COPENHAGEN — While this year's Tour de France cyclists struggled to overcome rain, cold and hills, I took a four-day bike trip in Denmark, one of the most cycle-friendly nations in the world. It has more than 7,000 miles of safe, interconnected, sign-posted bike trails and -- get this -- no big hills.
My 50-mile trip was hardly as long or as arduous as the Tour. I never tried to go fast because I wasn't competing for the yellow jersey. I went riding for the fine food and beautiful scenery, both of which I found on the island of Funen.
Funen is wedged between the Jutland peninsula and Zealand island (home to Copenhagen) and is considered the garden of Denmark, a tapestry of woodlands, meadows, manor houses and sleepy villages with half-timbered houses.
Its farms and fisheries produce rich dairy products, raspberries, cherries, fiord shrimp and other fresh ingredients prized by a new generation of chefs who are putting Danish cuisine on Europe's gastronomical map. (Copenhagen alone has 13 Michelin-starred restaurants.)
When I found a self-guided biking and dining tour on the Funen island tourist bureau website, I got hungry. The package had plenty going for it: deluxe accommodations for four nights in some of the island's better hotels, big Danish breakfasts, three gourmet dinners, bike rental, luggage transport, cycling map and route descriptions.
The package -- four days of biking 15- to 20-mile stretches followed by three-course gourmet dinners -- operated more on the carrot than the stick principle. I do too, so I booked it, and before my Copenhagen-bound plane even got off the ground I could feel the wind in my hair.
Day 1
From Copenhagen, I took the train to Odense, my Funen departure point. The trip took a little more than an hour and crossed the 7.8-mile Great Belt Bridge between Zealand and Funen islands.
Odense may be the third-largest city in Denmark, but in a taxi from the train station to my first hotel, it looked more like a small town -- tidy, well-organized, with a pedestrian-only main street, a Gothic church, population of about 188,000 and a long canal leading to an inlet of the ocean.
The canal helped Odense become a manufacturing center, but its chief industry was born in 1805, when Hans Christian Andersen came into the world, the son of a washerwoman and shoemaker who lived in a hovel that's now a popular tourist attraction.
