Spring Break found familynomadic packed back in the prius, this time with as much sand toys and snacks as they could fit. Destination…Skagen, Denmark. From the Oresund Bridge, across the Storebaelt Bridge, and finally across Den Ny Lillebaeltsbro, we managed to reach “mainland” Denmark and took rest in the town of Aarhus, which is the second largest city in Denmark. Seeing that I have two little boys and that Aarhus was not our destination, I unfortunately have nothing to report, except that the Scandic hotel on the outside of town had a great fussball table that K fell in love with, especially as two older boys invited him to play with them.
Our morning destination on day 2 of our drive was the largest “tropical” rainforest in Europe, located in Randers, Denmark. Randers Regnskov is a great place to spend half a day with kids. A small, but nice, aquarium on the bottom level, two bio-spheres catering to two different climatic zones, a very cool bat cave and a nice outdoor playground makes this place a must stop place when traveling through Denmark with kids. So, after watching the monkeys, the alligators, and the bats, it was time to pile back into the prius and push on to the top of Denmark.
Skagen, Denmark is somehow a picture perfect, sleepy Cape Cod/Martha’s Vineyard, small beach town tucked away in the rolling dunes of northern Denmark. Made famous by countless impressionist artists who have come to capture the bleak, and at times surreal, landscape of where sand meets both the Baltic Sea and the North Sea. Skagen also claims the title of the sunniest place in Denmark with an average of 223 days of sun (thank you Wikipedia)! Coming through Denmark, we were under very consistent cloud cover and light rain the entire way…until we made it half way up the peninsula where the clouds seemed to hit an invisible wall and let the sun shine on in.
The theme for Skagen is sand and sun. As it was still April, the temperature was not conducive for swimming; but, at times the continuous sun shine made it feel like a perfect summer day. We spent our days in Skagen walking the beaches, taking small hikes along the numerous dune trails, and taking in the two major sites of the town: the Grenen (which is where the two seas actually meet…and some say you can see the different colors of the seas at this point), and The Buried Church (Spoiler Alert…it is not even buried). We had picnics on the beach, skipped stones in the sea, attempted an ill-fated fancy family dinner on the harbor (I will spare you the details, but let us just same Momma S says it was one of the worst experiences she has had as a parent thus far), and played in the sand.
After a few days of fun in the sun, we hopped onto a fairy back to Sweden and home. All pretty uneventful until we got caught behind a circus caravan on a nice small two lane road crossing Sweden…only delayed our arrival home by about two to three hours. We all came back relaxed and sun-tanned, exactly what was needed for our Spring Break.
family nomadic 