Åarus, Denmark: ARoS Museum: Salling's Rooftop

I don't think I will ever be able to go back to a morning without Danish Pastry and coffee Americano.  We leave for The Netherlands tomorrow.  I sure hope that they can step up to the breakfast plate!

After our crumpets, we headed to the local grocery store to get the makings for tonight's dinner and tomorrow's train picnic.  Then, it was off to the ARoS Åarhus Kunstmuseet.  Their art museum.  The ARoS is internationally known for creating unique exhibitions using its own, and borrowed pieces.  And it famously has two permanent exhibits, the "Your Rainbow Panorama" and "Boy".  

Stairs to the Aros Museum

Roy G. Biv!  The "Your Rainbow Panorama" (YRP) is an interactive piece of art elevated above the top of the museum.  One views this piece from inside and out.  It is essentially a circular hallway with transparent sidewalls.  Walking through it changes the view of the city, the view of the hall in front of you and to some degree one's mood.  As we stepped into this eerie passageway there were clearly marked arrows on the floor indicating we were to walk to the left.  Sandy stood for a minute and then headed to the right.  When I told her we were supposed to be going the other way she just stared at me and said she couldn't.  Roy G. Biv; red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet!  She had learned that in the second grade and that was the direction she had to go.  The artist had everyone going violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange, red; to her that was just wrong, and she was certain that her 2nd grade teacher, Mrs. Bostick, would support her position.  Finally, I was able to convince her that she needed to go the same direction as everyone else.  She did but she insisted that YRP suffered for this inconsistency.

"Boy" is just a giant, very realistic boy in a squatting position.  It was done by an Australian artist.  And, the squatting position is intended to replicate a common resting position of the Australian aborigines.

Other artwork included a Picasso

After the art museum we walked around more of the very interesting and comfortable town. 

An ice cream cone on the canal

The canal

 We visited the basement of a bank that had a small museum.  When excavating the site for the bank building in 1960, remains of Viking Aros (now Åarus) were uncovered.  There we saw a surviving bit of the town's original boardwalk, about 10 feet below the current ground level of the city.  It was Harold Bluetooth that built up the city during this time making it an important location in his Viking kingdom.  Also uncovered was the partially decapitated skeleton of same time period.  The location of the body and the damage to the head leaves us unquestionably with a 1,200 year old unsolved murder.

The Viking World around the time of Harold Bluetooth

This one is in the cold case file, all that is left of the head is the lower jaw

It seems like every Viking museum has dozens of these combs, I think the Vikings might have been a little vain about their hair

We also spent some time on the rooftop of the Salling department store.   We had a 360° view of the city, including another view of YRP, from multileveled terraces.  A café and a bar kept the locals and us on the roof enjoying the rare warm weather and sunshine.  We just had to enjoy a Danish beer. This area atop Åarus more resembles a park than it does the roof of a department store.  

We could not get inside the cathedral, (closed except for actual church services on Sunday, who knew?) but the outside is pretty impressive.  In an example of bad timing of epic proportions the church was completed in 1520 just a few years before the protestant reformation.  Besides clearing out all 55 chapels dedicated to assorted saints (the protestants stopped all saint worshiping) they also painted over all the elaborate wall frescoes.  This turned out to be a good thing as those, now uncovered, frescoes are amongst the best preserved in Europe.  Directly across the square from the church is the Åarhus Teater built in the early 1900s. The local bishop expressed his annoyance that this building of sin (live theater) was being built facing the church.  The theatre had the last laugh by placing at the apex of the roof a devil snidely smiling at the church.

The devil perpetually laughing at the bishop

An area of town called the Latin Quarter, because it reminds people of Paris' Latin Quarter

Sandy and I finished off the day with a Danish schnitzel and potatoes on the terrace of our apartment.  For a few minutes, we felt more like locals than travelers.