Skagen is the coolest place in the world. No seriously, if I could have a beach house anywhere (including the tropics) I would pick Skagen. It is the epitome of hygge and you literally feel like you are walking around in a story book. It is so cute that you imagine it being a well-crafted village of play houses some celebrity set up for their kids.
It is a small beach community at the very most northern tip of Denmark on Jylland. It has strict housing rules (they all must be painted "Skagen yellow" and have special roofs with white trim), and what makes it famous is it is either the only place in the world or one of the only places in the world (I am uncertain and google is not much help) where two oceans crash into each other. The waves crash into each other perpendicular to the shore, except because of this the shore has created a point.
I had been trying to get to Skagen all year, and almost went several times but it just never worked out. Amanda and I had decided that we would go at the end of the year as one last 3-day-stop in denial that we had to return to America. I stayed up all night cleaning my room and packing, and at 7am, delirious from no sleep, I took 2 large wheely suitcases, a duffle bag, a backpack, and a purse down my 5 flights of stairs, across 3 city blocks of cobble stones, on the metro (in morning commuter traffic), and to the airport to leave the suitcases at "left luggage" so I wouldn't have to deal with it while I house hopped for my 3 days when I was homeless. I took the train from the airport to Central where I met Amanda and we started our 3 train rides to Skagen from København. I slept quite a bit of the train ride, but from what I saw it was beautiful. The ride was only about 6 hours which is really short if you think about the fact that getting from San Jose to Los Angeles takes longer than that, and we were going literally from one end of the country to the other. The last train dropped us off in the middle of nowhere, but we managed to find our hostel.
Our hostel had a swingset and a forest across the street. We actually spent a lot of time there because it was our mind vacation from worrying about going home and Skagen isn't really the most happenin' place, especially since we went before tourist season had started. We made most of our meals there and we watched amazing Danish MTV. For most of the time we had the place to ourselves and that was great.
I really want to go into super detail about all the things we did and the thoughts and feelings, but one of the reasons this post took so long is writing it is emotionally exhausting. I signed in today to write about how much I absolutely ache to go back to Denmark, and Skagen was one of my most cherished and perfect experiences. So here are photographic highlights, and if you still care about the fact I was in Denmark, even after I have been home for so long, I will be more than happy to indulge you in gushing stories about my love for Skagen.
Skagen Style Furniture
Old WWII Bunkers that littered the beach
The most painful walk ever on the rockiest beach ever trying to find the crashing oceans. Also note the Skagen lighthouse, and my horrible squint while looking into the sun.
The sand worm that took us to the point and saved us A LOT of walking. Skagen is so small it has no real public transportation (at least not in the area we were in) and Amanda does not ride bikes so we walked tons this trip. I wore my pedometer and I think one day we clocked over 20,000 steps.
We finally made it! Yes, that is me in 2 oceans at once. It makes the Four Corners in America seem slightly less impressive, land is easier to make boundaries on. It's fun because when you stand there you sink rapidly because of all of the sand movement. Things like swimming are definitely a no-no. We met a lot of other tourists here, although compared to pictures of the high season there were none. It was great because all the tourists were Danes on holiday for the long weekend (it was prayer day). I used more Danish than we ever have before, and was fairly competent in it.
Picture of our hostel at about 11:45 at night. Every night there were gorgeous sunsets, but we never managed to go to sleep before it got dark.
This is the Harbor where we ate our only meal out. We both did our entire transaction in Danish, and it was perfect.
We took a little hike out to the buried church. Only the top of the tower is left, the rest is under sand.
Our last morning we went to the Teddy Bear Museum where the entire thing was in Danish, no English translations anywhere. It was amazing. Also, it was the most adorable thing ever. While we were in there God realized that we were leaving and through a temper tantrum, complete with super intense and scary thunder and lightning and some of the hardest rain I have ever seen. We took shelter in the gift shop before making our daring walk across town back to our hostel, only to go out again and catch our train back to Copenhagen. It rained the entire ride home and we got to see all of the Danish country side through rain-streaked windows. Jeg savner Skagen. Jeg savner København. Jeg elskede Danmark.
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