Tønder, a lively Market Town in Sønderjylland

lambs in the marsh, the dikes in the background

Another town in Sønderjylland is Tønder, ( Sønderjylland is the old borderland to Germany, please read the description in the link. North of Sønderjylland is South Jutland!) The market town Tønder is placed in the southwestern part of Sønderjylland, 80 km south of Esbjerg and 40 km southwest of Aabenraa. It has ab. 8.200 inhabitants. 
 

Tønder started originally at a ford across Vidåen-river, where the heaths meet the marshland. The town is placed only 1-5 meter above sea level. East of the town is the marsh replaced with meadows and fields. The marsh west of town is reclaimed and protected by large dikes. Tønder was through centuries an important harbour. In the Middle Ages they sailed along the Vidåen-river up to Tønder, but the diking of the marsh and a regulation of the river cut off the connection to the sea already in the 1600s.

Tønder has had municipal rights since 1243 and was through centuries an important harbour, although the sea is about 12 km from the edge of the town. The name Tønder is of unknown origin, but is mentioned for the first time in 1130, when the Arabian geographer al-drisi describes the town Tundira as an anchorage "protected against all winds and surrounded by buildings". The first beginning of the town was possibly at that time, and it was then a harbour-place of the town Møgeltønder, which probably is older. The city-seal with a ship from the 1200s shows that Tønder originally was a shipping-town, and the seal still looks like that, althought there is now 12 km to the sea.

Tønder got its municipal rights in 1243 from hertug (duke) Abel. In the 1200s the castle Tønderhus was built, and it played an important role in the eternal feud between the duke, the Holstein grafs and the Danish king, until it was demolished in 1750.

 











A dominating element in Tønder are the bays, the street-doors and portals. A very used door-type are the double panelled doors, which especially in the late half of the 1700s were equipped with monumental portals. There are several Baroque-portals with Rococo-doors. In the Dike-count's listed house from 1777 in the middle of the city is a magnificent Rococo-portal. In a fine Patrician building nearby from 1794 , marked by the Renaissance, is an impressive door-section in Louis-Seize-style.



 




Tønder Museum is placed upon the old castle-bank  together with Sønderjylland's Art Museum. The gate house of a demolished Tønder-house is a part of the building. The museum has a large collection of arts and crafts, silver, lace, tiles and furniture from West Schleswig.The art collection at the art museum are works by Danish surrealist painters and Nordic pictorial art from the 20th century.At the same address is the old water tower with an exhibition of furniture by the Danish architect Hans J. Wegener,who was born in Tønder.




 


A pretty restored gable house from 1672 is now a branch of Tønder Museum, which among other things has exhibitions about lace. In the summer season are often working lace makers in the old house.

The Zeppelin-Museum informs about the German base during WWI with exhibitions from the dramatic period, where Tønder was the homestead of northern  Europe's largest military airship-base.





 

Upon the city-square is the oldest building in town, the Klosterbaker's House, which is a grand late Gothic gable house from about 1519. Here is also an old inn named "Humlekærren". Upon the square is a copy of the only preserved monument of infamy in Denmark, a socalled kagmand. The kage was a medieval means of punishment. People were tied or chained and whipped, if they had done something wrong. The two meter tall wooden figure stands with a whip and a sword for fear and warning.The original figure is at Tønder Museum.

Wool Street

 

The monument of infamy at the square.

The house from ab. 1519

Tønder is a very lively town with lots of cafés and restaurants and with many shops and special boutiques. the town is close to Germany and there are many tourists from near and far coming here. a veru cosy town to visit and then there is the vast marshland with a rich birdlife for people who are interested in this.

