<p><b>Day Three: Aalborg to &#197;rhus, 293 miles</b><br>
Just outside Aalborg is an enormous Viking burial mound, Lindholm H&#248;je, on one of the rare pieces of moderately high ground in paddle-flat Denmark. The Germans were the first to "excavate" the mound&#151;when the Wehrmacht dug trenches across it (God knows why in peaceful little occupied Denmark) during World War II. Serious archaeology began in 1952, and today there's a charming life-of-the-Vikings museum near the mound. One museum diorama shows a Viking getting his hair done. Despite their reputation as pillagers, looters, rapists, and all-around Nordic bad boys, the Vikings were in fact dandies in mascara, and it is said by some historians that marauding Vikings were more seducers than rapists. After all, they were fascinated by facial makeup, took great pains with their beards, mustaches, and braids, and&#151;best of all &#151;bathed once a week. Who, other than Thyra, could resist?</p>

<p>Winding generally northward toward Frederikshavn, the daisy route takes us through villages that look like the toy pottery collections you see on knickknack shelves: houses of yellow and blue, beige and brown and brick&#151;an entire pastel palette. Saeby, with a crowded little yacht harbor and a big white church, makes you realize how well conceived the daisy route is. At every turn and diversion, it says, "Come this way, you have to see this! Turn down here, you won't regret it!"</p>

<p>In Frederikshavn, it's time to refuel the Cayenne, to the tune of $102 for a tankful of Danish midlevel gas (the 98-octane super the Porsche specifies is rarely available). Boy, wouldn't I love to see some of my favorite SUV zealots deal with numbers like that down at the 7-Eleven pumps. "I require this armored assault vehicle to take my children to soccer practice" would quickly turn to "Golly, I never knew you could get five people into a Honda Civic."</p>

<p>Skagen (pronounced <i>skahn</i>), at the northern tip of Denmark, is a Danish Truro. Just as painters and photographers have been drawn to the light of Cape Cod, Skagen was popular with painters for much of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries because of its glowing, pure "Skagen light."</p>

<p>Some 50 artists of consequence came to Skagen over the years, and in the small Skagens Museum is as remarkable a collection of single-school art as I've ever seen. Winslow Homer's work wouldn't be out of place here. One popular oil shows a group of naked Danes sprinting toward the surf, high-stepping and hilarious, knowing they're about to plunge into water well on its way to ice. ("Our summer is so short that we put on T-shirts and shorts the minute it goes above freezing," Mikkel said as we sat at an outdoor cafe in Copenhagen, me bundled in a jacket while Danes all around strolled in tank tops and tees.)</p>