Day 30 - art gallery, museum and Lego House

We had better luck with parking at AROS gallery in Aarhus. Google got us to the concert hall and a pleasant woman there told us how to operate the “parkering.” (When we left we had to type in our van number and it calculated the cost - £5 - as a camera had logged us entering)

The art gallery is being extended so there was a walking detour round the large building site to reach it. It was an expensive visit costing £20 each but an interesting experience. The 360 degree rainbow roof walk designed by Olafur Eliasson and installed in 2011 was fun with great views down to the city. Apart from the large galleries with both permanent and changing exhibitions, the ARoS building features an arts shop, a dining café and a restaurant and is the second most visited in Denmark. We thought there was more style over substance in the 10 floors, but I think we must have missed one part of the permanent collection. Most of the work we saw was installations of varying degrees of weirdness, some in darkness again. There was a mirror one, a video wall about some kind of bacteria in various movements and colours and a Rock, Paper Scissors exhibition featuring torn up or folded newspapers, torn cardboard with messages, an airstream caravan with a Las Vegas sign, a large squatting boy, also mirrored, whose expressions seemed to change as you moved round and a large neon sign saying “If you don’t like Denmark FOff and go Home”. It was all interesting and enjoyable but the circular layout of the building with hidden doors that opened when you stood at the right place meant we might have missed something as we navigated the various staircases.

We negotiated our way out of the city without trouble and headed back to Silkeborg museum where we’d gone yesterday when the museum was closed. We had to put our timer card in the window to get an hour to park in Lidl. Mr C decided not to come so he saved himself £10. I really enjoyed the house though they had no written guide in English to explain the rooms which where furnished in a style of perhaps 150 years ago. They had an exhibition of beautiful old glass and pottery too.

I crossed the garden to the Tollmund Man, whose mummified body had been found in the 1950s. The information there was in English and German as well as Danish. It explained the finding of the 2000 year old remains of the bog man, the science of how it had been preserved and most interestingly, about the life of Iron Age people. It seems somehow voyeuristic to take photographs of the remains but I felt duty bound for the goulish grandsons. Some of the remains of Elling woman were also there. Both had been hanged. One theory is that they were punished, another is suicide, and a third explanation is that they were sacrificed. Individual bodies may have ended up in the bogs for different reasons, but at Museum Silkeborg they
think that Tollund Man most likely was
sacrificed. One thing is certain: he did not
get a normal burial. At the time of Tollund
Man, the dead were cremated.

From there we went to Billind, home of Lego. We parked outside the town and walked in. I knew from the website The Lego house was not open to the public till Friday. Today they were hosting a careers convention. A young woman sitting outside having a smoke told us about all the amazing opportunities a career in Lego offered. It’s certainly a huge business - Billund had an airport and several flights arrived during our visit. We had a walk round the house then drove for 10 minutes south to a wild camp spot at heath and woodland.

We have had a really busy, enjoyable day - we’ll sit in the sun and drink the remains of the Swedish gin.

It anything says Denmark it is Lego so that has to be the blip today.