Funen Village

 

The park around the boat launch

On day two, we decided to take the Odense Aafart River Cruise. It was a pleasant walk from the hotel (easy to find with well marked streets!) The boat launch is on the edge of a magnificent park. Odense seems to have an extensive trail system. With our tickets, we could on and hop of all day long. Under the advice of our lovely hotel clerk, we rode it right to the end, then walked half and hour to the Funen Village. 

Our Riverboat

The boat took us on a nice lazy ride for about half an hour. We could have disembarked at the Odense Zoo. We could actually see quite a bit of the zoo from the water. It appears to be lovely, winding along the river, with very natural habitats tucked into the trees. No concrete anywhere.

Funen Village - Den Fynske Landsby

Funen is a historical village that showcases farming life in Demark in the 19th century. Every chance they got, they made references to Hans Christian Andersen, quotes from fairytales were all over. They till the land, plant the garden and raise livestock.  There were even boxes of produce by the entrance that visitors could buy,

Until the later 1800s, farmers were tenants who farmed communal lands. A single farmer could have nearly 20 strips to cultivate throughout the area. This ensured that each person had equal amounts of good and poor soil. It also required all the farmers to make their decisions about land use by consensus.

It was also illegal for shops to open outside of market towns. Travelling tinkers were black market operators! A rule finally was put in place that a person could get a special license to open a small home based shop if they were over 7.5 miles from a market town.

It was interesting to learn about the transition from a feudal system, which is so different from the homesteading pioneers of Canada. The same family worked the land for centuries, but only had control of it since WW1. After farmers had ownership, their random strips of land would become a few larger tracts which were much easier to cultivate.

An interesting thing happened a couple of days after we visited the Village. We got chatting with an elderly couple from the US. They made a point of going to the village because they had Danish friends from University 50 years ago. The friend's grandmother grew up in one of the houses that had been moved to the Village!