Two parallel streets with a church in the center: that’s plan of Christiansfeld.

This is the planned city of the Moravian religion in Southern Denmark. Moravianism is an early form of Protestantism out of Bohemia. You know these Protestants aren’t going for fancy—what you get here in Christiansfeld is symmetry, order and pruned trees.

And honey cakes.

The Moravians founded the town in 1773 after some intense negotiation with Denmark’s King. The town planners laid out the town with social order in mind.

They had a house for widows and another house for Sisters (young, unmarried women). There was also a house for Brothers.

(The Brother’s house and the Sister’s house were separated to prevent bow chicka wow wow.)

Tonight I’m not staying with the Sisters or the Brothers but in this lovely UNESCO-protected hotel.

The Church interior is simple. Though you can’t tell from my picture, the floors are spread with sand.

The town specialty (original c. 1800 recipe) is honey cakes, so clearly I needed to try them (for strictly research purposes). I was also craving something hot and the local grocery store had only two hot foods; one was a gigantic lasagna and the other was a small tin of…something. So I bought the tin and some rye crackers to eat as my picnic at the church. The tin turned out to be hot liver and I ate it slightly adjacent to the church square since there was a wedding party taking photos there and I imagine they didn’t want me eating liver in the background of their treasured memories. The honey cake was a sweet finish and never was a more nutritious picnic eaten at a UNESCO site.

How I got to Christiansfeld: two trains and a bus from Copenhagen. (Can I just say, I was never in Denmark before yesterday, but I was able to get up this morning, take an early train, transfer to another train in under 5 minutes, transfer from that train to a bus (like I had to find the bus station and then the correct bus) in 9 minutes) and I was able to do this in a country where I don’t speak the language—infrastructure envy: I have it).

Where I slept: Brødremenighedens Hotel.  Price: €130 for a single. Recommended: yes.