European Adventures - 26. Odense and Hans Christian Anderson

26. Odense and Hans Christian Anderson

The first thing we needed to do when we drove downtown in Odense was… you guessed it, park the car. By now we know, use your credit card, but it still is an adventure because we don’t know how really close we are to the attractions. 

Old Odense

The old city in Odense is not for through traffic. It gets a bit more complicated because

Homes and Shops Interspersed

of the one way streets. Only residential traffic is allowed on the old cobblestone streets. The old roads are narrow; some are blocked off for traffic altogether. 

It’s a walking town, on the National Register of Denmark. Yes, full of tourists but not with the shops full of junk merchandise, it’s nice. This part of Odense is a heritage place; kept old with pride. Of course they have some shops.

 

HCA Museum

Our first stop after we found parking in a large Concert house underground garage was Hans Christian Anderson (HCA) Museum.

No, this was not where he used to live; this is a modern, newly built museum.

Naturally, one pays admission. We took the special, 5 in 1 deal. 

The Story Teller, Loved by Children

Cutout

 
But I ask you now, what do you show in this museum?

What legacy did HCA leave? He was not a rich man, he was not a good looking man, and he was a man beloved for his mind, for his fantasies, for his writings, for his story telling abilities. He used paper cutouts to demonstrate what he was talking about, made puppets by cutting shadow lines from paper. 

Jack of Hearts, Dancers in a Bottle, Pirate Cutouts

So naturally, there are paper cutouts, kind of awkward looking fantasy cutouts all over this museum. There is a display of his clothing, a map of his travels throughout Europe, as was the fashion then. Silhouette cutouts were used in many rooms and it made the museum feel weird.

Self Portrait Cutout

 

HCA was a poor boy; his father was a shoemaker, repair man. His mother a washerwoman, who washed people’s clothing. He lived in the poorest part of the city. He

Drawing Representing HCA and His Mother

 left nothing of great value but his 150 tales… his 1000 poems…his 50 dramatic works. HCA was a writer, a dreamer, and when he grew up he was a man who loved children but HCA never married. He was a story teller, had always something to say but out of his mouth came mostly fantasies. Reality, having a job, working hard, saving money was not his world; he was an artist, a word smith. 

The Princess and the Pea

He was lucky in that he met people who saw his potential, saw his fortitude and helped him with getting ahead. He traveled, yes, but the king or a nobleman became his benefactor. 

The Ugly Duckling by Salvador Dali

And Denmark now loves him, Walt Disney loved him, every child on Earth knows of him, knows his stories. Some people only remember the story, 

never knowing it was Anderson who wrote it. Yes, he deserves a museum, but it must have been a challenge to put things into each room of the museum. So, Denmark used their fantasy, related to HCA and displayed lots of paper cutouts and pictures of his stories in each room. It was a strange museum, but yes, it had a museum shop. Naturally!

Photo circa 1868 of HCA's Birthplace

HCA's Birthplace is Still There

Within the preserved old town of Odense is the house HCA lived in when young. We walked over to it to see it. It’s part of the 5 in 1 ticket. The house is small, not impressive but that is where HCA lived and dreamed. The Anderson family did not live in this house alone, they shared it. Today we see a whole house; it was a lot less then. A note on the wall of this house said he was a ‘peculiar’ child. He did not play with other children; he would sit in the backyard of this house and watch a tree for hours, or watched and followed a butterfly or a bird with his eyes. He lived inside his head, he did not interact with other children his age by running or jumping. He lived solely within his head. He was polite, he was friendly but he was ‘peculiar’.

HCA is Much Revered in Odense

Old Odense

The whole area of the old city of Odense is filled with small, quaint, brightly colored houses, small sidewalks and cobblestone streets. It must have been a hustling place when HCA was young, noisy, and a bit smelly, given the poor sanitation then, the horse droppings, the chickens in the backyard, etc.

Today, this downtown is rather subdued, quiet and has a museum feel to it.

Was the Workhouse With a Charity School in the Basement

We walked around a bit, made a big circle even outside this historical part of Odense and past the old Workhouse, where the bottom of the building used to be the ‘charity’ school, the school HCA attended, where he learned his ABCs.  His illiterate mom made sure he went to school. We saw the spot where HCA’s mother used to wash clothes near the river, today, there is a Statue of HCA overlooking this park-like setting. Then, it would not have been so idyllic.

Used to Be the Prison Building

We passed the prison building, a rough place in the years HCA grew up but he was a sensitive boy. He remembered all those places and used them in his writings later. The Anderson family was friends with the warden of the prison, so they used to visit often. HCA, many times refused to enter, he waited outside for his parents to come back.

Clothes Washed Here By HCA's Mother

HCA’s father passed away when he was in his pre-teens, after that HCA became a ward of the State, his mother having a difficult time as it was.

HCA had to work. He tried to be a tailor, tried something else when it was reported that he was abused and he ended up at the Theater of Odense. His voice was a good soprano until puberty took that away, but by then he had learned how to write. The Theater Director kept HCA on; helped as much as he could. HCA became an actor for a while.

We Followed the Footsteps to See Points of Interest in HCA's Life

Still, HCA was ‘peculiar’ for his entire life. You can read about his life here; some people did much more research than I did.

He wrote well, some stories are not the fairy tales we are used to, but real life occurrences that just encouraged HCA to write, to put them on paper. Was he an Idealist, what was HCA?  We will never know, but we had a good time searching out HCA’s starting points in life. I liked Odense.

The Cathedral

Buildings, daily things in his life, the way he lived, everything was a source of inspiration to HCA. When we passed the Town’s Cathedral, a sign spelled out that this building inspired him to write the story of ‘The Red Shoes’. 

Story of The Red Shoes - Condemned to Dance

HCA loved to travel, to the point that it almost became an obsession with him. He visited Charles Dickens in England, even lived at Charles Dickens’ house until Dickins had to literally throw HCA out because he never understood that he had overstayed his welcome. HCA lived and saw the world differently.
 

HCA's Father Was a Shoemaker

There are some strange stories about HCA when he grew older. Nobody understood why he would not want to marry. Why he wrote love letters to male friends that were on the verge of almost indecency. At least it was considered ‘indecent’ in HCA’s life time. 

HCA was a complicated man, yet his mind?  Amazing how he could see the good in everything, turn mishaps into a lesson and then share it with others and top it all off with a lesson to be learned for everyone.

The Little Mermaid

I thought Odense would be like so many tourist places I have seen but it was better, more insightful ‘if’ you look at things from Hans Christian Anderson’s point of view of things. Nobody could write like he wrote, he was unique.

Driving back to the hotel was weird, I could not remember the streets I came in on, I am so glad we had the GPS, it led us on a tour of Odense, using side streets, residential areas but it was another tour I would never have taken if not for this GPS. Odense is an old town, spread out, worth a visit.

We had a good time in Odense, is this town for you?  Sometimes you just have to take a chance and go and find out.

The Nightingale

When we got back to the hotel it was ‘over-run’ by bicycle racers. They all came by truck and car, their bicycles tied to the vehicles; lots of people walking around in bicycle shorts and jerseys. Somehow this picture put the nice hotel down a notch. What used to look cozy now was spoiled with those bike enthusiasts. Those folks just did not fit in. No, they were not noisy or badly mannered, their garish truck decals, their screaming advertising on their clothing just did not fit the ambiance the hotel tried to project. It was a clash of cultures.

We left the next day…. The bikers were still there when we left. Am I a snob?

Outside the Museum

Enjoyed Our Walk Around Old Odense

The Emperor's New Clothes