Vor Freisers Kirke

Off the ferry we decided, despite Katarina's obvious foot pain, that we'd try to get to that corkscrew tower, which was quite a walk away. However we were blessed enough to find ourselves passing the finish line of the Iron Man contest just as the winner was passing to loudspeaker fanfare in both Danish and English. And, by the way, we haven't yet once had to try out any local languages because everyone including bus drivers speak English better than even many Londoners.

At the Our Saviours church all the excitement of climbing the tower drowned out the pain signals from our feet. Our journey to the heavens began. But the ascent never seemed to end. The first 90% of the stairs were wooden but every few flights the style changed almost as though we'd entered a new tower and, unlike the fat round tower that was fat at the top as much as at the bottom, this tower narrowed more and more making some staircases too tight for my rucksack. Finally, we completed the many wooden staircases and found ourselves in daylight where the stairs continued outside spiralling on the outer walls of the tower creating a corkscrew appearance from the ground. These stairs were metal and very narrow so that the people above could only pass coming down by pushing our bodies together until they swapped places. At the very tip of the tower the narrowing reached such dangerous proportions that the width of the staircase was not even enough for a single adult to squeeze without forcing yourself into a space you were unsure of escaping. We'd reached the limit of our ascent about two metres from the tip and with our bodies pushed hard against the shoulder-high railings and the sheer drop just centimetres away. Our hands were trembling. And getting down was not easy, again contorting our bodies against the railing and apologising every time we step on a foot or my rucksack whacks someone's face. It's amazing how much confidence we still have in the work of engineers of centuries past.