Skagen to Sweden

Skagen was lovely once the weather decided to play nicely. When we arrived it was cold and wet so we had a wander around the town but being a Saturday afternoon there wasn’t much open so we stocked up on some groceries and headed to our accommodation for a lazy afternoon. First impression of our AirBnB was not good but once inside we were comfortable with enough room to cook and lounge around. We woke up to sunshine and we had a plan for what we wanted to see, the cape at Grenen where the two seas, Skagerrak and Kattegat meet as it is only a few kilometres north of Skagen at the northern most point of Jutland. To get to lands end you needed to take the 30 minute walk along the beach, Skagen Odde, considered to be one of the largest spits in the world. But once there you were well rewarded with the visual of the two seas meeting and crashing waves against each other. I seriously doubt the photos will do it justice and it is understandable why swimming is forbidden.  Next stop a large shifting sand dune that moves 20 metres per year with the wind pushing the sand around and quickly removing any trace of footprints. The sand is definitely fine. 

We had read about an old disused lighthouse that had been buried, abandoned and then re-exposed by the elements so off we headed down the west coast. They have built a new internal staircase and access is free after you do the kilometre walk through paddocks and over the dunes. It was necessary to keep the lens cap on the camera and your mouth closed for fear of sandblasting your lens and removing the enamel from your teeth. The lighthouse keepers residences have long gone with only foundations and bricks scattered around and the church that was also there was removed many years earlier. Again the dunes are moving inland and the lighthouse will eventually fall into the sea in a few years time.

Final stop and part of a recurring theme was a buried church, Dens Tilsandede Kirke, that had been abandoned due to sand migration. All that remains is the tower that they have again opened up to the public and you can climb to the top, - a great idea..... once at the top we looked out to see hoards of people heading towards us so thought we should make a run for it and get down the single access spiral stairwell before they started coming up but we were too late. I reckon 40 or 60 people came up before we could send a message down to stop coming up for fear of the whole upper platform collapsing! Once at the bottom we saw probably another 100 young people waiting to go up and another bus load arriving. I wonder if it is still standing as i reckon they would have all tried to head up at the same time and there was no exit until they stopped coming. Very irresponsible tour guides. A great day touring the countryside and both sides of the peninsula.

Heading to Gothenburg today on the ferry and kind of wondering if we may have made a mistake. Our thinking was to catch the ferry over rather than backtrack to Copenhagen. We would then have a couple of days exploring the city before driving down the west coast and across the bridge to Copenhagen in order to return the car and avoid the fees for dropping off in Sweden. The only problem with that plan was the £80 ferry fee and the wasted day sitting at the ferry terminal and three and a half hours on the ferry. Hindsight suggests we probably should have just driven back to Copenhagen on the motorway (after all you can do 130kph) and therefore saved on the ferry, bridge toll and train back to Malmo in Sweden. Not really a problem but ... local knowledge is a wonderful thing.