The old pharmacy was built in 1670 by mayor and Dike-count Johann Preuss. Here was established a pharmacy in 1697 and a winestube (serving wine), which at that time was almost the same. The entrance is equipped with a fine Baroque-portal in sandstone. Tønder Kristkirke was built in 1592 as a replacement of the medieval city church Sct. Nicolai. The strange tower from 1520 has a tall lantern-spire. The interior is richly decorated. Near the church is the old Latin-school from 1612. An old merchant house from1729 is a splendid two-storeys gable-house with bays, named "Soli Deo Gloria". A street called Uldgade (wool-street)  might be the most picturesque street in Tønder with low gable-houses with small bays, small-paned windows and finely carved doors. In this street and in some nearby fine little streeets lived workmen and humble folk

the old pharmacy

The Lace.
Tønder is known for its fine lace, in Denmark we talk about the Tønder-lace (Tønder-kniplinger) and know exactly what fine quality it is. Each year is a lace-festival. Lace makers from all over the world meet to take part in workshops, goto exhibitions or just have a talk about the lace-work. There are many lace-exhibitions in the inner town.

lace-working board

Source: Potitikens Store Danmarksbog 2003; Danmarks Købstæder, 2000.

photo Tønder 2002 & 2007: grethe bachmann

Sønderborg in Sønderjylland, a Market Town and a Castle

                                                                                       


















  I sometimes forget which posts are in this blog, because I had to delete my old blog about Denmark and start a new last year, but I now see that I haven't told you about some of the southern cities of Jutland like Sønderborg and Tønder.


Well, then I'll start with a lovely day in Sønderborg in May in 2007. The harbour was a wonderful sight with lots of fine yachts and other sailing boats. There was a regatta. I love the colours in a harbour, and on such a summer day they are extra bright and beautiful. The hawthorn was blooming, one of my favorite bushes with their thousands of little white flower heads. That was summer in all its splendour.





Sønderborg castle lay there, close to the edge of the coast, imposant and heavy in the middle of all the easyness of the day. Along the circular shape of the castle run a beach road with cosy corners with benches and flowering hawthorns.The castle dates back from 1169, it was built in order to protect the Danish kingdom from the harrassing Wendic pirates, and sheltered by the castle at Als Sound and Sønderborg Bay grew up gradually a small town, which in 1461 had its municipal rights confirmed. the town became gradually an important harbour at the ferry station from Jutland to the island of Als.

 












Sønderborg castle is now a museum which holds archaeological collections and exhibitions about church art and the history of the city, about shipping trade and the wars in 1848, 1864 and the two world wars. In the castle is the oldest preserved church room in the North from the Renaissance. At the museum is also an art collection.



The castle is by Danes especially known from their history school book. King Christian II was imprisoned here for 17 years (1532-49), and a Danish painter immortalized a scene in a painting, where he let the king walk around a circular table in the castle, where he wore down a groove in the wood. This was all in the artist's imagination - actually the king enjoyed a good portion of freedom and was often seen in the streets of the city. So the school children later lost their illusions.






Sønderborg was like other towns in Sønderjylland and North Schleswig marked by gable houses, but much of it was destroyed under the German bombardment in 1864, and the new houses were extensively built in late classististic architecture. There are many pretty houses from the 1700s. In Sct. Mariæ church are fine woooden carvings from the 1600s.

Sønderborg, the bridge

Sønderborg is known for its yearly "Riding at the Ring"-festival which in the second week-end of July turns the city and the whole neighbourhood upside down.  In connection to the festival are held large processions with ab. 500 horsemen , riding from the castle up through the streets of the town.

Dybbøl Mølle

A few km west of Sønderborg is Dybbøl, one of the most famous places in Denmark's history with Dybbøl Banke, the church and the mill, to where the Danish army withdrew from the Preussians in 1864 to defend themselves from the primitive and unfinished entrenchments. This ended as a catastrophic defeat on 18 April. Denmark lost Sønderjylland until the Reunion in 1920. At Dybbøl are many memorials, the soldiers' graves and other memorials. Here is also a new History Center.

 A lovely place to take a rest!

A little north of Dybbøl is Nydam Mose. Here was found the Iron Age ship: Nydamsbåden, dated to ab. 320 A.D . and the oldest known rowing vessel in Northern Europe. Nydambåden is displayed at exhibition in Gottorp Castle in Schleswig.





