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Where am I?:^mistymornings-->Cycletouring-->Scandinavia 2006-->Day 22

Day 22. Sightseeing in Kolding then night train to Duisburg.

Distance by bike 20km.

It's morning, this is a hotel so the next thing must be breakfast. We were up a little late and headed to the restaurant for the buffet breakfast. This is one of the nice things about stopping in a hotel, ample food for breakfast and secondly you don't have to wash up.

Fortunately the weather outside had improved considerably from the previous evening and as we supped coffee and went back for seconds it looked like turning into a nice day. We browsed through some leaflets we had found in the hotel and it looked like Kolding Castle would be worth a visit and also the Trapholt Museum. This was as far as we got with detail planning for the day.

After breakfast we packed up our things, returned the key and headed into town. Our first stop was the station where we found a set of large left luggage lockers. After depositing our bags we took the bikes outside and locked them to something solid. The first target for our tourist interest, the Castle, was only walking distance away so we didn't really need to push our bikes.

Kolding turned out to be another of those pleasurable surprises. Until we arrived it was only a name on a map with a station we would leave from to start our journey home. The reality was much more complex than that and the town was a mix of colourful history and modernity. It was also quite a change from the coastal landscape peppered with holiday villages we'd been cycling through for the last couple of days.

The night before we'd cycled round the large lake just across from the station, and walking the other way round it, we headed towards the castle. We'd already gathered that the castle lay half in ruins for a couple of hundred years before being renovated. The new sections were added in a different material so it was very easy to see where the building had been re-instated.

I think I preferred that to a faithful reconstruction where you are not sure what is original and what is new. We walked halfway round the building first and then in through the visitor's centre. There we bought a tickets and discovered that we were required to put our coats in lockers. We were allowed to keep a camera and hand baggage with us and also allowed to take pictures inside the museum. Tickets in our hands we walked out into the inner courtyard of the castle.

Although it was not such a long time since breakfast we were both thirsty. In the courtyard there was a rather fortuitously placed cafe. We picked an outside table and ordered some fizzy pop. Damae was enjoying herself and was in holiday sightseeing mode.

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