Randers is one of those Danish cities where the reason for its existence becomes obvious as soon as you look at the landscape. The old town developed beside the Gudenå, close to the point where Denmark’s longest river broadens towards Randers Fjord. This was both a natural crossing point and an excellent place for trade, and Randers had already become important enough to mint its own coins around 1080.
We approached the city after finding a particularly peaceful spot in the countryside outside Randers, along Stokbjergvej. It was a small, slightly uneven and unpaved parking area beside a minor road, surrounded by a very pleasant rural landscape. There were no services, but it was completely free and exceptionally quiet.
Finding somewhere suitable for a motorhome closer to the centre was rather less straightforward. We checked several possibilities around Randers. The parking areas at Jernbanegade and Tørvebryggen were both conveniently placed, but we found them busy and noisy, with spaces better suited to small vans than a full-sized motorhome.
For our daytime visit, Brotoften was more practical. It was spacious enough that we had no difficulty finding room for our 23-foot motorhome and it was completely free. The nearby road made it noisy and we did not feel entirely comfortable leaving the motorhome unattended for a long period, but nobody bothered us and it worked adequately for visiting the area during the day.
The contrast between modern Randers and its old centre is surprisingly strong. Narrow streets, cobbles and surviving half-timbered merchant houses still reveal the medieval pattern of the town. One of its most interesting streets is Houmeden, which became permanently car-free in the summer of 1963. It is regarded as Denmark’s oldest permanent pedestrian shopping street – Copenhagen’s famous Strøget did not become permanently car-free until the following year.
Randers also played a dramatic role in Danish history. On 1 April 1340, the nobleman Niels Ebbesen and his supporters entered the town and killed Count Gerhard III of Holstein. The event became one of the best-known episodes in the medieval history of Denmark, and Niels Ebbesen later developed into something of a national hero. His statue now stands prominently in Rådhustorvet.
An altogether less violent Randers tradition involves gloves. Glove-making became so important here that during the eighteenth century it employed more than a fifth of the town’s inhabitants. Randers gloves developed an international reputation, helped partly by their distinctive scent. According to a particularly persistent story, Marie Antoinette slept wearing gloves from Randers because she liked their smell and believed they helped keep her hands soft.
That tradition has not disappeared. Randers Handsker, now known as RHANDERS, was established in 1811 and is among the world’s oldest surviving glove makers. Handmade gloves are still produced in Randers, making this one of the relatively rare cases where a craft that helped make a European town famous centuries ago remains alive in the same place.
The Gudenå remained fundamental to Randers long after the Middle Ages. For centuries large, flat-bottomed barges carried goods between the town and inland Jutland. On the upstream journey they were physically hauled along the river from the towpath. This commercial traffic declined dramatically after the railway between Randers and Aarhus opened in 1862, but stretches of the old towpath can still be followed today.
The river also creates one of the strangest contrasts in the modern city. Almost beside the medieval centre stand the huge geodesic domes of Randers Regnskov, enclosing tropical rainforest environments only a short distance from the Gudenå and its Danish wetlands.
Randers therefore turned out to be considerably more interesting than its first appearance suggested. Its story stretches from Viking-age trade and medieval rebellion to river barges, famous gloves and Denmark’s first permanent pedestrian street, while the Gudenå remains the thread connecting almost everything together.