Everts Sjobod in Grebbestade, along the coast of Sweden is an old boathouse from the late 1800s located in a marine protected national park. The family owned business offers a vintage electric wooden boat that takes passengers, offers newly built beach houses, a wood fired hot tub, and a delicious fish soup. There is crab, mackerel and lobster fishing, 90% of Sweden’s oysters grow in this archipelago. It is the most, beautiful, serene setting all of Scandinavia and the highlight of my trip.

Live music at Hostel Gastis bar and restaurant

Bus across the five mile Oresund bridge and tunnel connecting Sweden and Denmark.

Hans Christen Andersen was a poor Dane, who experienced many failures before becoming Danish most loved author of 175 children’s fairy tales, the most famous being: Ugly Duckling, the Princess & the Pea and The Little Mermaid. He also wrote travel logs and Andersen made famous the adage “to travel is to live”, my kinda historical figure!

Like Sweden, Danes supported the German war machine and farmers put food on German tables to keep economy afloat and avoid unemployment. Unlike the Swedes, there is overt and passive resistance to cooperate and accommodate with Nazi Germany. Like Norway, Denmark was occupied but kept their Constitution. In September 1941, Danes agree that any German demand be rejected on the basis of the Constitution and best countered by all Danes wearing the Star of David. In the darkness of night, the Danish resistance moved families of Jews by canals to Sweden. Others spied by listening to telephone conversations and sabotaged railroad tracks. A more discreet way to boost democracy against dictatorship was posters that advertise patriotism.

Copenhagen was full of activity on this sunny summer day. Danes paddle boarding, boating, canoeing, swimming, sun bathing topless!

Danish government made concerted effort to increase female statues in Copenhagen. Karen Christenze Dinesen, the Danish author, storyteller and colonizer, known pseudonym, Isak Dinesen wrote numerous famous books. Out of Africa, my favorite was an account of her life in a coffee farm in the Ngong hills of Kenya, complete with hardships and rewards. Blixen could have been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature but the judges didn’t want to overrepresent the Scandinavians, regretfully. Infamously, many African leaders believe she was one of the most dangerous foreigners who stepped foot on Africa. Specifically she writes of vast erotic African wasteland and black servants as useful butchers and cooks. To be sure, Blixen was a complex independent woman living in a complex time.