Today we had to do about 20 miles in a northerly direction to take us to the island of Ven. It was a beautifully sunny day and remained so all day but the wind, sadly, was blowing straight down the Øresund so it was engine time. The route took us past the entrance to Copenhagen itself and parked outside were no fewer than 4 cruise liners, poor Copenhagen. The sound was full of boats, ranging in size from the large liners, through to coastal vessels and innumerable yachts, most of them enjoying the downwind ride but a fair few still sailing when travelling in the opposite direction – they’re either out for a day’s sail or their boats are much better at travelling upwind than CW is!

By 12:00 we had arrived at Ven’s largest harbour, called Kyrkbacken. The German pilot says something like ‘can be crowded during high season’ and it was absolutely right, it was packed to the gills and as such, even if we had found a space, we wouldn’t have liked it so we left them all to it and decided to try for the other side of the 2 mile x 1 mile island, a harbour called Bäckviken, which is smaller but is home to a couple of ferries to the mainland. We had an option of anchoring off the southern point of the island in flat water in the lee of the land and that was our backstop if Bäckviken proved equally crowded. It actually wasn’t but every space was taken, bar one at the inner end of the harbour with some old looking permanent fenders in place. It looked like the spot owned by a fishing boat but wasn’t in regular use so I decided to gamble and tie up there. Sometime later a small boat crewed by a father and his young daughter, tied in behind us. He was American but his mother was Swedish and he had come to live with his family here in Sweden. He regularly uses this harbour and he assured us that he had never seen a fishing boat in this space but I was still not confident about leaving CW unattended in case the owner of the berth came back. However, a little later a fisherman ie a local appeared and he told me that it was OK to remain so I was happy. Indeed, soon after that a Najad 343 came and rafted against us so we couldn’t have moved even if we wanted to!

The reason why I was keen on leaving CW was that I wanted Owen & Geraldine to see the museum and grounds of the house where one of Denmark’s most famous people lived – one Tycho Brahe. Julie and I had been here before, on 30^th May 2013 to be precise, and rather than re-invemt the wheel, here is what I wrote about him then :-

Ven’s main claim to fame is the fact that, for a brief period in the late 16^th century, it was a centre of scientific endeavour, thanks to one man, Tycho Brahe. He was a Danish nobleman who was trained in the scientific methodologies of the time in half a dozen universities in Germany and elsewhere. His passions were astronomy, astrology and alchemy – during the renaissance these subjects were seen to be intertwined, as man wrestled with trying to understand how God had made the universe. Indeed, it could be argued that physics is the descendant of these subjects, as man tries to find a universal theory of matter ie how the universe works. Anyway, Tycho came to the attention of the King of Denmark, Frederick ll, when he discovered a new star in the Cassiopeia constellation and concerned that this talented man might leave Denmark, he gave him the island of Ven as his fiefdom. Now this was bad news to the 50 families eking out a living on the island, who fondly imagined that the land they were farming and seas they were fishing in was theirs and when Tycho arrived and demanded that they pay him taxes and worked for him for two days in every week, they were less than pleased but hey rules is rules and the King set them!

Tycho was a diligent and accurate observer and he set about measuring and recording the movement of the planets and constellations, trying to ascertain whether we moved around the sun or whether everything moved around the earth. So accurate were his measurements (remember Gallileo hadn’t invented the telescope yet) that it was 300 years before better measurements were made.

Tycho didn’t work alone, he had many helpers and visitors so many in fact that for two decades Ven was seen as one of the most important locations for scientific research. One visitor was  the mathematical genius Kepler who was able to use Tycho Brahe’s measurements to prove his equations that the planets had an elliptical orbit and this work, in turn helped Isaac Newton formulate his revolutionary theories on gravity. In short, Tycho Brahe is seen today as being one of the five most important people who helped us generate our understanding of the world and its’ place in the universe and, I bet like me, you’d never heard of him!!

Tycho had built himself a palace in the centre of the island (why not, if you have access to free labour?) and it is here that the museum was sited, inside the shelter of a deconsecrated church and about a 20 minute walk from the harbour. The road rises steeply from the harbour and at the top of the hill, there is a huge bike rental company, with literally hundreds of yellow bikes for rent. Walking down the road was a little tricky as there were so many cyclists about – the bike rental business was doing well! From the road there was a pretty much 360° view over the island and the sound. We could see Copenhagen in the far distance and the Øresund bridge and to the north you could just make out the magical castle at Helsingør, where we will be in a couple of days’ time. There were a couple of houses worthy of note that we passed, one in particular got my interest as it was a typical Danish long house, maybe built when the island was under Danish ownership.

We spent about 30 minutes in the church, reading about this extraordinary man. One thing I didn’t mention last time was his nose, or lack of one. Apparently, his lack of a nose was down to his having been bested in a duel whilst a student in university, when his opponent’s rapier took away a piece of his nose. For the rest of his life, Tycho wore a false nose made of brass and perhaps, certainly amongst children, this makes him more memorable than what he actually achieved scientifically! His manner of death was also suspect, he died quite suddenly after ingesting a meal in Prague but it was rumoured that it was due to foul play but more recently, it is thought that he succumbed to a bladder or kidney infection and he died at the age of 54, 11 days after the banquet.

Tycho was meticulous in his measurements. In order to ensure that his instruments were quite steady (here I don’t mean fairly, I mean absolutely) he had an underground chamber dug so that they were free from any likelihood of being disturbed by the wind and it was in this chamber, with replicas of them that we attended a short film and sound presentation to try to capture the atmosphere at the time. It wasn’t that successful in our opinion and by the time it was over, the museum and its grounds were closed but the young man that ran the film unlocked the gate to the garden for us and we were free to wander about. The garden had been designed to try to resemble that which would have been around during Tycho’s time. There were areas dedicated to medicinal herbs and areas for food plants, including an orchard. It was very peaceful there, apart from the frenetic activities of hordes of bumble bees comprising a number of different species, little and large, red, orange and yellow, all hard at work drinking nectar from giant thistle-like plants called Cynara cardunculus and on the bed of Hissop, additionaly there were a large number of butterflies. Note to selves, plant both in our garden at home.

We’d enjoyed our little excursion back to the 16^th century but now it was time to dodge the bikes and head back to the boat. As there were signs about stating that barbecues were only allowed in the municipal area and we had no idea where that was, wherever it was it would not be as convenient as doing so next to the boat so we decided against it and had the remains of the spaghetti Bolognese instead -  now miraculously transformed to a chilli, together with an additional tin of chilli past it’s sell by date and it was enjoyed by us all. A good day, hopefully tomorrow would be as enjoyable.