Bridges

As I mentioned previously, Denmark has a lot of islands of various sizes.  Between the two largest islands there is a very long bridge, called Storebæltsbroen, or the Great Belt Bridge.  The entire complex is 18 km long, but it's made of two spans with an island between.  The island is also the site where a train tunnel goes under the sea for the length of the Zeeland (western) part of the bridge.  The Eastern span is the second longest span of a suspension bridge in the world.  The Western span includes a deck for cars and a deck for trains.  Riding the train from Copenhagen to Odense is an interesting experience because when the train gets to the western edge of Zeeland it plunges into a tunnel and goes under the sea until it gets to the small island between Zeeland and Funen.  On the island, the train emerges from the tunnel and joins the bridge traffic for the Eastern half of the bridge.  On our way to Odense it was a bit startling to emerge from the tunnel and find the train suspended on a bridge over the sea.  The sea was somewhat foggy, so we came out of the darkness of the tunnel into a dim foggy afternoon, with the ocean as far as we could see.  

We've been impressed with how well the Danes and the Dutch make use of the ocean winds.  In both countries there are modern windmills along the ocean and even extending in lines out into the ocean.  When we stopped at the Deltaworks in the Netherlands, we noticed that the wind was particularly strong and there was a berm extending out into the ocean with windmills evenly spaced along its length. In Denmark there are also lines of windmills that appear to emerge from the ocean.  It seems like these must be anchored on a strip of land or rocks extending out into the ocean, but we couldn't see it.  In any case, both countries seem to be taking advantage of the strong winds to generate power.  

Sometime in the next couple of days we will also travel across the Øresund Bridge that stretches between Denmark and Sweden.  This is also a combination of a bridge and tunnel, and was a joint project between Denmark and Sweden to link the two countries.  Before it opened in 2000, the only direct way between the two countries was to take a boat.  These small boats were a crucial link during World War II, as they became the means for the Danes to save the majority of the Jews in the country from the Nazis by evacuating them to Sweden in fishing boats.  This is quite an extraordinary story, and involved massive cooperation among ordinary Danes to help shelter and protect Danish Jews in occupied Denmark as well as extensive help from Sweden to give them refuge.  Because Sweden was neutral, once Denmark's Jews had crossed the sea between the two countries into Swedish territory they were safe.  The Nobel Prize winning physicist Niels Bohr, a Dane, went to the Swedish government to beg for shelter for the Jews of Denmark and to request that the Swedes make regular radio broadcasts to let the Danes know that they would be welcome in Sweden.  These hourly broadcasts gave hope to the Danish Jews who were still in hiding, and the entire operation kept a remarkable 95% of Denmark's Jews from being killed by the Nazis.