The furthest northern point of Denmark is where the Baltic and North Sea meet at the very long tip which juts out into the cold sea and this was our destination for our first day in Jutland. From our little sommerhus in Albaek (learn more in part 1 of this blog), we drove the 20 minutes up to Skagen and arrived at the car park for the walk to the tip at Grenen. There is a tractor pulling a large carriage for those with little legs and I would probably recommend it for anyone with children as the distance to the sandbank tip is further than you think. Plus it is pretty cool riding in a tractor. The tractor runs back and forth all day from around 10am – when it’s busy there are two of them running every 10-15 minutes.
The day we visited was pretty overcast and around 18/19 degrees, and as we arrived through the dunes onto the large beachy expanse, we spotted the ‘tip’ straight away from the huge throng of people all condensed in one tiny area. The novelty of this attraction is to be able to stand with one foot in each sea – you can see where they meet by a slight ripple in the ocean, but don’t expect your kids to get really excited about this ‘attraction’. We were a little underwhelmed with it in all honesty. We stood and looked, and took a photo but then we just let the kids run wild on the large sandy area as we mooched back to the sand-dunes and let them play whilst we had our picnic lunch. We then caught the tractor train back to the car park, agreed we had been to better places, but we ticked the box we had done it!
Around 10 minutes back south is the harbour town of Skagen which we enjoyed a lot more. This quaint village is worthy of a wander around to pick up ice creams or a beer – we did both – enjoy looking at the ships in the harbour and the shops and restaurants along the streets. After a quick refreshment we got back in the car and drove a further 5-10 minutes south towards the church that got buried (Den Tilsandede Kirke / Sankt Laurentil Kirke). There is a car park which has a small refreshment hut and also a kids playground. The walk to the church itself is around 10 minutes so very doable with little legs, even when you go off piste and trudge through the pine forest like we did. You leave the pine trees, stumble up a small sandy path over the dunes and then spot the quaintest, most tower-esque church I think I have ever seen. It’s like something out of Rapunzel and you can go inside and climb up to the top. It wasn’t overrun with tourists and you can see how the sand has well and truly engulfed the area.
Sand was the theme of the day as our final stop was the moving sand dune, Råbjerg Mile. I kid you not. Moving from West to East at 30 metres a year is a large expanse of sand dunes some of which are 30-40 metres high. It is the most bizarre sight and of course running up and down sand dunes provides over an hour of free entertainment for the kids! Definitely stop off here for a play, run, picnic etc. It’s very weird to be in such a mass of sand without the sea anywhere near it!
Our second day in the north was a trip to the western side of the tip to Lokken Strand. This was around 50 minutes from Albaek and you can drive your car right along the beach here. There are hundreds of little white beach huts on a huge straight stretch of beach with sand dunes behind. The weather wasn’t really for sunbathing or swimming so it was another hour of running and jumping in the dunes, and then we drove into the town of Lokken for a wander and to explore the beach a it further down. Here the beach as more rocks and a little jetty so exploring the rock pools and finding some pretty mammoth crabs was order of the day.
There is also a very cute creative cafe, Kreacafe, in the centre of this small beach town where you can have a coffee whilst the kids paint t-shirts, hats, pots, bags etc. The lady who runs it is very kind and they have so many activities to choose from, with all the paints, pens and stencils included. Nyle still wears his unique and one-of-a-kind hat with pride most days.
A little further up the coast is the beach of Lonstrup which has huge boulders jutting out into the sea which (if the sea is calm) are more than safe to scramble over and through the gaps who will see the largest starfish ever! This was a real highlight for my two. They then both decided to have a paddle and do some sand jumping before we headed back to the few restaurants we had passed for our evening meal. Combining Lokken and Londstrup is a good full day, and if the sun is shining you may choose to just enjoy the long stretches of beach but the towns are worth an explore.
Our 3rd day in the north again started off cloudy so we opted for the North Sea Aquarium and I am so glad we did. We spent a good 5 hours here. There are huge tanks of massive fish, including the mola mola fish, education centres, a seal pool and tunnel, feeding displays, crabbing pools, an enormous playground, a whale skeleton to stand inside, wind tunnels, crafting stations, hands on experiments and so much more. Despite there being no tropical brightly coloured fish, this is one of the best aquariums I have been to. Admission for the four of us was just under £70, but under 3s are free.
Our final day in Jutland was sunny and hot and a well deserved beach day. We headed there early with our breakfast in hand and enjoyed croissants and juice on the completely empty beach. Given it was only a 5 minute walk from our little Hus we kept popping back for more food, games, toilet stops and spent the entire day there and around our little Hus. We all went in the sea which is really shallow so very safe, and the kids played for hours at the edge, building dams and doing what kids to best on the sand – entertain themselves!
