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At the going down of the sun...

I’ve just returned from a week in France which was, by turns, enchanting, upsetting, liberating, uplifting, depressing, emotional, surprising, disturbing.  That’s because I spent most of it visiting some of the memorial Great War sites in Picardy with my brother Barry and his wife Jean.

The sites were mostly concerned with the Battles of the Somme and Arras and included the war cemetery where our great-uncle Hugh is buried.  We were the first members of his family to pay our respects at his graveside since he was killed in the Battle of Arras 97 years ago.

It added up to a complex and emotional week; boxes were ticked, certainly; but the experience has left us all asking more questions about that terrible and unspeakably wasteful conflict - specially after our visits to the monumentally gut-wrenching British Memorial to the Missing at Thiepval (above), which has 72,000 names inscribed on it…

I don’t think any of us has quite been able to marshal our thoughts and reflections since we returned on Saturday.  So I’ve decided to leave a more considered description of our visit until a later posting.

In the meantime, back to GT4; back to Denmark…

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They say that travelling is a good way of finding things out about yourself - most especially if you travel alone.  And they’re right.  One of my big discoveries over the course of my four ‘Grand Tours’ is that great museums, galleries, monuments and fine buildings - impressive though they might be - are, more often than not, a mere colourful and stately backdrop to the real business of the solo traveller; meeting people.  Talking and listening.  Asking questions.  Sharing experiences.  Hearing stories - and telling your own tales.

I’ve discovered that, when I daydream about my journeys, it’s always my memories of the people I met along the way that spring to mind first and strongest, and linger there the longest.

Such as the improbably-named Greg and his friends in Kristiansand; a happy group of older teenagers who bought me a beer or two in order to practise their English by explaining what Norwegian life was like, specially on a warm Saturday night…

Hens - fair-haired, handsome, blue-eyed… - who gave up his seat for me on the busy train between Ribe and Aalborg then forced me to drink a can or two of Tuborg while he hazily explained to everyone in the carriage how deeply he loved his fiancée Inge.  They’re married by now…

Mike, an American expat who was staying in the same hotel as me in Copenhagen and who, at the age of about 35, had decided to devote his life to trying to repair the damage done by US forces to the people of the countries they became involved in - Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and elsewhere.  His tales of derring-do genuinely enthralled me and kept me awake…

Jakob, with whom I shared part of the long train journey from Oslo to Lund.  A lawyer, he was returning home to his wife and young family in Halmstad.  I learned more about daily Swedish life from him than I could have learned from a dozen books or tv documentaries - a splendidly sociable fellow…

The funicular tram driver taking his break atop Mount Fløy in Bergen, who scowlingly blamed the British for the loss of so many Bergen children’s lives during the Second World War; we had, apparently, bombed two schools accidentally while aiming for a German U-boat dock…

Sammy, the shop-assistant in the 7-Eleven at Stavanger, who ignored lengthening queues of customers in order to hear about my travels - and who encouraged me to regale them all with my stories of an ageing Englishman who packs his bags and goes places.  He and his girlfriend bought me a drink when his shift ended…

But...but…

Of all the characters - and there were many others - who crowd my busy memory, there is one unforgettable encounter which, above all others, has planted itself in my excited mind and remains there, vigorous and irremovable. 

The veritable princess of GT4 - the archetypal larger-than-life adventurer - was called Birgit (which she helpfully ‘translated’ as Brigitte).

We met on the tiny platform of Hirtshals station.  This is the end of the line in Denmark; you can’t go any further north.  All you can do is walk to the ferry terminal and take a boat to Norway - which is why we were both there.

We fell into conversation at once - one of those animated chats that make you feel you’ve known a total stranger for decades.  Before we’d reached the ferries, we knew each other’s ‘traveller’s tales’.  Birgit listened as I proudly listed the places I’d been on my travels - France, Germany, Italy, Holland, Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia...the lot.

But we had to stop mid-walk when she started on her own list because I kept catching my breath with each new adventure.  Nepal, Bhutan, India, Peru, Chile, Bolivia, Brazil…

She got stuck in the mud in a Jeep halfway up a Colombian mountain; she wandered alone - with just a backpack - among the mountains of Nepal and arrived in villages where she was invited to eat and stay overnight with the locals; she clambered up the rough-hewn path to Macchu Picchu - all 17 miles of it; she made friends, and maintained ongoing contact, with other long-haul adventurers, including two lesbians from Brighton (whom she has since visited) and a holidaying journalist called Simon, who has recently married and moved to Edinburgh.  Birgit has never visited Edinburgh so it’s now at the top of her bucket list.

It occurred to me that Birgit was afraid of nothing except human lack of communication.  As long as we travel - as long as we talk and smile - as long as we are kind and loving to the people we meet on the way - all will be well.

She certainly wasn’t afraid of her genetic heart condition, which, she said, had killed her mother and her mother before her. 

And she was wasn’t intimidated by her age either.  Birgit is 81 years old.

I hope you’re getting the picture here.  We made each other laugh or gasp in amazement or go ‘broody’ with wishful travel-thinking by turns.  I think maybe we also made plans, somewhere deep-down...

We had an hour or so to wait for our respective ferries and I wanted it to be a whole day.  Being with her was the perfect way to end my time in Denmark.  Upbeat, ‘happy talk’.  I was genuinely sad when the time came for me to board my ferry across the Skaggerak to Norway.

My ferry across the Skaggerak to Norway

* * *

The Limfjord is the stretch of water that runs from sea to sea across northern Denmark, making North Jutland an island.  The city at its narrowest point is called Aalborg; I’d spent the previous night there - my last in Denmark.

It’s a fine old city and I’d learned a thing or two there.  Such as the price of Newcastle Brown Ale. 

And that Fentiman’s is available in at least one shop. 

And how inappropriate some of the city’s street-names are; my hotel was on Jomfru Ana’s Gade - Virgin Ana’s Street - and was without doubt the sleaziest, most virgin-free street in town.

I’d also learned how closely our local dialect is to Danish.  The panel outside a bar proclaimed that ‘jakkers’ aged 19 to 25 could get in half-price.  In 'street-Danish' a jakker is a young man; it’s pronounced exactly as it is in Durham’s ‘pit-yacker’ and is certainly the same word.  Which is no coincidence, considering how deeply Vikings were involved in our local history.

Aalborg is also Birgit’s home town.  Worth another visit, then…

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