The country of happy people…

A week in Denmark, the country consistently at the top of the ranking of the happiest people on the planet… A country of wind, sand and lighthouses that move in the dunes, as spectacular as welcoming, between the North and the Baltic seas.

Denmark is one of those countries that you fall in love with easily… A country where everything seems in its place, perfectly tidy, well in order, with open and welcoming people and gorgeous landscapes, even if the official government website claims that Denmark doesn’t really have any iconic landscape or feature to offer…

From one sea to the other (10/06/2024)

We are officially in Scandinavia (in fact, much faster than we thought because we were even surprised when, suddenly, we found ourselves facing the border and two Danish customs officers who asked where we were going and, surprised, if we REALLY came all the way from the South of Spain… 😁).

So… Auf Wiedersehen Deutschland and Hallo Dänemark!… And at the same time, bye bye the Euro for a little while, since from here, we move on to the Crowns (first Danish, then Norwegian, then Finnish …). We will have to wait until Estonia to find our dear Euro again… After the results of yesterday’s European elections and a whole morning calculating how many euros a Danish crown was worth, we reached the conclusion that, frankly, those who do not see the advantage of having the same currency and no borders between 27 countries have probably never got out from home…

We also went from one sea to another today. In less than 100 km, we went from the North Sea to the Baltic Sea, just to see what the east coast of Denmark looked like. And even if it’s hard to believe in such a short distance, the two coasts are totally different! Where the coast of the North Sea has huge tidal zones (i.e. large areas of mud at low tide), the Baltic Sea offers small sandy or pebble beaches, and the tides seem to be much less here. Maybe this is why, having barely settled in front of the sea for the night, we saw a small group of dolphins jumping around, just a few meters from the beach (we also saw jellyfish, but that’s is less exciting… 😉).

Here’s to our first kilometers in Denmark, the happiest country in the world (and persistently so) and the land of Hygge (pronounced “hooga”), a very Danish notion consisting, in short, in taking time away from daily stress to be with the people you care about – or even alone – to relax and enjoy the quieter pleasures of life. The Danish term Hygge has been officially recognised in the largest international dictionaries (such as the Oxford English Dictionary in England or the Larouse, in France) since 2017, and has obviously generated a lot of coverage in the press, magazines, TV shows. series, etc., etc. In fact, the term comes from the Middle Ages, where a similar word in Old Norse meant “protected from the outside world.” A bit like life in Marvin, actually… 🤔

Ok, time for a Hygge session walking on the beach… 😉

On the beach (11/06/2024)

We were treated to a lovely sunset on our little beach in the Baltic Sea last night, before the dolphin we saw when we arrived came back a few meters from us to say good night… This morning, he was still there, going back and forth from one side of the bay to the other. We concluded this was probably his hunting territory and he was going from one side to the other in search of food…

As for us, we headed back towards the West coast, and more precisely towards the coastal village (i.e. seaside resort) of Blåvand (with the little circle on the “a”, please…). The coastline on this side of the country is completely different, with large sand dunes covered with grass, fields or pastures on one side, and large tidal zones on the other. Sticks planted in the sand indicate the limit of the tides and… there is not much left between the sea and the dunes when the tide rises!… We were lucky, we arrived at low tide (or average), so we were able to enjoy the beach, covered with all kinds of shells, crabs and other bizarre creatures straight from the abyss, and also, unfortunately, a dolphin, stranded on the sand…

The western coast of Denmark is also covered with bunkers, which the Germans had installed there during the Second World War (for the record, although Denmark declared itself neutral at the start of the war, that did not prevent Germany from invading the country on 9 April 1940 and occupying it until the defeat of the Nazis on 5 May 1945). At that time, Hitler had a sort of “Atlantic Wall” built, covering the entire western coast of Denmark (among other places) with bunkers. These bunkers were buried in the sand and connected by trenches, but over time (and with the wind…) the dunes progress or recede and cause them to resurface on most of the country’s beaches. In Blåvand, rather than removing them, the municipality decided to transform them into works of art. While strolling on the beach, you then find four horses facing the sea (an allegory of their cousin from Troy, perhaps?…). That’s pretty good, actually… A nice nod to history in this small seaside resort which is still invaded by Germans today, but this time by tourists, during the summer months…

In Blåvand, we were also able to see what Danish villages look like. There are of course the famous modern Scandinavian-style houses, but also quite a few more traditional ones, with thatched roofs (some also combine modernity and tradition, with black wooden architecture, a metal frame and a thatched roof. It looks really great!). What is a little surprising is that all the houses have excessively large windows, when they do not simply have bay windows that occupy an entire side of the house. And since there don’t seem to be any curtains in this country, you can see everything inside (which confirms that the Danes have excellent tastes in interior design 😁).

