A lot about being a tourist is doing touristy things. You can’t, for example, go to Paris and not see the Eiffel Tower. Whether you want to or not, you ARE going to be a tourist. And that is 100% okay. We expect it, we encourage it, we look forward to it. Go touristy things!! Rah rah.
But. Every once in awhile, we get invited into the inner circle. Today was one of those days. Squee! Helle, our bike tour advocate let us in on the location to a secret fortress. She was very emphatic in first telling us that this excursion, side quest, adventure was in NO WAY endorsed or supported by the tour company. In fact, this side quest isn’t even sanctioned or approved by the municipality. Enter at your own risk, if you will.
Woohoo! We are in.
The trek to Nimis, a made up monarchy/republic took us down a very sketchy patch of land which just added to the naughtiness of it all. We finally arrived at the largest fort I have ever seen. Made completely of driftwood and nails, it is over 100 meters in length, has many towers over 15 meters tall and has used over 16000 nails to hold everything in place. It is both flimsy and surprisingly sturdy.
We take a deep breath, say a little prayer to the safety gods and dive in. Wow. It is so impressive. Somehow we made it through the labyrinth of sticks and driftwood without 1. gouging our eyes, hands, feet or knees on any of the hundreds of nails sticking out, 2. tripping on the uneven ‘floor’, 3. braining ourselves on the branches coming out of the ‘walls’ willy nilly or 4. falling through the floor.
Once through the fort, we made it to the rocky (boulder-y?) shore and saw a huge sand (rock) castle. This is the District Headquarters where children of all ages can get their own pirate certification. Love it!
This 1.5 hour excursion was amazing. The artist, Lars Vilks, created and repaired it over the span of 40 years and has since passed away but friends of the project still maintain it when needed.
Oh…the rest of our day? Biking along the coastline and through farmland under bright blue skies.
I’m not sure how the days can get better than this.
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