Sent Off With a Bang

We’re nearing the end of our time in Scandinavia; tomorrow we’re heading into Copenhagen so we can more easily get to the airport for our Sunday morning flight to Bordeaux (via Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport).

Because we’re about to leave, today was spent cleaning up the house, washing clothes, and vacuuming and filling up the car so we leave everything in Hald the way we found it.

Around 4:00 in the afternoon, we drove over to Frederiksværk to find a gas station, then we stopped at the shopping street to pick up some tea and coffee to replace what we had consumed.

As seems to happen to us on a regular basis during our travels, we stumbled into an annual event. This time, it was Frederiksværk’s Kanonfredag (“Cannon Friday”) Festival:

Nobody could really tell us what this event was about, other than that it happens just once a year. All I could find out about it later on the internet was that it’s hosted by the local trade association, by which I think they mean the Chamber of Commerce.

We wandered around, poking our heads into a couple of the shops and watching the bands and concessionaires set up, but when we got to the end of the pedestrian mall, we were in for a surprise. There were a bunch of guys priming miniature cannons!

We thought it was a joke, but then we noticed that they all had official looking hats and jackets on with the logo: “Dansk Kanonér Selskab,” the Danish Cannon Company.