Coronavirus: Pandemic does not stop octogenarian couple's love across the Danish-German border
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Since the border between Denmark and Germany closed last month to contain the spread of the coronavirus, Mr Karsten Tuchsen Hansen, 89, from Germany, and Ms Inga Rasmussen, 85, from Denmark, have spent time together every day at the Mollehusvej border crossing.
PHOTO: REUTERS
MOLLEHUSVEJ BORDER CROSSING (Denmark/Germany) • She drives from the Danish side, in her Toyota Yaris. He cycles from the German side, on his electric bike.
She brings the coffee and the table, he the chairs and the schnapps.
Then they sit down on either side of the border, a metre or two apart.
And that is how two octogenarian lovers have kept their romance alive despite the closure of the border that falls between his home in the very north of Germany and hers in the very south of Denmark.
Every day since the police shut the border to contain the virus, Mr Karsten Tuchsen Hansen, an 89-year-old retired farmer, and Ms Inga Rasmussen, an 85-year-old former caterer, have met at the Mollehusvej border crossing to chat, joke and drink, while maintaining a modicum of social distance.
"We're here because of love," said Mr Tuchsen Hansen two weeks ago.
The couple's unlikely romance began in Denmark two summers ago, in slightly less sentimental fashion.
Mr Tuchsen Hansen, carrying a grand bouquet of flowers, was on his way to drop in unannounced on another elderly Danish widow he had known for decades.
But before he reached her house, he met Ms Rasmussen as they both were in line at a strawberry stand beside a traffic circle.
Rather taken with her, he decided against visiting the first woman and gave the flowers to Ms Rasmussen. He then invited her to dinner in Germany and the pair soon grew close. Ms Rasmussen began visiting Mr Tuchsen Hansen every day.
That happy routine came to an abrupt halt on March 13, when the Danish government announced it would close its borders the next day to all but people travelling for work.
But the couple continued to date at a road that was blocked by police with a flimsy plastic barrier.
Soon their story made the rounds and they became regional celebrities, drawing journalists and residents from both sides of the border to visit their picnic site.
But the couple has received one visitor with slightly more mixed feelings. It was Ms Kirsten Hansen, the woman to whom Mr Tuchsen Hansen had originally planned to give the bouquet, two summers ago.
She had not known about Mr Tuchsen Hansen's amorous intentions: He did not tell her he had intended to visit.
She only learnt about the near miss from the flurry of recent news coverage.
"Hey!" she said, laughing. "Those flowers were meant for me!"
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