January hasn’t been off to a great start. Suffering from – yet another! – cold (this winter has taught me that it might be a good idea to drink ginger shots every day, sold pretty much everywhere in Denmark, and to bundle up), I stayed low – and snotty – for the first two weeks. This past Sunday, however, I grabbed some extra tissues, wore two pairs of pants and went on a bike ride with Dave.

I’ve been missing the deer at the Dyrehave, so that’s where we went. We started in Nærum, where we took the L train from a station close to our house (L is for local). From there we cut through the park, straight towards the Ermitage.

The Ermitage is the royal hunting “cabin.” I suppose it’s modest enough as far as royalty things go, but you can see it from miles away, so I wouldn’t exactly call it rustic.

The Ermitage stands for “en hermitage”, which translates to “in solitude.” This is the place where the king and his companions could take a break from hunting and eat in solitude, without any disturbance from the household staff (due to a special device that allowed the dining room table to be hoisted directly from the kitchen and into the dining hall; this thing was in operation until 1759. Yes, I’d call it a little weird).

Once the king’s hunting ground, the Dyrehave is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site and it has about 2000 deer living in the park. This herd that we came across must have had a couple of hundred!

This place is so amazing! I don’t think I will ever tire of it. It’s like a paradise, with lots of deer droppings everywhere.

Biking through the park is a little bit hilly. It was hilly for me because I haven’t even sat on my bike for at least 4 months. But not too hilly because this is Denmark.

No snow, but my god, the weather has gotten so cold! In Seattle, we had this saying about summer: “Summer doesn’t start until after the 4th of July.” In Denmark, there is a saying about winter. They say that winter doesn’t start until after Christmas. I think they’re right.

Dave and I biked the length of the park (north to south) and were planning to turn around and go back to catch a train in Nærum again, but by that time we were completely frozen. Resembling icicles, we headed for the Klampenborg train station (at the southern end of the park) instead.

[Disclosure: in the past, Hike 100 Bike 1000 stood for miles. My goal was to hike 100 miles each year and to bike 1000 miles. Now that I’m in Europe, I am switching to kilometers. I know, 1000 miles is not the same as 1000 kilometers. But this is my blog and I can change the rules whenever I feel like it. So now, my goal is to hike 100 km and bike 1000 km. Considering I biked a little over 50 miles last year, I don’t think anyone minds, right?]

• This Ride: 11.9 km
• Elevation Gain: 100 m
• YTD Biking Km: 11.9