Going to Louisiana, but no banjo

It was different sailing south from Göteborg towards Copenhagen. The water is again saline, there is a bit of tide and swell and there are real fishing harbours where the boats leave at sunset to fish all night.

The weather was lovely, and the wind just right to carry us along. A pod of dolphins followed us for a while, using our wake for fun, until a bigger, better boat came the other way.

After crossing from Sweden to Denmark, watching for ships in the channel, we arrived in Humlebaek, having had recommendations to visit Louisiana, Denmark’s most visited modern art museum.

The museum was originally the private home of Alexander Brun and was named after his three! wives all called Louise.

The surrounding parkland is shared by the harbour, a graveyard and the museum, with its famous sculpture park, all on the banks of a small lake.

We walked through the graveyard, and agreed that it was the most beautiful location to be buried. The gravestones are natural boulders, engraved with the names of the dead, nestling into the luscious borders along the woodland paths.

The museum has over 100 sculptures by famous artists in its section of the park – Henry Moore is well represented. The restaurant looks out across a pond at Jean Dubuffet’s Manoir d’essor.

We ate outside, overlooking the Øresund , with Alex da Corte’s homage to Jean Miro (and to Big Bird) a real draw to the many kids enjoying the park.

Along with a wacky exhibition of da Corte’s humorous work, we enjoyed a photographic exhibition of Elizabeth Taylor’s private memorabilia.

There was a fascinating if challenging installation by Forensic Architecture, showing how this human rights organisation uses architectural modeling to reconstruct crime and disaster scenes, including the explosions in Beirut Harbour, Grenfell Tower, and torture chambers and missile attacks in Assad’s Syria.

On our walk back to the harbour we found Fred. There is always a Fred, even in a simple graveyard, someone who needs a mausoleum.