After our stay in Albaek, we drove the longest distance of our wholetrip, 400km to our next destination on the island of Fyn and our campsite, Camp Hverringe. We were there in the last 2 weeks of August and so the Danish schools had just returned so it meant the campsite was very much in wind down phase with the only other children there from Southern Europe. This campsite is a childrens and family paradise. There are bouncing pillows, parks, games to rent such as disc golf, croquet, football etc. and there is a shop, takeaway and bar on site. We also did some laundry here but mainly spent time in the pool which had a slide and we were often the only people there. Our little wooden glamping hut looked small but was very spacious with a veranda and we were next to the park so could sit and watch the kids playing. The campsite is also on it’s own beach with a jetty out into the sea and a trampoline out in the water to swim too and enjoy – assuming you can get on top of it! The sunset from the jetty is beautiful and we wondered down there most evenings. The nearest town to the campsite is Kerteminde which has a harbour, foodstalls, large supermarket and mini golf if you want something to do. We spent an evening there playing on the beach (of course Alicia went in her pants again) and headed for pizza at a local restaurant as we had been self catering for the other evenings we were there.
We also hired bikes from the campsite as the roads around this area are flat and quiet and so we did a few miles exploring one morning to find a very quaint village, Viby, with a windmill.
Whilst we enjoyed all the facilities the site had to offer we did venture to Odense for a day which is another city that blew us away. There is a large festival, The Hans Christen Anderson festival, there mid-August and if your visit to Denmark coincides with that, it is a must visit. There are around 20-30 ‘stations’ around the city providing arts, crafts, performances, circus, street entertainers all at different times. We enjoyed so many of them with street performers from around the world and it was all free. The kids even tried their hands at some circus skills and we enjoyed any opportunity for a bit of a rest.
Apart from the festival Odense is also a beautiful city, the birth place Hans Christen Andersen. The streets are cobbled, there is a river that runs through a grassy area, squares with sculptures and monuments and at the end of the day we found another amazing street food hall “Storms Pakhus”, complete with play area and the best desserts the kids have ever seen – Alicia’s eyes nearly popped out her head.
After 4 nights on Fyn, we drove the last part of our roadtrip to Copenhagen for our last two nights. We dumped the car at the airport (2 days early as it was cheaper to rent for 16 days than 14!) and then got the bus to our hotel, CPH Scandic. This is a really nice location to be in as it is on the beach park and we spent both evenings with takeaway on the beach looking over the sea and the ‘swimming pool complexes’ that have been built just off the shore.
Our first stop in Copenhagen that first afternoon was the harbour swimming pools which are free! These pools are built in the river than runs through Copenhagen and there are quite a few. We went to the Havnebadet Islands Brygge which has 3 pools, a jumping platform (which was fun for the kids to watch everyone). The water was not warm so they were in their wet suits but I was fine without for 30 minutes. Nyle lasted all of 3 minutes! It’s a really pleasant vibe and I 100% recommend this as a free activity for kids.
Our only full day in Copenhagen was a trip to Tivoli Gardens and here I will share some advice. We had pre-booked tickets to enter and we had planned to just have a wander around the gardens and marvel at the sites and free entertainment we had read about, and maybe let the kids go on 1 or 2 rides. How wrong were we! After we did the maths, 3 rides would have cost more than a wristband for the day! so we coughed up the c.£200 for 4 wrist bands and made peace with it that we probably wouldn’t be back again so we should enjoy it. We definitely got our money worth, even though we were there on a Saturday, and it was busy, we got on nearly every ride that we wanted to. It was nearly 9pm before we left and got the train back to our hotel (a 10 minute walk from the train station).
Tivoli is a bit magical, if not manic. The old traditional rides were cute and enjoyable, we skipped the big rollercoasters as the kids were too small, there are entertainers walking around, the band plays a couple of times a day, there’s an aquarium, boat rides etc. Our favourite rides that all 4 of us enjoyed (age 5 and 8) were the haunted house, the blue rollercoaster, the wooden rollercoaster (with the drivers who stand up the whole way around), the boats and the fairy land carriages. I would also recommend the Tivoli Food Hall for food and drink as it is much better quality (street food again) and cheaper than the chips and hotdog stalls littered around the park (and you don’t exit the park to get to it).
So, my advice, do not set foot in Tivoli unless you are prepared to pay a small fortune as the kids won’t let you just do the entrance ticket stuff! And this will take up an entire day of your trip. Stef and I had been to Copenhagen the previous year so we had seen all the other sights, including a seg-way tour (very recommended if you have older kids) so we didn’t feel we missed out and the kids had an absolute blast. Waking them up for our 10am flight home the next day was tough!
We came back from Denmark with proper post-holiday blues. We had travelled, experienced so many cool places off the tourist trail, enjoyed 2 weeks of quality time just the four of us, and it is this trip that made us realise we wanted to head off again for a longer period of time.