Source: Potitikens Store Danmarksbog ; Danmarks Købstæder; Se dit land Danmark.
Photo Sønderborg 20 May 2007: grethe bachmann

Ærø - an Island in the South Funen Archipelago

 

Ærø is a 25 km long hilly island with a magnificent view across the Baltic and the Funen archipelago.The hills are the prettiest "dumlins" in Denmark. The island has a circumference of ab. 80 km and was originally divided in 2 islands by a land strip, where the road now runs along the water between Ærøskøbing and Marstal. There are several ferry routes from Ærø with a sailing time of ab. 1 hour. 

The first time the island Ærø is mentioned in history is in an Icelandic scald-verse, telling about a fight against the Wends.The Wends were Slavic tribes harrassing the Baltic coasts from their home island Rügen. In the Middle Ages 3 manors upon Ærø were outparcelled, which gave the Ærø-people the opportunity to cultivate some land.Some bought ships and exported corn and cattle.

In the 1200s the island belonged to the Crown, while it from the 1300s until 1864 was a part of the duchy Schleswig-Holstein and was not considered a part of the Danish kingdom. This meant a possiblity of smuggling via Ærø - and much luxurial articles, like French wine, spices and fine fabrics were being smuggled to the  nobility family at Tranekær castle on the island Langeland.

Today is a constant decline in the population. Many young people move from the island for educational purpose, and only few return to their home island. (7.200 inhabitants in 2002)  

Ærøskøbing is one of the most idyllic little market towns in Denmark Here are lots of fine old, well-kept houses with red tiled roofs; the street have pavements - and hollyhocls and roses grow on the walls.  The town is a perfect example of an old Danish market town. There are museums marked by the seafaring people, in the old workhouse is a collection of old bottle ships, created by a sailor, Peder Jacobsen, named "Flaske-Peter", (Bottle-Peter), who built 1700 of these model ships durin a long life's sailing on the oceans. 300 of those ships are at the exhibition. 

There are many fine houses from the 1700s and 1800s, among the finest the earlier pharmacy and a post office. On the market place are some old water pumps by a well which had existed here since 1250. Next to the market place the old Latin school. and town-hall. The present church is from 1758 with a fine view from the tower.

At the western beach, Vesterstrand are some very
picturesque beach houses. They belong to Ærø-families, who use them for their beach trips.

Marstal is the best preserved skipperby (captain's town) in the Funen archipelago. Here was a flowering shipping in the 1700s. The sailors transported agricultural articles in the Danish south sea and into
the Baltic and southern Norway.In the middle of the

1800s many 2 and 3-master schooners set out on a long voyage to places like Marokko, Rio Grande and Arkhangelsk. The shipping had 300 ships and was the largest next to Copenhagen.
Marstal is marked by low houses along narrow streets and alleys,  leading to the harbour. The town has some maritime museums with modelships, marine paintings, bottle ships, ship's bells, compasses, figureheads etc. One of the world's largest sunlight collector systems is in Marstal with ab. 19.000 km2,  which covers an important part of the town-requirements. 

Voderup Klint (Cliff)
Along the southern coast of Ærø is a several km long and about 30 m high cliff,  which has the form of an oversized staircase  from the beach to the top of the cliff. There are often landslides after rain, and in the sunny slides grow various chalk-loving steppe plant. In April grow hairy violet and coltsfoot in the dry grass and in May-June are plants like fairy flax, milkwort, Briza medid (Lady's hair), Carline thistle  and Fragaria viridis (a strawberry species).
Parking place with map, a winding path leads down across the cliff.

Source: Søren Olsen, Politikens Store Danmarksbog, 2002. 

photo Ærø 2005: grethe bachmann

Fåborg, an Idyllic Market Town on the Island Funen.

hedgerow of lilacs

Funen is the mild island in shelter of the peninsula Jutland and the island Sjælland. It is known as the land of the hedgerows, hedgerows with pollarded poplars or hedgerows with lilacs in May. The rich vigorous lansdcape forms the background of several market towns, located centrally along the coast, especially the towns Fåborg and Svendborg on the southern coast have distinguished themselves by maritime trading and shipping. But the island is also known for its manors and castles, situated more  closely than in any other part of the country.

