aarhus

179d

I thought the library looked nice in the luscious blue twilight so I snapped a photo. As I did, this swan silently appeared out of nowhere. I assume it had just sailed out of a storybook in the library and that it does this every night when it thinks we're not looking.

#Libraries
#Bibliotek
#Aarhus

Looking from an outer pier at Aarhus harbour, Denmark, back across the water to the city skyline and Dokk1 - Aarhus Main Library. The library is a striking four-storey modern geometric building right on the waterfront with picture windows and terraces all around. The harbour water is like glass, lightly iced over in this freezing weather. The sea and cloudless sky are a deep luscious blue in the twilight this Winter day. The city buildings and the library are illuminated - although the bright lights blurry and unfocused in this snapshot, I confess. Just as I was taking the photo, a big white swan appeared out of apparently nowhere. Suddenly it was just there, sailing silently and slowly and regally. It glows bright white against the deep blue seawater just in front of us, shining alone in the otherwise empty harbour water.

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349d

Glædelig mandag. Just sending you a postcard from #Aarhus, just to say that I hope this week treats you well.

Sailing into Aarhus harbour. The sea is dull dark blue with distinct swathes of thick white foam from boat wake curling on it, as if bored mermaids doodled on the water’s surface. The sky is cloudless pale blue. Ahead, dark from backlight, the city skyline: the pier, geodome, cathedral spire, custom house turrets. A peaceful scene, I think. A quiet arrival to the city.

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356d

Glædelig mandag. Just sending you a postcard from #Aarhus, just to say that I hope this week treats you well.

Harbour skylines, seen through the rigging and furled sails of an historic wooden ship anchored at the promenade. Geometric modern buildings of different heights and shapes – triangular, oblong, rectangular, a geodome. A giant industrial crane. Dockhouses. It’s a very bright sunny day. The sky and sea are deep blues, glowing in the sunshine. The scene is a bit jumbled, a bit messy, not special - just a glimpse of the city on an unusually bright blue day.

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300d

Glædelig mandag. Just sending you a postcard from #Aarhus, just to say that I hope this week treats you well.

The morning commute, if you live in Aarhus and walk or cycle to work by the harbour. Around 8am, just before sunrise one morning last November. The sea looks as cold as it is – rippling in wind, dark blue-black with a cold silvery sheen. Big black clouds are converging from left and right on an almost peculiar cloudless gap of cloudless sky just above the opposite docks. Over there, we can see the silhouettes of huge industrial cranes, factory chimneys, and warehouses. Above them, a clear space of light blue sky with a stripe of orange from the approaching sun which may, or may not, actually appear above the horizon this Winter day. The small gap of clear sky with a hint of sunrise that the huge black clouds seem to be attacking makes it feel as if the gods of night and day are arguing about who's in charge.

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328d

Glædelig mandag. Just sending you a postcard from #Aarhus, just to say that I hope this week treats you well.

Aarhus harbour after dark during festival week at the start of September. We are standing on the library terrace looking down and across the water to historic and modern buildings all lit up, many in rainbow colours. There is a big variation in shapes and heights, giving the illuminated skyline a sense of a wavelength. Conversely, there are no waves in the sea. The harbour water is black and perfectly still, so the lit-up buildings are reflected in it upside-down. It’s a poor, blurry, grainy photo. Neither my old phone nor me are good at taking night-time pictures. But I think it still gives a sense of a city dressed up for a party, calm and festive at the same time.

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314d

Glædelig mandag. Just sending you a postcard from #Aarhus, just to say that I hope this week treats you well.

Aarhus, looking across the harbour. A cold bright day. The sea is deep blue and barely rippling. The sky is bright light blue with almost fake-looking fluffy white clouds hanging low in it. On either side of the port opening across from us, we see a triangular apartment block and geodome and a giant angular industrial crane. Sailing serenely through the middle of the otherwise empty sea, the sightseeing boat Helene of Aarhus. An historic boat with two decks and paddlewheels, it is white with red trimming and multicoloured bunting. It shines out against all the startlingly bright blue. The boat’s old-fashioned style makes it look as if it’s sailing in from the past.

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290d

There’s so much to be anxious about right now, so I thought you might like to know that they painted the night sky inside the bus shelter outside the Ole Rømer Observatory.

Aarhus. On the road outside the Ole Rømer Observatory, named after another famous Dane, Carl Nielsen. A broad clear road in Kongelunden, the Royal Woods, with trees on either side. Looking straight at the bus shelter, one of the city’s iconic mushroom-shaped bus shelters designed in the 1960s by furniture designer Poul Cadovius. A low concrete mushroom-shaped shell with standing room and a little bench inside. The council commissioned artists to paint them with local motifs. Artist Ekaterina Poliakova painted the night sky in this one. As you wait for the bus, you are surrounded on three sides and above by a black night sky with a map of the stars and constellations and galaxies, their names written beside them. Outside, the shelter’s shell is painted like a day sky – light blue with fluffy white clouds.

