The Meeting of the Seas in Skagen

I went up to the Windjammer to grab a quick bite before leaving the ship this morning, feeling like I needed some extra energy for biking.  When I looked off the stern of the ship I was able to get a feel for where we would be going on the bikes, north to the lighthouse in the distance, and then south to the old church that I zoomed in on.  Knowing I could see them both made me feel like the ride was easily doable!

Welcome to where the North Sea meets the Baltic Sea, here at the northernmost tip of Denmark!  Today’s port was Skagen, which I’d been pronouncing totally wrong ever since I first saw the name of this town of 8,000.  The residents would pronounce it “skayn” here in the “Land of Light”.  

We hadn't been in a town this small since I honestly don’t remember, maybe the Balkans?  Skagen began as a fishing and market village during the Middle Ages, famous for its herring, until it has grown now to be Denmark’s largest fishing harbor.

You can tell it gets warmer here later in the season because they still had some wild poppies blooming.

Jane, Karl and I caught up with Mark at the bike shop where our e-bikes were ready to go and so were we.  It was the perfect day for a ride!

We passed by some of that fishing fleet that sails from Skagen, definitely the most modern fishing boats we've seen and they were massive..

We passed Laura and Bob as they were waiting for the bus out to Grenen and Bob snapped these photos of us

as we rode by, proving we really did ride the bikes.

There was a small stretch of sandy beach along the coast where we saw a lot of swimmers.  At this point I thought they must enjoy cold water and a brisk swim, I mean, it is the Baltic Sea, but I would soon be proved wrong, they just liked a morning swim.

Just a pretty shot of the lighthouse we were headed to.

This ingenious ”rocking light” is from 1627 and is called the Vippefyr.  This current version is a copy on the same site of the original “tipping light” which had a container filled with coal on one end of a long wooden arm that once the fuel was lit could then be hoisted into the sky to light the way for navigating sailors, all without lighting the pole on fire.  

Lots of dunes along this stretch of land.

A quick shot of Karl and I at the Vippefyr.

I liked the white trim on some of the red tile roofs in Skagen.  The colors of the house on the left were pretty typical of most of the houses in town.  On the right is the first actual lighthouse built for Skagen in 1747, making it Denmark's oldest.  Originally it was red brick but in the early 1800s it was whitewashed the color it is today.  After being replaced in 1858 by the current Skagen Lighthouse the 69 foot tall White Lighthouse was used as a signal tower to alert ships of the shifting conditions on the sea.  During WW2 the Germans used it as a lookout tower.  Today it often houses art exhibits by local artists and it can even be rented for special events.

The purple heather was lovely as we approached the Skagen Lighthouse.

This structure is commonly referred to as the "Grey Lighthouse".  At 151 feet it is Denmark's second tallest lighthouse and when it was built, being much closer to the tip of the country, it made it much safer for ships to sale past here.

Apparently safer for ships meant less profitable for residents who made money salvaging cargo and helping stranded ships.  It was at this time that they turned to modernizing their fishing fleet.  While it can be seen from 23 miles away, since 2014 it no longer warns ships but is a migratory bird center.

Since this area is all shifting sands  it was interesting to see how the shoreline is conserved with these small inlets.

We parked our bikes at Grenen, bought the perfect bike-shaped magnet for a Christmas tree ornament, and decided what our next move would be. to reach

the sandy point where the North Sea meets the Baltic Sea.  Thanks to Jane for this collage!

Rather than walk we decided to ride out to the point on the Sandormen, a word whose translation I can't find so I'm just going to call it a sand wagon.  For €5 apiece we didn't need to walk the dunes to our final spit of land.

We took off our shoes and socks, pulled up our pant legs and waded into the water!

You can see here how the waves lap together as the two seas meet.  

It was fun to experience this unique place with my little "sis"!

The waves bring sand day after day, so much so that the sands move up the west coast and add around 33 feet a year to this tip of Jutland.

We weren't sure where else in the world you can stand in two seas at once, especially in water that had a surprisingly comfortable temperature.  That's when I knew those swimmers I saw earlier were just having a good time, not freezing.

And you can see that we weren't alone in visiting this cool spot today.

It was time to get on the bikes again and make our way back to the south.

We made a stop at the dunes by the Grey Lighthouse for photos at a viewpoint there, and to check out one of the German lookout points nearby.

I also got a nice view of Serenade in the distance.

There are a couple of these old bunkers on the coast here.  There was a small opening that thin enthusiasts could enter to get in, and an old tree trunk for a ladder if you wanted to get on top.  I passed on both.

Jane shot this photo of Mark and I as we made our way back to our bikes.

There were pretty little violets growing all around as well as these pretty flowers with an odd name, Yellow Toadflax.

We had thought we would climb the lighthouse for the views but decided we'd rather make sure we had to time to ride south to the buried church instead.   It turned out to be a good choice.

Part of the reason we rented e-bikes was in case we were battling winds while we rode, since Skagen is known for being windy.  Today it was only breezy enough to push back the brim of my hat!

We passed a town square and its memorial to the 8 rescuers from Skagen who lost their lives when the Swedish brig Daphnes sank on 27 December 1862.

The landmark Water Tower became operational summer 1934 and is built of 130,000 red bricks and are 111 feet high - the inner water tank contained 150,000 liters of water.  It was taken out of service in 1983 and replaced by pressure-regulating pumps. Currently it's used as a viewing tower during the summer as a unique and great place to view Skagen.  We didn't stop to climb 120 steps up to the top, of which the last 40 are a spiral staircase.  We saved spiral for the old kirke.

Even though I could see it from the ship I couldn't see the white church from the ground as we got closer to it.  Thankfully my GPS kept us on track and got us to to Den Tilsandede Kirke, translated as either "The Sand-Covered Church" or "The Buried Church".  

While this may look like a small church in and of itself, it's really just the tower of a church built in the 14th century.  Sand began drifting over the church and its nearby village around 1600.  This place of worship kept being overcome by rising sand levels, until it was eventually being buried faster than the worshippers could dig it out.  Just less than 200 years later it was completely buried so that all that remains is its red-roofed white tower.

The church stood 148 feet high, including the tower, which is about 72 feet alone, so more than half of the structure is below the sand.  To climb the tower you have to traverse this narrow, winding, tiny staircase

one, by one, holding on to the rope that hangs down the center of the spiral.

There is nothing left of the village that was below that you can see out the windows at the top.  This area is part of the Rabjerg Mile, is sort of a mini-Sahara with migrating coastal dunes.  These dunes are one of Europe’s largest and a nice place to hike.  

Hunger pains called so we stopped at the Krages Bakeri for a pastry.  We knew we'd made the right decision when groups of locals kept coming in as well.  The bakery also sold sandwiches so we decided both would be in order since it was time for lunch.  We had no idea the sandwiches were so HUGE1. Mine was delicious, chicken with egg salad there on the left, I could hardly get my mouth around it, and there was no way Karl could get his mouth around his veal and potato chip one.  Both the bread and the fillings were so good.  No room for our sweets until later.  Sorry I didn't remember to take a photo of those, you'd just be drooling anyway!

We waddled back to our bikes after that filling meal and made our way through town to the bike rental shop.  Part of the way we know we've made good use of our day is how much time we give back to Royal, which means how close did we get to "all aboard" time.  With a short port day today, we had to be back by 2:30, so we felt like we'd done a good job when we checked in about 2:15 following our walk back to the ship.  An absolutely memorable and marvelous day!