After travelling through southern Funen we reached Årslev, south of Odense. This was not a stop for a historic town centre or a major attraction. For us, the interesting part was the countryside around Ibjergvej, where we checked two very different places for the motorhome.
The first was a simple gravel parking area beside the road. It was useful enough for a short stop, but there was an important restriction for us: according to the sign, vehicles over 3.5 tonnes were only allowed to park there between 7am and 7pm. That immediately made it unsuitable as an unrestricted overnight option for a heavier motorhome. Apart from a rubbish bin, there was very little there anyway.
We then checked the other parking area at 11E Ibjergvej, and this was much more interesting. It is a small motorhome parking place beside the countryside, with four motorhomes officially tolerated, ponds nearby and several walking paths starting almost directly from the parking area. It is close to the road, but the setting is much quieter than the first stop, with horses and open land around it.
The reason the area looks unusual is that this is part of Tarup-Davinde, a landscape created from former gravel pits. Gravel was extracted here for more than a century, leaving behind a large area of hollows that later filled with water. Today there are more than 70 lakes, together with paths, swimming areas and sections that have been reclaimed by nature. One of the main access points is at Ilebjergvej 11E, only a few minutes’ walk from Lille Ibjerg Lake.
That made Årslev more worthwhile for us than the town itself. It was somewhere to leave the motorhome and walk around a landscape that would otherwise be very easy to drive past. The lakes are not natural in the usual sense — they are the remains of industrial extraction — but the area now feels much more like a recreational nature reserve than an old gravel quarry.
Årslev itself is a fairly ordinary small town with a railway station and good connections towards Odense and Svendborg. It was also once the centre of its own municipality before the Danish municipal reform of 2007, when it became part of Faaborg-Midtfyn Municipality.
There is another connection nearby that is much more famous than Årslev itself. Carl Nielsen, probably Denmark’s best-known classical composer, grew up just south of here near Nørre Lyndelse. His childhood home survives as a small museum. Nielsen was born in 1865 into a large, relatively poor family; his father worked as a house painter and village musician, and music was part of his life long before he eventually became internationally known as a composer.
For us, though, Årslev remained a practical and relatively short stop. Of the two places we checked, the simple roadside gravel parking had too many limitations to be particularly useful, especially because of the rule for vehicles over 3.5 tonnes. The second stop beside the lakes and walking trails was easily the more interesting one, and it was the part of Årslev that made the detour worthwhile before we continued towards the Odense area.