Naboløs Bed and Breakfast - host article

Naboløs Bed and Breakfast
This might sound like a cliché - but the best way to describe Naboløs Bed and Breakfast is in fact - by citing the famous ballad written by Hans Christian Andersen:

Over where the road makes a turn
There lies a house so beautiful -
The walls stand a little crooked
The windows are very small

When you drive along the main road between Kerteminde and Nyborg, you are met by a fabulous site. On one side of the road - just before it turns sharply to the left - you see the Great Belt a couple of hundred metres from the house, and on the other side of the road you see a beautiful half-timbered, thatch roof house. It has all the trimmings: tiny windows, bluered doors and - not to forget - a very well kept garden with blooming rose bushes. The setting right there on Kertemindevej is indeed very pretty. Summer as well as Winter.

My visit takes place on a dreary, windy Autumn day. I step into the warm, cosy rooms, where I am bid welcome by candle lights, and the coffee cups are put out on the old mahogany table. Solveig sits down in the sofa. Whilst telling me about their place, her hands are moving at a quick pace, as she is knitting socks for her many grandchildren. We started our Bed and Breakfast in 1991, when the children moved from home, and the house suddenly became far too large for just the two of us. We were travelling in Normandy and stayed at a Bed and Breakfast. I then said to Johnny - my husband - that I would like to try this out myself. He politely said no thanks. However, not long after, we tried anyhow - just on a small scale.

Our first guest
It took a little while from the place being ready for visitors, till the telephone rang. The tourist office in Kerteminde were on the line, and they wanted to know, if I could host a guest, who was now in the tourist information. He needed a place to stay the next couple of days or perhaps three. I felt the excitement and joy about our first guest in my body when I said - yes, certainly. Well, then we’ll send him to your place, they answered.

I hurried out to pick a bouquet of flowers for the gentleman. I fixed some fresh fruit in a basket and put it in the room. Then I went around a made the place neat and tidy. I wanted it to look nice. The day went by, but our guest had not arrived. In the end we went out and did some work in the garden - a bit disappointed, but then suddenly we saw a face peeping through the hedge, and the gentleman said with a tired voice: She said, it was just outside the town… He had walked all the way from the centre of Kerteminde, 7 km from our place. He didn’t have a car, he travelled around as a street artist and his chart was standing on the market square in town. He then had to borrow my bicycle to get back and forth. Our street artist friend got a key to the house, so he could come and go as he pleased. We learnt this from our first guest: People will trust you, if you trust them.

Now we no longer just offer two double rooms. We have three lovely double rooms - one with space for an extra bed suitable for families and a lovely studio apartment with en suite toilet and bath. In the large living room we serve breakfast to our guests with homemade bread and marmalade.We have now lived for 25 years with guests in our home, which is open to everyone. We enjoy the many acquaintances, we have made, and the life our guests bring to the house, whether they be family or Bed and Breakfast guests. Johnny and I enjoy this tremendously.

Just now, I am hosting a small Polish-Danish boy and his father. I have learnt to say bird and fish in Polish now, well almost. The boy looks comforting at me, when I try and says: Well now it’s almost correct, Solveig - my father’s Danish is not that good either…