Seen from a side angle, so you can see the outside of the bus shelter with blue sky and white clouds painted on it, and night sky inside. Now follows same full description as on all photos in the toot, so skip if you’ve already heard it. Aarhus. On the road outside the Ole Rømer Observatory, named after another famous Dane, Carl Nielsen. A broad clear road in Kongelunden, the Royal Woods, with trees on either side. Looking straight at the bus shelter, one of the city’s iconic mushroom-shaped bus shelters designed in the 1960s by furniture designer Poul Cadovius. A low concrete mushroom-shaped shell with standing room and a little bench inside. The council commissioned artists to paint them with local motifs. Artist Ekaterina Poliakova painted the night sky in this one. As you wait for the bus, you are surrounded on three sides and above by a black night sky with a map of the stars and constellations and galaxies, their names written beside them. Outside, the shelter’s shell is painted like a day sky – light blue with fluffy white clouds.

Inside the bus shelter looking out, a sliver of ‘night sky’ above our heads with stars and galaxies. Outside, a car passing by and other cars waiting to turn the corner. Now follows same full description as on all photos in the toot, so skip if you’ve already heard it. Aarhus. On the road outside the Ole Rømer Observatory, named after another famous Dane, Carl Nielsen. A broad clear road in Kongelunden, the Royal Woods, with trees on either side. Looking straight at the bus shelter, one of the city’s iconic mushroom-shaped bus shelters designed in the 1960s by furniture designer Poul Cadovius. A low concrete mushroom-shaped shell with standing room and a little bench inside. The council commissioned artists to paint them with local motifs. Artist Ekaterina Poliakova painted the night sky in this one. As you wait for the bus, you are surrounded on three sides and above by a black night sky with a map of the stars and constellations and galaxies, their names written beside them. Outside, the shelter’s shell is painted like a day sky – light blue with fluffy white clouds.

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279d

Glædelig mandag. Just sending you a postcard from #Aarhus, just to say that I hope this week treats you well.

We’re on an outer pier at Aarhus Harbour, standing under a gigantic industrial lifting mechanism that covers the width of the street, rolling on rails on either side. The metal is bright turquoise-green with railings and beams and exciting spoked wheels criss-crossing at exciting diagonals. It looks like what I would have built with my Meccano set in the 70s if I hadn’t been given a Sindy doll instead. The cloudless sky and calm sea are deep blue. The mechanism’s geometry is casting nice shadow patterns. Badly framed by me, off-centre, through the gaps in the mechanism, we see the city: the waterfront library, the coast road, the mid-city skyline including the cathedral and the former customs house with turrets and spires.

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272d

Glædelig mandag. Just sending you a postcard from #Aarhus, just to say that I hope this week treats you well

Aarhus harbour after dark during festival week in September. Standing on the library terrace looking across the water to historic and modern buildings all lit up, many in rainbow colours. Just edging into view to our right, the prow of a local wooden trawler. It is covered in seaweed and barnacles; the wheelhouse is white with red and blue trim; the first letters of the boat name Jakob are seen in white. The water is black and still - the city lights and buildings are reflected, inverted, in it.

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258d

Glædelig mandag. Monday, again. But it’s the first Monday in December, so Monday's wearing a Christmas jumper and a Santy hat. But it's still Monday. Here's a postcard from #Aarhus to wish you a good day and a good week.

Standing inside artist Olafur Eliasson‘s ‘Your rainbow panorama', a 150m circular walkway with glass panels in a shifting rainbow of colours. It is 50 metres above the city, on the top of Aros art museum in mid-city Aarhus, Denmark. The glass colours, the time of day, the weather change the mood and hue of the 360º views across the city as you walk along. In this photo, it’s after dark, so the glass seems both transparent and black, dotted with reflections. Outside, we can see city lights – car lights, window lights, illuminated facades. Most prominent is the city hall clock tower, a symbol of the city, illuminated in green. And if you squint a bit, you can make out the twinkling lights of the city’s Christmas tree on the square outside city hall - Rådhuset. And the ice-skating rink in front of the concert hall – Musikhuset.

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251d

And suddenly it was Monday again, again. Glædelig mandag. Here's a postcard from #Aarhus to wish you a good day and a good week.

Mid-afternoon, the sun is just setting, we're shivering on an outer pier looking back across the freezing cold black-grey harbour water to the city skyline here in Aarhus, Denmark. There's a long line of historic and modern buildings on the coast road, many with yellow lights just come on in their windows as the sky darkens. There's an icy sheen on the water. Just sailing by, a local sightseeing paddle-wheel boat, white and red, decked in Christmas bunting and lights. Reflections of the white lights are twinkling around in the black water, as if the fish have a Christmas tree down there.

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‘Twas the Monday before Christmas. Glædelig mandag. Here's a Christmas card from #Aarhus to wish you a good day and a good week and a glædelig jul.

Taken in a snowstorm last December, a view of a snow-covered pier at the harbour, mid-city, Aarhus, Denmark. Falling snowflakes blur in streaks from a grey, snow-filled sky. In front of us, an expanse of grey-white snow with just a few footprints in it. To the right, a snowy slope with straggly tall grasses poking up through the snow. Rising beyond in the distance, barely visible through the fog of snow, the shapes of an oblong and a triangular building, misty and grey, like ghost buildings. To the left, a clump of bushy evergreen trees. Their branches are trimmed in snow, as if they’re auditioning for a part in a Christmas card. Everything is muted, almost monochrome. Except, in the middle, we see the city’s name spelled out in separate, giant, vivid red block letters, each about 3 metres high. A A R H U S. This is the Aarhus city sign that greets visitors arriving by sea. Not to be outdone by mere trees, each letter is Christmasly edged in snow too.

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230d

Glædelig mandag. The last Monday of the year. So here we are. Sailing out of 2024, on a collision course with 2025. Here Be Dragons. Here’s a postcard from #Aarhus to wish you a good day and a good week and godt nytår.

Aarhus, Denmark. Mid-afternoon, shortly before sunset, freezing, snow just about to start falling, standing on an outer pier at the harbour looking across the water towards the city centre. Across from us, the skyline with historic and modern buildings including the cathedral spire; the old custom house turrets; yellow light in all the windows looking cosy under swirling black snow clouds. The sea is cold grey. Just to our left, the prow (or who knows, perhaps it’s the stern) of a navy-blue boat with a big, low, wine-red deck, yellow lamps glowing in the approaching dark. Its name gleams huge and white in the dusk: Hermes Aarhus. The Port of Aarhus tugboat. From this perspective, nothing is moving and yet the sky and clouds and boat and city seem to be converging, sort of stormily.

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342d

Glædelig mandag. Just sending you a postcard from #Aarhus, just to say that I hope this week treats you well.

Aarhus Harbour, the community promenade. In front of us, the Endless Connection fountain by artist Jeppe Hein. A large fountain with huge swirling spirals embedded in the flat open ground. Water jets two or three metres high shoot up from different spirals at different intervals, then ultimately all at once. Adults and children love to play in it – finding a space inside the spirals, playing chicken with the jets, getting happily splashed or soaked when the spiral they’ve stepped inside goes off. The sky is half overcast, half sunny. The city’s spires and turrets rise behind the fountain. In front of us, a gleaming white bench that undulates like a roller coaster frames the scene. Half the jets of water are shooting up, sparkling in the sun. In the open half where the ground is soaked but the water jets are off for a second, a young girl is spinning around with her arms stretched out on either side, as if joyfully calling on the water to come out to play.

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223d

Monday. In a week with no festivities and five working days. Oh well. Glædelig mandag. Here's a postcard from #Aarhus to wish you a good day and a good week.

Aarhus harbour, mid-afternoon, january a year ago, just before sunset. The sky is cloudless and pastel blue with a strip of pink along the horizon. The pink is reflected in the calm sea. Beyond, to the left of the port opening, geometric skyscraper buildings - an oblong, a triangle, a clock tower - glow gold in the setting sunlight. On the industrial dock opposite, a 75 m blue harbour crane and warehouses including one whose facade is painted with a line-drawing portrait a man. Beside that, a facade painted in the colours of the Ukrainian flag. To our left, foreground, we can just see the prow of the a local sightseeting steamer, Helene of Aarhus. It is white with a red trim and festive lights twinkle on her mast. The surface of the sea right in front of us, stretching metres out from the water’s edge, is covered in a thin layer of ice. The ice has cracks in it that give the effect of a jigsaw puzzle of paving slabs.

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216d

The second Monday of January feels even more Mondayish than the first Monday of January, somehow. Glædelig mandag, nevertheless. Here's a postcard from #Aarhus to wish you a good day and a good week.

Sunrise over the harbour, Aarhus, Denmark. A few weeks ago. The sky is light grey and white with dark grey clouds. There's a stripe of sunrise orange behind the skyline of dark buildings, cranes and a greenhouse dome on the opposite piers. The sea ripples, metal-blue. At our feet, bordering the bottom of the scene, a little mound of rocks at the edge of the promenade. Growing up from a crack between them: a little hardy plant with green leaves and tiny, pretty yellow flowers. Delicate in appearance, yet thriving in freezing cold and stone, facing open sea.

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209d

Glædelig mandag. Today is Monday. There is a lot going on in the world. Here's a postcard from #Aarhus to wish you an uninteresting week in which nothing eventful or surprising or consequential happens.

Aerial view of Aarhus, Denmark, from the café garden on the rooftop of Salling department store. We’re 30 metres up, mid-city, looking east towards the harbour, late afternoon, a January sunset. Tall grasses on the roof frame the bottom and left of the scene. Beyond them, city roofs and landmarks including the cathedral spire, giant industrial cranes at the harbour, and tall oblong and triangular apartment blocks. The sky is cloudless and a lovely bluey-purple colour with a streak of orange-pink on the horizon line. The moon has risen, unusually bright and clear, high, the only object in the sky.

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293d

Glædelig mandag. Just sending you a postcard from #Aarhus, just to say that I hope this week treats you well.

Water’s edge, mid-city Aarhus. To the left, a pier lined by buildings in distinctive triangular and rectangular shapes. These include Kampanilen, a 19-storey red-brick apartment tower with a gigantic built-in glass window near the top that is an actual clock. Across the water, industrial cranes like giant’s chairs. The sky is light blue with wispy white clouds. The sea is rippling with luscious deep blues. Dotted around in the sea below cable tracks, bright white water-sport ramps. Alone on the water, in the middle, a wakeboarder. They have zoomed from the left towards where we’re standing, creating a wide wake of white foam that stops abruptly in front of us as they’ve just turned around to go back. An energetic sight.

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286d

Glædelig mandag. Just sending you a postcard from #Aarhus, just to say that I hope this week treats you well.

In the gardens on top of Salling department store on the main shopping street in the centre of Aarhus. We are 30 metres above the city, looking east to the harbour and coast and open sea. Tall grasses in the roof garden frame the bottom of the image, bending in a breeze, glowing vivid green in sunlight. Beyond, the city – deep blue sea and deep blue sky, mostly clear but with low lines of fluffy white clouds low on the horizon. Between us and the sea, the city skyline, dominated by the 93-metre-high spire of the redbrick cathedral with copper-green roofs. Jutting up in different places, other landmark buildings, modern and historic. The feeling of the scene: we are peacefully a part of the city, in the heart of it, yet outside the bustle – an aerial oasis.

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202d

I woke up and not only was it Monday, but it was still January. Oh well. Glædelig mandag anyway. Here's a postcard from #Aarhus to wish you a good day and a good week.

A December morning, not long before sunrise, water’s edge, mid-city Aarhus, Denmark. The sky is cloudless dark blue with orange on the horizon line.The sea is calm dark blue with orange reflectiobns. On the opposite piers, silhouettes of buildings and cranes in different shapes and heights. Sailing by the port opening, a gigantic cruise ship, one of those that has room for about 5000 guests. Dots of warm yellow light glow from windows in the ship and in dockland buildings. Just where we’re standing, festive lights twinkle from decorations on the stern of a boat anchored to our right and wrapped around the promenade railings. From this perspective, the railing lights criss-cross the whole bottom half of the scene and the giant ship is sailing across them.

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195d

Happy First Monday Not In January! Glædelig mandag. Just sending you a postcard from #Aarhus to wish you a good day and a good week.

Aarhus harbour after dark during festival week at the start of September. We are standing on the promenade in front of the library, where the Samsø island ferry docks. It’s for bikes and pedestrians only. There’s no ferry right now, just the white railings of the gangway, all lit up in a criss-cross of vertical and horizontal lines. Beyond, the harbour water is calm and black below a black night sky. Across the water, historic and modern buildings are all lit up, many in rainbow colours. There is a big variation in shapes and heights, giving the illuminated skyline a sense of a wavelength. The lit-up buildings are reflected in the pond-still sea. It’s a poor, blurry, grainy, messy snapshot that no self-respecting tourist board would put on an actual postcard, but there’s party light and colour and a sense of civic festiveness, I think.

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188d

Glædelig mandag. Yes it is Monday, but it is also the ‘Winter holiday’ here in Denmark. Our 'half-term’, when many people are off for the week. Here’s a postcard from #Aarhus to wish you a good day, a good week and – if you’re on holidays this week - god vinterferie.

The promenade, mid-city, Aarhus harbour, Denmark, a slightly snowy dawn a few weeks ago. You can't see it, but we are standing on the community basketball and football pitch that's surrounded by netting and wooden benches. We're looking through a gap between them. The bench is covered in white snow that borders the bottom of the scene in horizontal lines. The netting above is dark with big loops, framing the upper half of the scene at a cocked angle. The sky is purple-blue with a vivid orange flash on the horizon where the sun is about to rise up from behind the opposite dock. The dock is in silhouette, dominated by a 75 metre angular crane rising into the sky like a gigantic robot giraffe.

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