Dashing around Denmark in a Porsche Cayenne, Stephan Wilkinson finds surprising beauty in a truck built for speed

Denmark has a secret. This little country, half the size of Maine (not counting Greenland, which Denmark still owns), is home to the world's least-known yet loveliest official scenic-roads network, the Marguerite Route. "Oh, we haven't talked about that for ten years or so," admitted the lady at the Danish Tourist Board in New York. Even so, the Marguerite Route still winds for about 2,200 sometimes disconnected, always haphazard miles through the Danish countryside.

<p>My co-pilot, Susan, and I called it the daisy route since that's what's painted on the little&#151;and occasional&#151;flower signs that beckon motorists to turn left or right, often down roads so small you're convinced you've been led into some Danish farmer's driveway. We negotiated the daisy route in a Porsche truck. There is such a thing. It's called a Cayenne.</p>

<p>Little known in Europe, since it's intended largely for the SUV-crazed U.S. market, our early-production Cayenne S occasions everything from blank stares to looks of what-travesty-is-that horror when other drivers see the Porsche crest glowing golden on the hood of an SUV rather than a sports car.</p>

<p>Get used to it, people. There are lots more where this one came from.</p>

<p><b>Day One: Copenhagen to Odense, 202 miles</b><br>
Susan and I lunch in Copenhagen with my Danish friend Mikkel Gertner to get some local driving tips. Actually, I've never met Mikkel before, but for more than a year he and I have been arguing and advising, commiserating and communicating electronically with each other and hundreds of other Porsche fanatics on an Internet bulletin board for owners of older 911 sports cars. I feel I know Mikkel pretty well, and when he shows up in a lovely silver 911 Carrera just a year newer than my own 1983 bright yellow 911SC, it's clear we are kindred spirits. Even though he is probably half my age.</p>

<p>Mikkel warns us that Denmark has ridiculously low speed limits&#151;a maximum of 68 miles per hour, which in Germany, Italy, or England would make you a moving speed bump&#151;but that most enforcement is done not by highway patrol cars but by cameras inside unmarked vans parked along the side of the road. At the time, I figure we have travel-writer immunity. But we later learn that the crown prince, Frederik, is widely known as Turbo Prince since he gets so many speeding tickets. So apparently nobody has immunity, journalistic, diplomatic, or otherwise.</p>

<p>The plan is to flee Copenhagen via the westbound E20 motorway and head straight for the island of Fyn, between Zealand (the main Danish island on which Copenhagen sits) and Jutland (the peninsula that grows like a thumbs-up out of Germany). We'll take one diversion, to the excavated Viking fort at Trelleborg, near the west coast of Zealand.</p>

<p>The fort is a mysterious artifact, built to an exact geometrical pattern&#151;a huge, perfect circle with four precisely situated longhouses, each within an interior quadrant, plus a carefully sited arc of identical longhouses outside the fort. The meaning of all the math has been lost to time, but it does show that by the late tenth century, the Vikings were pretty good contractors.</p>