We then headed towards Vadehavet (Wadden Sea) National Park, where we spent the night. Yes, Denmark is probably the only country where it is allowed to sleep in national parks (provided, of course, that you stay in designated areas, but given that these areas are rather far from any civilisation, that works for us!…). The park is known for the thousands of birds that pass through during migrations, but at the moment it’s pretty quiet (maybe it was the wind, but we didn’t see anything other than a few seagulls and a cormorant…). On the other hand, the landscapes are impressive! The place where we stayed is like a small peninsula, with a large island right in front and the sea all around, covered by a large forest with a mix of conifers and deciduous trees of all kinds. The trees get to the edge of the beach where, after a small cliff and a few meters of sand, the sea begins… We would have liked to stay closer to the water but the wind was impressively strong, so we preferred to stay sheltered between the trees…

First fjords… (12/06/2024)

Apparently, the weather changes very quickly in Denmark… It must be said that with such a strong wind, the clouds tend to pass VERY quickly… This morning, we had everything prepared to have our coffee on our little beach and get a little bit of sun, but by the time we had put our shoes on and got out of Marvin, it started to rain. We came back in, took off our shoes and… the rain stopped and the sun came back! 🤬

Second day following the western Danish coast to arrive at our first fjords. Well, we might as well calm down the euphoria right away, we’re still far from the Norwegian postcard fjords, eh! Here, the fjords are more like large (even very very very large for some) coastal lagoons. On the sea side, always these large dunes covered with grass which separate the road (and the villages) from the ocean, and just on the other side, the fjords, which extend more or less deep inland. The one we settled in front of for that night is the largest of all. Technically, it’s not really a fjord since it is connected to both the North Sea and the Kattegat Sea (the northern extension of the Baltic Sea). It is therefore more of a separation between the continent and the island of Nørrejyske Ø (or Northern Jutland), that is to say the northern tip of Denmark (which, if you look closely on the map, is separated from the continent around the city of Aalborg, approximately). But since Viking times, the Limfjord has been considered a fjord and subdivided into Bredning (like bays). We are facing the one located furthest to the west (the one that connects the fjord to the North Sea), which alone is 200 km² and 24 km long from east to west (the Limfjord is, in all, 180 km long from east to west)…

The fact is that the landscapes are still just as beautiful, with these large green dunes facing the sea or, like here, on the banks of the fjord, large heather moors where enormous woolly sheep quietly graze (seriously, the sheep are really, really big here!). The wind is still strong (but apparently, it’s quite usual around here), but fortunately, we are well sheltered behind a line of tall trees. On our left, the sea (well, the fjord…), in front of us, the tip of this small peninsula with heather moors, giant sheep, and pretty little wooden houses in the middle, and on the left, a field of… fir trees! Yes, it may be surprising, but you find fields of fir trees of all sizes almost everywhere around here, because it turns out that Denmark is the leading European exporter of Christmas trees and other decorative greenery, with more than 2.500 producers (in a country of barely 5,9 million inhabitants). It turns out that the sector is highly professionalized and recognised for its environmentally friendly and sustainable Christmas tree production. 👍

Before arriving in Denmark, we had also heard about Shelterplads on the internet. It turns out that the country has installed shelters almost everywhere, practically all of them free, for those who want to sleep in nature (or those who travel on foot or by bike, for example, and who don’t always want to pitch a tent or who simply want to be better protected from the rain). They are like wooden cabins, with a fire place and, often, a toilet nearby. There are Shelterplads all over the country, freely accessible, most often in wild and rather pretty places. Today we had one right next to where we were, so we went to see what it looked like and… it seemed to us like a really good idea!…

In summary, from what we have seen so far, Denmark seems to be a very pleasant country, where everything seems to have been intelligently thought out to make people’s lives easier (for example, the supermarkets have sort of mini-elevators that raise the baskets to the height of the checkout conveyor belt so that elderly people don’t have to bend down to empty their baskets.). Everywhere we had this feeling that everything is clean, tidy and in its right place… There are no poorly mown lawns or roads in poor condition. You can feel a kind of serenity reflected in the attitude of the people (incidentally, most of them perfectly bilingual or trilingual (Danish, English, German)). The rules are clear, well established, and visibly respected by everyone (as in Switzerland, you find wooden boxes along the Danish roads, with honey, potatoes or other, and a box to leave the money from what you took, all self-service…). On the environmental side, everything is not perfect, but we have seen very few roads that do not have a cycle path next to them, very few parking lots that do not have chargers for electric cars, and no (literally no) rest area or parking lot, even in the middle of nowhere, in the forest, deep in a national park, that doesn’t have a trash can and, for the most part, public toilets… This is perhaps what makes the Danes happy: a society of well-being where everyone respects the rules and knows that they can count on others to do the same, a State which clearly invests in this sense, to make life easier for its citizens, in an egalitarian society open to the world around… Lost in this deep philosophical thinking, we took advantage of the wind shortly weakening to go for a walk along our fjord. We were told you could sometimes see seals around there… 🤞

