Odense is best known as the birthplace of Hans Christian Andersen, born in 1805 in a poor part of town, and his story is the thread that runs through the place. The museum dedicated to him occupies several old houses in the centre of the old quarter, with yellow walls and cobbled lanes that have been tidied to look like a fairy-tale street. The tales, which include The Little Mermaid and The Ugly Duckling, were written long after he left, but the city has made a very good job of claiming him. The town's name goes back to the Viking age, and it means Odin's shrine, which tells you how old the settlement is.
Odense is the main city of Funen, Denmark's third largest island, and the place has a lively, student-filled atmosphere, with cyclists everywhere and a long river called the Odense Å running through green parks. The Funen Village, an open-air museum of old farm buildings, is a short ride from the centre and gives a good idea of rural life in earlier centuries. The city also has a reputation for music and for being friendly and unpretentious, a quality Danes call hygge, though they would never say so about themselves.
Riding in Funen is easy and pleasant. The roads are flat to gently rolling, with a good surface and clear signs, and they pass through small villages with thatched roofs, orchards and beech woods. There are few challenging corners, but plenty of pleasant ones, and the scenery changes constantly between farmland and coast. The ride toward Christiansfeld crosses the Little Belt Bridge into Jutland, and the Moravian Church town is a neat grid of yellow brick houses founded in 1773, now a World Heritage site. Be careful with speed limits and cameras, since fines in Denmark are high.
As a city of nearly a hundred and fifty thousand people, Odense has fuel stations on every main road and many places for coffee and pastries. The morning rush hour is busy but short, and the evenings are calm. The air in the old town smells of bakeries and wet cobbles, and in summer there is music in the squares. If you start here with a full tank and a good breakfast, the island rewards you at once.