Fåborg is one of few Danish towns which has kept a large part of the little-town look from the past with many well-kept half-timbered houses - in spite of city fires in the civil wars in the Middle Ages and Swedish wars in the 1600s. The town is encircled by a hilly landscape, Svanninge bakker, and has a beautiful view across Fåborg fjord and the Funen archipelago with several small islands. Fåborg has at present about 7.200 inhabitants.

The old market town, Faaborg, is mentioned the first time 25. June 1229 in a document in the National Archive in Paris; a gift letter, issued by Valdemar II Sejr, where he as a morning gift transfers Faaborg (and the southern Funen) to his daughter-in-law, Eleonore of Portugal, when she married his first son Valdemar the Young. He mentions the town as a borg (castle), which means that the town must have existed before that time, maybe coming into existence in the 1100s - and it was probably given its municipal rights in the beginning of the 1200s. The gift letter is used to date the town, and Fåborg could celebrate its 775 years jubilee in 2004.

The town square in the middle of the town, with a fine surrounding environment of old houses in the narrow streets, was an important trading place in the old days. In the middle of the square is the Ymer-Brønd, which is  a well and a statue of the giant Ymer and a bull, symbolizing the Genesis. The yellow bell-tower in one of the narrow streets is the landmark of Fåborg; it was built ab. 1450 and belonged to a now demolished church, Sct. Nicolai. Today it functions as a bell-tower for Helligåndskirken (Holy Spirit church) nearby. This church was originally the part of a kloster, which was demolished in 1534 in the time around the reformation. From the top of the bell-tower is a magnificent view to the pretty  hills in Svanninge bakker and o the sea south of Funen with all the small islands and a lively traffic of various ships and boats.

City-gate

 Vesterport is a city-gate from the 1400s, the rest of an old fortification with banks, moats and possibly also palisades, which encircled Fåborg in the Middle Ages. It is one of two preserved city-gates in Denmark, the other gate is in the town Stege on the island Møn. Once were intentions of breaking down the gate; a neighbouring merchant was so tired of the noise from rattling horse-wagons and vociferus coachmen that he in 1806 offered to pay 100 rigsdaler to the town in order to forward the demolition. But it showed that the demolition was too expensive, and the city-council decided to keep the gate. During the 1800s it functioned as a custom house.
  
One of the most important sights in Fåborg is the art museum with an excellent exhition of the Funen painters. ("Fynboerne")  . The building itself is a main work in Nordic neo-classicism. The Funen painters were by the Copenhagen critics ironically named the Bondemalerne (the peasant-painters) caused by their provincial tribute to the farmland, the peasants and the cattle. In the museum is a garden with a café.

Poul Kinafarer's Gård

In the middle of the town is a picturesque storehouse, Poul Kinafarer's Gård, which  belonged to a seafaring man, Poul Jacobsen (1717-75), who had earned a fortune by China trade. There are may small museums in Fåborg, like "Den Gamle Gård" (merchants' house), which is a historical museum; a  modelship-museum  - and a quaint attraction is the old Fåborg Arresthus (gaol)  with an exhibiton about the history of  punishment.


In the archipelago south of Fåborg are 90 small islands, of which 25 are inhabited -  and ferries and post-ships sail  out to many of them, like Bjørnø, Lyø, Avernakø and Ærø. There is also a ferry to Gelting in Germany .  A bus goes to the castle "Egeskov" in the summer season.

Near town is a nature area Sundet, which was re-established in 2000. Here was originally a cove with connnection to the fjord and the sea and with a harbour, which was abandoned in ab. 1500 when the channel sanded up. In 1946 the area was drained, which meant the death of a rich animal life; there was no more place for birds like the bittern or mammals like the otter. But now is the water back, and the lake is encircled with paths. The paradise has returned for both birds and other animals - and for the public.

photo Fåborg 2004/2005: grethe bachmann