Thursday, June 12th, 2025
Bad Bramstedt, Germany to Skagen, Denmark
Distance travelled – 544 kilometres

As usual, I woke up early, but that, unusually, was because my alarm went off. It was six o’clock and as we had asked for a seven o’clock breakfast, that worked well. Of course, initially, I had absolutely no idea at all about where I was. I did, however, feel quite considerably refreshed.

Outside the window the sun was shining brightly and a fine day was very much in prospect.

The breakfast was pretty standard, but with good variety and the rolls were still warm. I obviously had not drunk enough the previous day as I was terribly thirsty. Tea (from my own bag, not ALL English people want Earl Grey) seldom tasted better.

We ate up, Lucie packed up (she has a wonderful method that, best of all, involves me only to the point of keeping well out of the way) and were on the road to Denmark before half-past eight.

We made our way back to the highway by reversing our route of the previous evening and I pointed the front wheel northwards towards Denmark.

As is usual, when travelling on motorways, there was not much that was notable to see, except maybe, the Kiel canal. We swept over it on a bridge high above its significant width. Very impressive – and a lot of spadework in those non-mechanised days.

So as to pay for our petrol in Euros, we intended to fill up at the last gas station in Germany and, as it was the start of the day, we did the first one-hundred and fifty or so kilometres in one hop,

Petrolled and coffeed up, we crossed into Denmark where there was a large number of police checking quite a few cars in a roadside tent. Unusual, to say the least.

Danish motorways are very different to those in Germany. The surface, just for a start, is predominantly bitumen where the Germans tend to concrete. The signs are different too, sometimes it was hard to make out exactly what they meant and the lead-in signage for service stations was more abrupt. I ended up overshooting one – which did not go down too well on the back seat ! The wind turbines though, are still everywhere.

But it was the roadworks that surprised me the most. They extended for kilometre after kilometre after kilometre. The passing lane was narrow, which was theoretically fine for the Harley, but it was often appallingly surfaced – which was not fine at all. One high ridge nearly introduced me and Lucie, the hard way, to some pigs from Germany. To avoid upsetting any vegetarians reading this, I will not say that, at least, my swift corrective action saved OUR bacon

It had turned from a lovely morning into a simply glorious afternoon. The sun was shining brightly, the fields and trees were green and there were long clumps of wild purple and pink Lupins growing on the verges. Dennis Moore would have loved it !

A strange thing, perhaps worthy of note to travellers, happened at the next petrol station. The pumps were wholly automatic and, seemingly, divorced entirely from any on-site responsibility. There was an “English” option in the on-screen languages but, at a critical moment it slipped back into Danish. I pressed a button that I thought would cap the amount of petrol I could pump at 900 DKK – and duly added about 170 DKK of petrol to the tank. I thought that was it, but even eighteen hours later, when I wrote this, the 900 remained resolutely “blocked”. We had pre-exchanged, onto Lucie’s pay card, what we thought would be enough Danish money for our double transit of the country. This block put a big, un-spendable dent into those funds. I hoped it would be freed up again before we got back. (Note: It unblocked after about two days, but if you were travelling around just in Denmark, it could become an issue).

The traffic was quite thin and still quite sedate, those fun-loving Danes have some pretty draconian penalties for speeding that stretch to vehicle confiscation in really serious cases. There was still a LOT of roadworks everywhere and even finding our way into a service station for a coffee was almost more effort, in retrospect, than the worth of the result. The Danish pastry was lovely – but it cost a small fortune !

Just outside of the port of Hirtshals, from where our ferry would leave the following day, we turned off to the right in the direction of our hotel for the night, in Skagen.

The more minor road then wound its way eastwards through some extremely beautiful countryside for about forty-five kilometres. I think that, if I had to describe my impressions of Denmark, this is what I would use as a template. Rural greenery, cute and well kept little houses and stretches of green forest (that also had the capability to look dark and forbidding in places). The whole fairy-tale thing, the Brothers Grimm – with wind turbines ….

Skagen is a really sweet little town and sits right at Denmark’s north-eastern tip. Most of its streets are more like little lanes and a thirty kilometre per hour speed limit is in place throughout. We found our lodgings, the Hotel Marie (Havneplads 6, 9990 Skagen) easily and what a truly delightful place it was. From our initial warm welcome, to our spacious room, to the generally high quality air of the whole place, it was a little gem.

We quickly changed into our hiking gear and rode the three kilometres out to Grenen, which is the point where waters of the Skagerrak, to the north and the Kattegat, to the east, come together at the end of a gently curving area of sand dunes and rough grass.

it will not surprise you to know that (much to the casual amusement of someone very dear to me) …..

…  I have photos of me standing in the Kattegat,

the Skagerrak …..

…. and, of course, right in the shallows at the very point where they meet and with one foot in each. I cannot help it, stuff like that does it for me.

Luckily, I was able to persuade Lucie to join me in the shallows at the very point …..

In the dunes there were many second World War blockhouses and bunkers, mostly sadly, daubed with graffiti.

More, curiously, there was what looked, at first sight, like a neolithic grave, with a big boulder perched on top. This was more modern than I first thought and was, in fact, the final resting place of the Danish poet Holger Drachmann. A sign announced that Mr Drachmann wrote a song that Danes traditionally always sing on mid-summer eve (apparently). What a shame we were a week early ……

We rode home, got clean (the shower was absolutely top notch too) and then wandered the very short distance to the waterfront in search of something to eat. There was a line of little restaurants only a few metres from the boats moored in the small marina basin.

We chose, Jollehusett, the third one along as it was the least crowded. Our waitress was actually a Swedish girl who said it was easier for her to speak English than to make the subtle linguistic adjustments she needed to speak Danish …..

Lucie chose steamed Haddock (a traditional ”Danish” way of preparing fish) and I, naturally, had fish and chips. Both were delicious and well done and my chips had definitely seen a potato.

Our beers, a Carlsberg, alcohol free, for Lucie and a Tuborg, alcohol heavy, for me, went down well after a long, warm day.

After dinner, we wandered the cute, cobbled streets and eventually succumbed to the siren-song of an ice-cream parlour where we enjoyed cornets of rum and raisin with lemon sorbet (Lucie) and vanilla and chocolate with a big “C” for me. Delicious !

Skagen is quite small, so it was a short walk back to the hotel. Sadly, perhaps, this took us past a pair of cannons ( no prizes for guessing what that meant)

and a scary sea mine.

Then – and this will not surprise you either, it was back to our room where I immediately travelled to dreamland.