"Ven" a Ven Travel Page by deptlads

Ven (or Hven in Danish and old Swedish) is a small island in the middle of the Öresund strait between Sweden (Skåne) and Denmark (Zealand). It is a charming, largely rural place with just 300 or so permanent inhabitants - boosted in the Summer by the large number of visitors who come for the numerous activities the island offers.

Ven's main claim to fame is that it was home to 16th century astronomer Tycho Brahe's observatory "Uraniborg". This was our main reason for visiting in May 2008 - as well as it being another island to add to our list!

We were really pleased that we went, as we had fantastic weather and there is much more that I would have liked to do there than we could fit into the three hours or so that the ferry schedules allowed for.

We are big fans of Tycho Brahe, and had been wanting to visit Ven for some time to see the site of his famous "Uraniborg" ("Castle of the Heavens") observatory.

Actually, we were very pleasantly surprised by how much there is to see here even though there is almost nothing left of the original castle. It is well worth the trip, particularly now that the new Tycho Brahe museum has opened.

There are regular scheduled ferry crossings from Landskrona to Bäckviken
on the Ventrafiken ferry Stjerneborg. The crossing takes about half an hour and costs SEK 80 return. There are also summer ferry routes from Helsingör and Copenhagen on the Danish side.