Djursland

Early morning breakfast…. weather is looking more promising today than forecasted. A bit of rain later today, bu still seems windy.

Oh, well. Might as well try to visit a couple of zoo in the area.

Scandinavian zoo
Ree Park Safari

Still a few hours till they open, and they are not very far away.

What other things is there to do in the area? Margueritruten has some suggestions.

Started out trying to find Margueritrouten towards Ebeltoft. First stop was Rosenholm Slot. Only stopped to take a few pictures.

Nice place, but they were not open and I did not want to tour another castle. From there I headed to Rønde and Kalø Vig, with ruins of an old castle.

Nice day to surf…

Kalø Slot

The castle was founded in 1313 by the Danish king Erik Menved (Erik VI). It was one of at least four similar strongholds in Jutland, constructed to counter the ongoing rebellions of the Jutlandic nobility and peasantry against the Crown. The other strongholds were Borgvold in Viborg, Bygholm in Horsens and Ulstrup, east of Struer. All were built by local peasants forced labour, with the goal of breaking their rebellious spirits. Kalø Slot was raised on the small island of Kalø, connected to the mainland by a 500 m long artificial embankment, rising 1,2 m above sea level. The embankment was cobbled; deep moats were dug and earth mounds heaped around the fortress. A port of call, outer ringwalls and other fortifications were all built by hand. This was a colossal task in the early 14th century.

The castle of Kalø was successful in its original purpose, but already in 1320 the new king Christoffer II, was forced by the Danish nobility in a coronation charter to tear it down, along with most of the Crown’s fortresses in Jutland. It is not clear how much of the castle was actually torn down, but the Crown definitely lost its grip on Kalø and it was mortgaged. From the 15th century and onwards, Kalø had a more peaceful role, as the local administrative center and state prison. King Christian II held the future Swedish king Gustav Vasa captive at Kalø during 1518-1519, until he escaped and fled to Lübeck, disguised as a common peasant.

–Wikipedia

It was a nice walk out, but windy so I am glad I brought my jacket.

From there, I drove to Ebeltoft and took some of the smaller roads to Grenaa. Yesterday I change a setting on my GPS to take the shortest route instead of the fastest. That had an interesting effect, when trying to navigate out of Grenaa. It seemed to navigate me on a tour downtown Grenaa, so I had to change the setting back to fastest route. Next on the program was a visit to Scandinavian Zoo, recommended by Kell.

It was a really nice park. Not too big, and the animals had plenty of space. Much better than the crowded zoo in Aalborg.

Figured out I needed to go north in Djursland as well. For some reasons I seemed to circle the Djurs Summer Land… I did not go there… Drove on rural roads, which was nice. Drove via Randers and took the motorway back to Aarhus. For some reasons I forgot to start the tracker app again today,…