Gone with the wind… (13/06/2024)

There are places to sleep nicer than others, and sometimes, you come across a place like the one yesterday, where we would really have stayed for a few days if we didn’t have a ferry to take… The day started that morning with a good coffee on the beach, facing the fjord. We didn’t see any seal, but a group of Arctic terns fishing right in front of us, jumping into the water as soon as they saw a fish… Needless to say, it’s a bit better than waking up on a German Wanderparkplatz… 😉

Our journey today took us to the island of North Jutland, that is to say on the other side of our fjord, in the northernmost part of Denmark. Before continuing towards Norway, we enjoyed one more day in the dunes, the wind (even stronger today) and the sun. By the way, we are still quite far from the polar circle (and therefore, the sun continues to set and rise every day), but we had the impression for a while that the days were getting longer and the nights shorter and shorter. And indeed, after checking, we have almost no more night, and it is still daytime, even at 3 a.m. (I was sleeping peacefully, but Benjamin checked… 😁).

We already mentioned the bunkers that Hitler had installed along the Danish coast. Today, we went to see some others: the Løkken Coastal Battery. This part of Denmark is particularly subject to erosion. The wind is very strong and constant, and obviously, all this makes the dunes move. At Løkken, the bunkers that the Germans had carefully buried in the sand paid a high price. Here, the erosion is such that the coastline has retreated 90 m since 1945, creating a sand cliff and precipitating the famous bunkers 20 m lower, at the current level of the beach. It’s quite impressive to see these enormous concrete blocks planted there, in all positions, as if they had been dropped by plane… A little further away, one of them is still half clinging to the dune and, at another place, you can guess the corner of another which, at the rate of erosion, will not take long to meet the same fate as its fellows…

A little further on, it is a church which has borne the brunt of erosion. It was rebuilt a little further away, and a parking lot was created near its original location where you can still see the remains of the old building and a commemorative plaque.

Between the two, we find the Lønstrup dune, a sand dune which, on the seaward side, breaks into a 60 m high cliff and on which a lighthouse was installed, inaugurated in 1900. However, the Lønstrup dune is moving forward (or receding, depending on how you look at it) by 1,50 m per year inland. As a result, the Rubjerg Knude lighthouse quickly found itself on the edge of the precipice. Without any intervention, Danish engineers had calculated that it would fall into the sea in 2023. Thanks to an investment of 0,7 million euros from the Danish Government, on 22 October 2019, the lighthouse 23 m high and weighing 720 tonnes was moved 70 m inland. The most impressive part is that it was moved in one piece! Its structure was reinforced with steel beams, then specially constructed rails were slid under the lighthouse. It was then moved on the rails over a distance of 70 m, at a speed of 12 m/h (you can see the rails and the hydraulic system in the photo of the explanatory panel).

The Rubjerg Knude lighthouse is once again surrounded by sand (in every sense of the word as, with the wind, there is like a cloud of sand flying around it), in the middle of its dune, and it is predicted that, if erosion continues at the current rate, it should be safe until 2060… Even though it is no longer used to guide ships, it offers a spectacular view of the dune, the ocean and the forests of Jutland, from the top…

As for us, for our last night in Denmark (we were boarding for Norway the following day at 2 p.m.), we went to settle in the Løkken forest, near another of these refuges that we mentioned yesterday… We spent good part of the evening removing the sand we had absolutely everywhere (even in our ears and in the pockets of our jackets and pants….)!

PS: For those who don’t believe us, it’s so windy on the coast around here that the trees grow leaning! And we have a photo to demonstrate it… 😉

Off to Norway (14/06/2024)

This morning, after a last look at the dunes around Hirtshals and a last Danish cinnamon roll, we embarked on a big red Ferry called Fjord Line FSTR. This is the third time we take Marvin on a ferry and the third time we are lucky enough to be asked to board first (and on a ferry, who boards first also disembarks first, which is very nice when you have to go through customs, for example…). 2h40mn later, we had left the European Union and were setting foot (or wheel) in Norway! But this is another story, for another post… 😉

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IN Denmark, as anywhere else, Be Hygge and LEAVE NO TRACE!

– Always travel on public ways and respect the signs.
– Limit noise and interfere as little as possible with wildlife.
– Respect the other users.
– Leave rocks, plants and other natural features as you found them and respect historic sites.
– Take your waste with you and throw it into the appropriate containers, in the nearest village.
– Do not camp inside protected areas and do not make any fires.