children author Ole Lund Kirkegaard was taking place on these particular days. The city centre was thus decorated with colorful artwork - some being permanent others temporary - of cartoon characters extracted from the unique and quirky universe created by Kirkegaard. For fun we went treasure hunting to see how many famous motives we could find as our inner children were hungry for play. On our treasure hunt around the city we found an impressive mural "Det Røde Hus" (The Red House) on Adelgade. We also came across several of the 38 cast iron tiles which are placed in the pavement and decorated with motives from Kirkegaards books, as well as two-headed dragons and quirky colorful houses.
We grabbed a light lunch at Kafé K at Kulturhuset before heading into Skanderborg Lake which we had been dreamingly gazing at from the café window.
We grabbed a light lunch at Kafé K at Kulturhuset before heading into Skanderborg Lake which we had been dreamingly gazing at from the café window.
Lunching at Kafé K with a lovely view over Skanderborg Lake. Behind the big oak tree we spotted the tour boat M/S Dagmar, which we later on had the pleasure to ride.
We beated the hot weather with flavoursome lemonades
and treated ourselves with a delightful tapas combined with a summer-inspired salmon salad. A nice and light lunch on a hot summer day.
↠ Canoeing to the small forest island Æbelø ↞
Skanderborg Lake is part of Denmarks longest river system (Gudenåsystemet, 160km long) flowing through the Lake-Highlands (Søhøjlandet) in Jutland. We usually spend time in another part of Gudenåsystemet, namely The Lakes of Himmelbjergssøerne, so visiting Skanderborg Lake was a nice change of scenery. During the afternoon we picked up a canoe from Danhostel Skanderborg and made our way to Æbelø, one of three isles within the lake - the others being Kalvø and the tiny Sct. Thomas & Sct. Helene. It was a short trip that could easily be done in less than an hour, however, with extra time at hand we made a stop on the peaceful forest island itself. There we hung out by the jetty and drank the sun until we felt our stomachs rumbling, hinting us to fuel our bodies with other than solar energy.
↠ From silver cutlery to wooden sticks, traditional Danish food always caters to our tastebuds ↞
A quick bike ride to the border of Dyrehaven and we arrived at Hotel Skanderborghus idyllically situated between Skanderborg Lake and Lillesø. Here we enjoyed a relaxing evening accompanied by traditional Danish food which had our hearts jump in joy.
Hotel Skanderborghus' à la carte restaurant serves Danish and French dishes. We feasted ourselves in juicy beaf steak with Béarnaise and potatoes; and Skanderborg-gryde - Danish pork tenderloin dazzled in a creamy paprika-flavored sauce with mashed potatoes.
The evening was topped off with homemade desserts made with that heartwarming grandmother touch. We had delicate icecream cake and cruncy old-fashioned Danish apple cake that was best described as a glorious parfait in disguise.
The night was warm with a pallid blue sky overhead as we headed back to Danhostel Skanderborg, so we decided to extend the relaxing mood with some sweet bonfire fun near the lake. We took a walk down memory lane as we sat around the crackling fire and neatly prepared some snobrød (Twisted bread: an amazing Danish campfire tradition). The air quickly became a mixture of smoke and stories of our childhood experiences in the Lake-Highlands (Søhøjlandet) and an aroushing feeling of nostalgia flowed through our veins. We stayed near the fire until its dying breath and before heading to bed, we agreed that we still had other ways of exploring Skanderborg Lake.
Collaboration information
This post is part of the Discover Søhøjlandet series, an ambassador project made in collaboration with VisitSkanderborg, the official tourist office for Søhøjlandet (The Danish Lakelands). Visit Skanderborg Lake yourself and find the trail provided by VisitSkanderborg in their The Danish Lake District 2018 brochure on page 22.