As it was a stay-in-harbour day we could have the luxury of a lie-in, which meant that we didn’t have breakfast until 08:00, which is late for us. It was a showery day and some of them were quite heavy but the weather was set to improve during the afternoon so after coffee on board Calypso we decided to catch the 12:27 bus into the main town on Samsø, called Tranebjerg, some 5km away. I’ve not said this before as we genuinely hadn’t felt it but a couple of months ago, someone commented on how expensive Denmark had become and then I remember disagreeing. Now, we have formed the same opinion and the bus fare is an example. Five kilometres is less than 3 miles but the return fare for the 4 of us came to 150DK or nearly £20.00 which seems a lot to me. Whilst on the subject, groceries in the shops are pricey, here is what we paid today (11^th), using a generous exchange rate and not the paltry one that we are now enduring thanks to our political mess :- 2 sweetcorn cobs £1.50 (special offer, normally £2.30), 1 litre yoghurt £4. 00, 250gm butter £2.80, 1 cauliflower £2.40, 2 x Danish pastries -  £3.00, 1 x ordinary loaf of bread £4.00. I think you’ll agree that this is pricey and oh, by the way, these are supermarket prices, not from a  little local store.

Anyway, back on the bus, there is a sort of happy ending. The bus driver told us that the cheapest way of getting to and from Tranebjerg was to buy a 10 ride pass, we would use 8 of them. However, it seems that distance is not counted so on the way back, we had a circular tour of the island which made the ticket, overall, quite good value! There wasn’t much to see in Tranebjerg other than an old farmhouse that was part of a museum which we didn’t go into (price again!) so we went in search of lunch. The large, pleasant owner of the café suggested a local delicacy which consisted of two filo pastry, fairly large cupcake sized cases filled with a light cheese sauce enriched with asparagus and chicken pieces, very tasty. To follow, as part of the menu, was home-made ice cream with chocolate chips in and served with a rhubarb puree and a soft meringue sauce, again, delicious. Coffee was included and for once, we thought that this was reasonable value at around £12.50 per head. It certainly makes a change from sandwiches!

The owner advised us that there was heavy rain forecast for the afternoon, so we opted to catch an early bus back and it was then that, by accident really, we caught a bus that would eventually take us to Ballen but it would go around the houses (and fields and beaches and harbours) first. As it happened, it was a nice thing to do and we enjoyed our hour long bus ride. Back to our respective boats until 18.00, and then we convened on board Calypso where Gill made a tasty risotto embellished with the uneaten  warmed-up barbecued sausages from last night and we contributed some ham to the mixture and also some pate on small pieces of bread for nibbles with our aperitifs. Another pleasant evening passed, becoming more so as it progressed, aided by some rather tasty limoncello that Richard had in the freezer…