Lüneburg and Starup

On Friday, March 18, we headed north in Germany on our way to Denmark for the weekend. We stayed Friday night in Lüneburg on the recommendation of one of our neighbors. What a wonderful town! We had a terrific German meal at Das Alte Brauhaus Friday night, and then spent some of Saturday morning exploring the town. It was market day, and Larry had lots of fun taking market pictures. Here’s one of them:
There was a little shop with lots of sheep stuff (!) called Nanu Nana, so we bought a couple things and Larry took a picture of this Nana:There was a museum about salt mining there, and we walked over to see if we could manage it before we had to leave, but it was too much time. The whole history of salt throughout Europe is very interesting and we may get to one museum/exhibit about it before the trip is done.

On Saturday afternoon we arrived in Starup, Denmark to visit our friends Pastors Margaret Hammer and Jørgen Kappel-Hansen. Starup is in Jutland not too far north of the German border. Jørgen is the pastor the Starup Kirke, which is 1000 years old. It sits out on the shore of an inlet coming in from the Baltic Sea, and is a beautiful location. Here is a picture of Margaret and Jørgen inside the church after worship on Sunday:
Worship was lovely, even though we couldn’t understand any of it! I could sing along from the hymn book (words only) with Norwegian pronunciation. Two tunes (including A Mighty Fortress at the end) were recognizable, but as every hymn had about 9 verses, I picked the tunes up eventually. (It’s a good thing Grundtvig wrote long hymns!) The church was full, and there were two baptisms: an infant and a confirmation student. We sat behind the group of confirmation students, who are required to attend worship in the last couple months before they are confirmed in May. That was fun - not much different than home at that point!

On Sunday afternoon they drove us into the nearby large town, Hardeslev. (Mysteriously pronounced “Hest-lay-oo”) Margaret is on the staff of the Domkirke (cathedral) there. It is an ancient building (12th century) and a beautiful room. The paraments and paired chasubles are all made by the queen of Denmark. She is a textile artist who does this work for cathedrals throughout the country. Often she uses her old ball gowns for fabric. Here is a picture of the red chasuble:
We had wonderful meals with great conversation in the Starup Praestegaard house. The house is also quite old, although the church has done a great job of upkeep. All the roofs are thatch, which is it’s own headache, but it seems to do well. I found it amusing a delightful that our accommodation there were two very comfortable portable cots in the Confirmation Room! Made me think of all the visiting groups (and Faith’s own youth) that have slept in the Confirmation rooms at Faith! Here is one more picture from Starup - the church: