Ven

On Friday, May 2nd, we went to the island of Ven. First we drove to Landskrona, about an hours drive. Then we took the ferry across to the island of Ven. When we got off the ferry, we walked up a steep hill and rented bikes. We got a child size bike for Tipton, and adult size bike for Dave, and an adult size bike with a trailer attached for me and Lilli.

We got off to a rough start - Tipton hadn't ridden a bicycle in a long time and was having major issues. But after a while he settled down and we were on our way. Because of Tipton's bicycle/confidence issues, we decided to stick to the main road. The main road goes straight through the middle of the island, from one side to the other. (There are several bicycle paths that will take you all over and around the island, but they are not paved.)

About halfway across the island we stopped for a picnic lunch. We sat on a bench in front of the Tycho Brahe museum.

Lilli is always looking to see what Tipton is doing - she wants to be just like her big brother!

There was a rope along the road in front of the museum. The kids had a great time playing with it (not much car traffic along the road.)

Tipton and Mommy find where we are on the map and where we're going to go next.

This is the main road.

Standing in front of the Tycho Brahe museum. The museum is housed on an old church. Tycho Brahe was a famous astronomer. He used to own the entire island of Ven (it was a gift from the Danish goverment/monarchy/whatever.)

There are giant fields of these bright yellow (Raps) flowers all over Sweden. So bright they hurt your eyes.

That building in the background is the entrance to Tycho Brahe's underground observatory. He built his observatory underground so that the inclement weather (wind, rain, etc) would not destroy his instruments. We took a little 'tour' of the observatory. Really, we stood in a little glass enclosed room and looked out into the observatory while listening to "Tycho Brahe" tell us about all of the instruments.

More bright yellow flowers. I'm telling you - they are everywhere!

Not sure if you can tell from this picture, but in you can see Denmark on the left side of the river and Sweden on the right side of the river. The island of Ven is centered in the river between the two countries. I thought it was really neat that you could see both countries at the same time.

The kids pose with a giant statue of Tycho Brahe.

There were all sorts of scientific-themed games in the field behind the Tycho Brahe museum. The kids were particularly excited about this one, although we never could figure out exactly how to play it. (The instructions were in Swedish and Danish.)

We rode our bikes to the other side of the island and walked around outside a church. The church is on a cliff. Here's the view:

Here's the view of the church from down on the beach.

We walked along the beach and Daddy tried to teach the kiddos how to skip rocks. Lilli was content to just throw the rocks into the water for a big splash.

Tipton searched for the perfect rocks for skipping. Then handed them to Daddy to skip.


He had a great time running around on the beach.



The hill back up from the beach was very steep. And the bikes were very heavy. I was struggling to push my bike (with Lilli and all our stuff in the attached trailer) up the steep hill, so Dave voluntered to trade with me. I would push his bike and he would push mine (with the trailer.) Sounded like a good deal to me. So I was walking along next to Tipton and he was also struggling a little, so I reached out to steady his bike. Tipton miscontrued my attempt at helping as a desire to push the bike for him, so he let go. And he ran up to help Daddy push Mommy's bike up the hill. So I went from pushing one bike, that although was heavy was still only ONE bike, to pushing TWO bikes up the hill. Two very heavy bikes, of different heights. Dave thought this was hysterically funny, especially since Tipton was helping him to push the bike & trailer.


I just love this sign... Is it a warning or a suggestion?


After we returned the bikes we walked down the hill to wait for the ferry. And had some ice cream.



This is the ferry boat.


This is the line to get onto the ferry. You can see the Biljettkontroll sign (tickets.)

Our last glimpse of the island as we boarded the ferry.

Of course, the kids favorite part of the day was riding on the ferry.

You can see that Lilli really enjoyed her ice cream (she was still eating it as we got onto the ferry.)

Goodbye, Ven! Thanks for a great afternoon!