European Summer Adventures: Odense and Hans Christian Andersen

Today we took a trip to Odense to see the Hans Christian Andersen house museum (we also went to the Egeskov Castle but I decided the blog post would be way to long if I I talked about everything so you get to read two instead!)

Entrance to the museum

Joe and Amanda at the entrance with the stage behind us

So we left around 10am and had invited one of Joe’s co-workers to come with us. We got to Odense after about an hour drive and found the museum. As we were getting there they were finishing up a play of the fairy tales just outside the museum so we watched for the last few minutes then headed inside. We found out another show would be performed at 1pm so we planned to make it back out to see that one.

The museum was excellent. H.C. Andersen was one of the most famous people to have lived in Odense. His life was extremely interesting (more on that later) and he came from the most humble beginnings possible. We started in “The Age” section and learned about all the different things that were happening during H.C life time (1805-1875). From there we learned a little bit about Hans himself. Apparently he was described as an ugly and repulsive man and was not very well liked by many people. He suffered from toothaches but was mostly healthy during his life. He died of liver cancer but aside from that he was really paranoid about getting sick and managed to stay in good health. (The infant mortality rate during his life time was 60%)

We then learned about his art. Not only was H.C. a talented writer but he also would amuse the children with his paper-cuts and sketches. In fact he often had small pieces of paper in his breast pocket of his jacket that he would use to sketch while traveling or visiting others.

Then we got to his life. This poor guy did not have it easy. His life started in a small home in the poor section of Odense. His father was a shoe maker apprentice and never made much money. His mother was a washerwoman. H.C. was born in a home that may have housed 4 other families at the time of his birth and his parents did not even own the home (a relative was living there at the time). H.C. was born only 2 months after his parents were married and we learned that in that area of Odense 30% of children were born out of wedlock. H.C. didn’t talk much about his birth or childhood and was often teased about it. His father died when he was young after he joined the army and returned home very ill. Hans mother was left to take care of the family and provide for Hans.

The house Hans Christian Andersen was born in

The room that H.C Andersen was likely born in at the home

Eventually he was taken under the wing of a wealthy family and was sent to Copenhagen for school. During this time H.C. was starting to write plays and after much struggle with school and his artistic career finally made it. He traveled all over Europe and even met Charles Dickens. Interesting fact since H.C. didn’t speak any English when he was visiting Charles he had a difficult time communicating and Charles’ children described him a boring. Hans thought differently of this visit and assumed it had gone very well.

H.C. had terrible luck with woman! (Maybe it was because people thought he was ugly?) He fell in love with 3 different women, none of which returned the affection and one even told him she saw him more as a brother (ouch!) So H.C never did marry but was able to be the “uncle” to many children of his close friends.

We also got to see several of his personal effects. We saw his top hat, and his first bed he had. Apparently during this time no one in Denmark really had beds so the person who ordered it for him had no idea if Hans would even fit on the bed which I thought was really funny. We also learned that when visiting places Hans would carry a rope with him in case of a fire. With the rope he would be able to exit the window of his room without any problems.

The fairytales started coming in 1885 and eventually he wrote 156 of them. The coolest part of the museum was a library filled with books in all the different languages his works have been translated into, 157 languages in all. It was fun to see all the places that are reading his works!

Towards the end of H.C’s life he lived in 3 rooms in Nyhavn in Copenhagen. Joe and I actually saw this house when we were visiting Copenhagen for my birthday which is pretty awesome. During the time he was at Nyhavn many American children took up a collection for him and sent $200 to help him be “comfortable in his old age.” Joe and I thought it was really funny that the children in the States thought he was so poor and wanted to do something to help out.

Eventually he became to sick to live on his own and moved in with some close friends. He died of liver cancer in 1875. His life was interesting and amazing and it was so much fun to learn about it.

At 1pm we took a break from the museum and went to watch the play. It had several of the fairytales and despite the fact that most of the show was in Danish it was still fun to watch.

Outdoor performance of the fairy tales

After this we drove down to Egeskov Castle (see second entry) then drove back to Odense to walk around more. We got back to Odense pretty late so everything was closed but it was fun to walk around and see the town. We grabbed some pizza for dinner and wandered around one of the parks. We saw several churches and happened up the Odense Tarteletter festival (Tarteletters are a traditional Danish food with little pie shells filled with yummy-ness). The tickets were sold out and even though a woman was nice enough to offer us one free ticket because he boyfriend couldn’t come we declined and Joe promised me some before I leave. :)