(no subject)

[ellarien]

It's traditional, in my corner of the astronomical community at least, for a week-long meeting to include an afternoon outing. So this afternoon, two coachloads of astronomers toured the Jylland frigate and the little town of Ebeltoft, as well as climbing to the 137-meter top of one of the highest hills in Denmark and visiting an ancient dolmen and stone circle. The weather was perfect, the guides were amusing and informative, and a good time was had by all.

The frigate was built in the 1860s, part of the replacement of the Danish fleet after it was confiscated by the British at the Battle of the Baltic, and fitted with a steam engine and retractable propeller as well as 2000 square feet of sails that could move her at 14 knots. Wooden warships were pretty much a dead end by then, and she was both the longest ever built and one of the last. She saw action once, standing off an Austrian ship in a two-hour battle. What stands in the dry dock at Ebeltoft today, carefully supported and haavily restored, is at least 60% modern, but quite impressive, and fascinating to a Patrick O'Brian fan. (It seems like cheating to use a modern crane to set up the rigging.) As usual, you can click through the photo to see more on Flickr.

The town had its heyday as a walled market town in the 1600s or thereabouts, and then went into decline as the harbor deteriorated and trade shifted elsewhere, so that it got to keep a lot of its half-timbered buildings instead of replacing them with modern brick.

From the hill, we could see blue see in two directions, and wind turbines in threes and fours, lazily turning in the distance. And there were poppies, bright scarlet in the fields, and lupins in colorful clumps by the highway, and wild roses.