We get up relatively early this morning and are ready to go shortly after 10 AM. We decide to drive along some of the country roads for a while and check out some of the nearby sights. While the country roads are a bit slower, they are a much more enjoyable and fun drive. Our first stop is at the Rosenholm Slot. This castle was founded in 1559 and renovated in the period from 1740-45. The castle has been owned by the Rosenkrantz family ever since it was built.
We go there and check out the exterior of the castle and it's moat and the surrounding garden. We decide not to take the time to check out the interior - the weather is great and we want to enjoy outdoor activities. So, once we have spent some time in the garden, we make our way back along the moat to our car and carry on.
Nearby, after getting lost a bit, we find Hamlet's grave. For such a famous character in history, he has a lonely spot on the side of a hill in the middle of a field on a farm. The stop is not a long one before we carry on. We make our way back onto the northbound highway and drive for about an hour. Then we turn off the highway and make our way to our next goal - Voergård Slot.
This castle has beautiful renaissance buildings built from about 1580 and it is also surrounded by moats. We decide to have a picnic lunch here in the gardens. We carry our picnic bag on the bridge across the moat into the courtyard of the castle. We pass through the courtyard into the garden at the back. There they have some picnic tables and we pick a nice one in the shade. And we have a very enjoyable lunch with the castle and moat as a backdrop.
After lunch we decide to wander around the grounds and in the courtyard a bit more. As with the previous castle, we elect not to go on a tour of the interior. This is also in part as the tours are only at selected times and we would have had to wait about an hour. So, once we have finished taking in the ancient building, we pass back through the main gate and across the moat to the parking lot and our car.
Now, we change directions - rather than carry on north, we decide to head west to the coast. Our goal is Blokhus. It takes us about an hour to reach this small town. Well, small in size, but huge in terms of the number of people. The place is teeming with tourists. They are all over - in cars, on bicycles, on foot, in cafes and bars and on the street. We are lucky we did not take any out. So, we quickly drive through the town avoiding the masses as we went and drive out onto the beach.
Yes, we drove out onto the beach. It appears that the great attraction about this place is that you can drive your car onto the beach and hang out there. We just stumbled upon this. So, we decided to join the masses and drive along the several lanes that have been carved into the sand. There are cars and people everywhere. Many people have set up small little settlements with a one or more cars, canopies chairs and tables.
As we cruise up, we notice that there are numerous small exits. These, we discover, lead to small private beach cabins. There are also a few exits that will take you away from the beach. It is now around 4 PM and we think this might be a cool place to spend a night. What do we know? How silly could we get? Everything is fully booked - filled to the brim. None of the campsites have any space. No reservation - how silly of you to even ask, was how the response felt (even though they were more polite then that). We might even have considered camping on the beach, but that is forbidden.
So, what to do, but carry up along the beach until Løkken, where we have to exit and make our way back on to tarmac roads. We make one last ditch attempt here to get a place to stay - hopeless. Well, no problem, we still have plenty of time and carry on. We have decided to now head up towards Skagen, which is near to where we will catch a ferry tomorrow.
After a bit of a drive, we arrive in the vicinity of Skagen shortly before 8 PM. Now, to find a camping place. We decide to check out a spot in a village a short distance before Skagen. We are fortunate - wile they have no cabins, they do have a few campsites available. This place is huge - they give us a map with countless paths and lanes lined with sites to place your tent or camper van. They do not assign you a spot - they just tell you a few areas where they believe spots are still free. We drive around a bit, getting lost a few times, finally finding a spot near where we entered. It is a bit close to the road, but the noise is not too bad. We quickly mark our territory by setting up our tent and then head into town to do some exploring and get some dinner.
Skagen is at the very top of Denmark and, as we are learning, a very popular spot for tourists in the summer. It is an interesting landscape - quite unspoiled (but still packed with people in the summer - how do they do it), open countryside with a mixture of woods, dunes and moorland. This is all surrounded by two seas - one on each side of the peninsula. There is even a huge drifting sand dune that once laid waste to Skagen Point for two centuries.
We leave our campsite and make the short drive up to the town of Skagen itself. We find ourselves a parking spot and then do some wandering around the pedestrian streets. It is a pleasant town, but it juts does not have the same warm feel of other towns we have been to. The architecture is nothing special and it almost seems a bit artificial. Anyway, we soon find a restaurant with an outdoor table where we grab some dinner. We have a great table from which we can do quite a bit of people watching - there are huge crowds wandering up and down the streets.
After dinner we do a bit more wandering and along the way grab a huge soft ice as dessert. As the sun begins to set, we make our way back to the car and decide to go in search of a place on the west coast to see the sunset. Without really knowing where to go, we end up at what seems like the "in" spot for sunset viewing - Gl. Skagen. We actually pick the best time to come - the sun has just set below the horizon and most people seems to be leaving. It is therefore relatively easy for us to get a parking place right next to the beach.
In any case, we often find that the best time for sunsets is just after they have set. The colors get more interesting and varied. So we go and hang out on the beach for a while, enjoying the bright colors change as the sky gets darker. We hang around for a bit over a half hour, and then decide to make our way back to our campsite. It is amazing how many people are lining up for an ice cream as we get back to our car - good thing we got ours earlier.
Back at the campsite, we take our showers in the nearby shower block. Just one problem - we have a limited number of coins for the coin operated showers. When Lars goes in for his shower, the hot water runs out just as he is rinsing his hair. Boy, was that a cold shower - it took some time to get the chill out of the bones.