We reached Kerteminde on the east coast of Funen and spent time around several parts of the waterfront. The setting was one of the main reasons to stop: the town sits between Kerteminde Fjord and the Great Belt, so the harbour, marina and beaches are all very close to the centre.
We checked Kerteminde Marina, which looked promising but was less successful for us in practice. Even in mid season it was busy, crowded and rather chaotic. The few pitches in the front row were in a very good position, but there were only a handful of them. Most of the remaining motorhome spaces were scattered around large marina car parks shared with cars and boats on trailers. It was also noisier than we expected. This was one of those places where the photographs and waterfront location were better than the actual experience of staying there.
Elsewhere around Kerteminde we found a simpler coastal parking place with a very good view. Toilets and showers were available roughly 400 metres away, so it was a much less elaborate option than the marina but still useful for spending time beside the water. We also later checked a parking area on Klintevej. The view there was very good and there was still plenty of room even with other motorhomes present, but the nearby road made it too noisy for us to consider it a particularly good place for a longer stay.
The town itself is closely tied to its harbour. Kerteminde received market-town privileges in 1413, and during the following centuries it became particularly important as the harbour serving Odense. Grain and other goods from inland Funen passed through here, and the harbour was at its busiest during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
Several buildings around the old harbour still come from that period. One of the oldest is the former customs house, originally built around 1590. Nearby, part of the old Andresen merchant complex dates from the sixteenth century, while its warehouse from 1640 became known as the “Swedish Storehouse” after it was taken over during the wars with Sweden.
The centre is small, and the harbour is never far away. That makes Kerteminde easy to visit on foot once the motorhome is parked. There is a mixture of old merchant buildings, fishing and leisure boats, newer marina areas and beaches rather than a large formal historic centre.
Kerteminde also became unusually important in Danish art. The painter Johannes Larsen grew up here and later lived with his wife Alhed in a house on Møllebakken. Together with artists including Fritz and Anna Syberg, they became associated with the group known as the Funen Painters. Larsen was particularly known for paintings and drawings of birds, animals and the Danish landscape, and his former home is now the Johannes Larsen Museum.
A few kilometres outside Kerteminde is one of the most important Viking sites we encountered on Funen. At Ladby, a Viking ship burial was discovered in 1935. Around the year 925, a ship almost 22 metres long was pulled onto land and used as the grave of a powerful man, traditionally referred to as the Ladby King. Horses, dogs, weapons, riding equipment and other valuable objects were buried with him.
What makes Ladby particularly unusual is that the ship grave remains where it was found. More than two thousand iron nails and spikes still show the outline and construction of the vessel inside the burial mound. It is the only known Viking ship grave of this type preserved in Denmark.
For us, though, Kerteminde itself was mainly about the coast and harbour rather than museums or individual monuments. The marina was more crowded and chaotic than we had hoped, while some of the simpler parking places around the coast gave us better views without pretending to be full motorhome areas.
Kerteminde was therefore a good coastal stop, but choosing where to leave the motorhome made a considerable difference. The town is compact, the sea is always close, and there is enough history around the harbour and nearby Ladby to make it more than simply another beach town on Funen.