Denmark

Our first stop in Denmark was Ribe, the oldest town in Scandavia. Hard to wrap our heads around the date it was founded - 854.

Old town Ribe

Feeling braver and having had more conversations with fellow travellers on the road (mostly Germans tourists on camper van holidays) at this point we started relying heavily on Park4Night instead of booking online campgrounds. It is a free app similar to iOverlander populated with data by users but much more used by European travellers so more useful here. We also used Shelter which is another free app specific to Denmark but found it more difficult to use as it is written in Danish and is more specifically for tent campers, bicyclists and backpackers. Park4Night has a great translation button that allows you to translate any review into English.

Our route took us across the beautiful northern tip of Denmark

From Ribe we headed up the coast to Thy National Park where we started to feel like overlanders again - finding more rugged remote camping and beautiful scenery.

Low tide at the Wadden Sea

Free camping at Thy National Park

With a few others

Beautiful beach art on our evening walk

Hiking in the heath, hoping the rain waits a bit - it did.

Northern tip of Denmark

And amidst the beauty the disturbing presence of old German bunkers from WWII

Our favorite spot - we dubbed it “Cold Baja”

Rabjerg Mile - largest moving dune in Europe - hard to get a sense of the geographic importance by walking on it - a brief stop for us.

And this is why we truck camp - back to the outdoor life

But of course we did have to walk into the picturesque town of Skagen for a bakery visit.

Appreciating the yellow, red and white architecture of the town of Skagen

Viking burial grounds

Enjoying learning more about the history of the region, we picked some key ancient sites to visit - so many it was hard to choose. We stopped by the museum at Lindholm Hoje - site of an Iron Age Viking village and burial ground. An interesting museum with good exhibits, but we both left feeling vaguely disturbed about the display of unearthed human beings in glass cases. We understand the archeogical benefits and learning and know it is common practice the world over - Egyptian mummies seem to travel frequently from museum to museum, but it just made us a little uneasy.

In addition to ancient sites we have fun finding entrepreneurs to support along the way - new donut shop in Kolding with amazing donuts.

Along with viking sites, of course we had to tour some castles. We got a deep dive into the history of Danish kings and the Christian/Frederick/Christian/Frederick craziness, the endless wars between Denmark and Sweden and the evolution from the Iron Age to the Middle Ages when trading took over as the economic driver.

Koldinghus - restored 13th century castle

Egeskov Slot - fairytale perfect

And along with every castle, beautiful gardens to stroll

Appreciating castle garden art

The next day we headed to the big city. Three weeks and time for our first hotel! So spacious. Endless hot water showers. Ability to lie on the bed during the day. It was a welcome respite. But of course the first thing we did was set off on an evening walk around the city.

The iconic Nyhavn - Copenhagen

And then because we still had food in our fridge we popped up on the street and cooked dinner.

Stealth cooking in Copenhagen

Copenhagen was super fun to explore - beautiful architecture everywhere, easy to walk. Once again we signed up for our favorite - the free city walking tour and learned even more about kings and history and wars with Sweden.

Visited The Little Mermaid - tribute to Hans Christian Andersen. We learned from our walking tour guide that she is rated as the second most disappointing tourist attraction in the world. Second only to the peeing boy statue in Brussels. Well, we still appreciated her.

Copenhagen - a walking history museum

And a brief visit to Christiana - an independent “state” within Copenhagen home to free love and a lively cannabis drug trade. We didn’t partake in either.

And when you leave the gates you re-enter the EU

Kronborg castle - otherwise known as Hamlet’s castle

Our final stop on the Denmark tour - Kronborg Castle. A highlight for Dawn - supposedly where Shakespeare set the play Hamlet. You could feel the history.

Not daunted by the fact that Dawn was wearing her pajamas as it was laundry day. “There’s something rotten in the state of Denmark.” The laundry bag that is, not Dawn.

Onwards - ferry to Sweden!