Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires

Anita Mathias's Blog on Faith and Art

On Travel and Copenhagen

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The Carlsberg Glyptotek (Art Museum)

Saint Augustine. The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page.


Why do you go away? So that you can come back. So that you can see the place you came from with new eyes and extra colours. And the people there see you differently, too. Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving. Terry Pratchett
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time. T. S. Eliot
We’ve been in Denmark for a week, and in Copenhagen for 3 days. Since we haven’t bought a return ferry ticket (we drove to Copenhagen from Oxford!!), we are not sure when we’re returning. Thinking in terms of another 3 days here in Copenhagen, one perhaps in Germany, one in Holland. All depends on energy level—and how much we are going to like each other, after being together 24/7 in a camper van for 10 days now!!
Of course, our girls are now 17 and 13, and very adventurous, and well able to do some cooking and shopping and keep things clean and tidy.
                                            * * *
Copenhagen, by the way, is a jewel of a city. Its architecture is vaguely Russian or Baltic, amazing viridian domes and towers.
We wandered the Botanical Gardens and posed besides Andersen’s Little Mermaid, Den Lille Havfrau in Copenhagen Harbour. Spent a day with Impressionists and Rodin at the Jacobsen Art Gallery, and a day in Tivoli Gardens, Copenhagen, the oldest amusement park in Europe. Beautiful landscaping. A lovely aquarium with fish flying through the water like birds, all together in one huge room-sized tank. Enjoyed shopping in Ilium, a Danish Design store, full of beautiful ingenious things which you wonder (falsely!!) how you ever lived without.

Had a traditional Danish lunch in a traditional restaurant, a sort of smorgasbord–pickled herring, herring in a kind of sweet chutney sauce, preserved salmon, smoked salmon, fried fish, meatballs, pork dumplings, roast pork, chicken salad etc. Enjoyed some, was dubious about some offerings!! But the desserts, rum balls, and all manner of chocolate are decadent and spectacular!!

Copenhagen is a beautiful and elegant capital, surrounded by beaches. I love its domes, towers, and clock towers all in gilt or viridian. Scandinavian churches apparently have roosters instead of crosses on their steeples!!

* * *
Our major purchase this year was a camper van. I love travel, and look forward to the break and adventure after the intense school terms with both girls in an academic hothouse school. So we have been going to Europe over school holidays, 5 to 6 times a year, sometimes.
The costs of travel are 1) Airfare 2) Hotel 3) Rental Car 4) Restaurants 5) Entry fees to museums and attractions 6 Highly optional) Shopping.
We figured out that by buying the motor home, we would no longer have to spend on the first four, but instead have picnic lunches or dinners, and buffet style camp breakfasts, eating out only enough to get a flavour of the cuisine. So far, so good—though Scandinavia is generally breathtakingly expensive, we’ve managed to keep costs down by bringing our own kitchen, living room, bedroom and bathroom with us!!
There is nothing more relaxing than camping by a lake or the beach, listening to the sounds of birds, and stepping out into nature in the mornings. I really love this way of travel.
Also, there are many things I do not want to sacrifice when I travel. If I sacrifice prayer or scripture, I soon feel depressed and weary, and so I do not. I do not sacrifice blogging, because it’s healthy for me to process experience in writing, and the quiet hour or so is sanity-saving. I get my exercise by roaming strange cities, and try to get some reading done too.
So I enjoy travelling in my own camper because it is relatively inexpensive, and so I do not feel I have to see everything quickly, but can take things slowly, and enjoy myself slowly, staying in a place until I’ve had enough of it. (The first thing we do in a new country is buy Mobile Broadband, so we can keep our family business running on the hoof!)
      * * *
I would love to find a way to monetize my love of travel, so that it could pay for itself. One day, when life is slower, I am sure I will. At the moment, I find the stimulation so refreshing that in many ways, I feel like a new person when I return, full of enthusiasm again.
The old routines which had become stale are sweet again. I cannot wait to return to my routine of prayer—Bible study—blogging—writing—exercise—gardening and, on my return, feel privileged to lead such a life, even though just two weeks before I felt jaded, and wanted a break.
I sometimes wonder if I am not a “real writer.” The romance of writing has faded me for me a bit, and I cannot take a long period, say 60-90 days, of going up to my study and writing every day. I like to break it up with the adventure and excitement of travel.
But “real” or not, writing is the only work which really interests me, and so I will continue in my “unreal” way, with frequent breaks.
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  1. I wrote a lot about it last year in my blog. The spring as we went on some trips, the girls and I. Gettysburg started much of the remembrance. If you have a chance to catch up, pics of the VW van.

  2. Wow! 13 weeks. You must have seen a huge amount of the US. We once spent 2 weeks driving from Minneapolis through the Grand Tetons, the Badlands and Yellowstone. And other trips from Virginia to Key West or the Great Smokies. A mixture of sleeping in tents and motels. The kids loved the tents, and so did we, but I now feel a bit too old for tent-camping, and gave it up a few years ago, graduating to the camper van!!

  3. This how my childhood was, minus the computer, and in USA. I loved it. My dad, one year, had 13 weeks vacation. We had a little camper van, but oh, it was so perfect. It is the only way to travel. If only I could get my husband to agree.

  5. You are living my dream with that camper van, new sights, new sounds, new ideas, new thoughts and an ever changing scenery. No airlines with no legroom, no airport queues and no hotel and hire car bills that make your eyes water and your wallet to weep. I dream on, you go ahead and enjoy every mile and every minute. Best wishes for the day, God bless you all.