Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Cost and Hours:
30 kr; late June-Aug Mon-Fri 11:00-16:00, Sat-Sun
11:00-15:00; Sept-late Oct and April-late June daily 11:00-15:00; shorter
hours off-season and closed Sat-Sun; Brogade 3-5,
www.arremus.dk
.
▲Bottle Peter Museum (Flaske-Peter Samling)
—This fascinating house
has 750 different bottled ships. Old Peter Jacobsen, who made his first bottle
at 16 and his last at 85, created some 1,700 total ships-in-bottles in his life-
time. He bragged that he drank the contents of each bottle...except those con-
taining milk. This museum opened in 1943, when the mayor of Ærøskøbing
offered Peter and his wife a humble home in exchange for the right to display
his works. Bottle Peter died in 1960 (and is most likely buried in a glass
bottle), leaving a lifetime of tedious little creations for visitors to squint and
marvel at.
Cost and Hours:
40 kr; late June-early Aug daily 10:00-17:00; April-late
June and early Aug-late Oct daily 10:00-16:00; shorter hours off-season and
closed Sat-Sun; Smedegade 22.
Visiting the Museum:
In two buildings facing each other across a cobbled
courtyard, you'll see rack after rack of painstaking models in bottles and cigar
boxes. Some are “right-handed” and some are “left-handed” (referring to the
direction the bottle faced, and therefore which hand the model-maker relied
on to execute the fine details)—Bottle Peter could do it all.
In the entrance building, you'll see Peter's “American collection,” which
he sold to a Danish-American collector so he could have funds to retire. One
