Skagen Alive - June 2023

We had visited Skagen once before, our first summer in Denmark, with a group of colleagues. It's a quiet, cute seaside vacation town, and the northernmost point in Denmark. A walk up to the tip will reward you with a view of two seas crashing into each other, and playful seals frolicking - if you're lucky, which we were on our first trip!

Since that first trip, we had been wanting to return. But it isn't terribly easy to get to - on our first trip, we rented a car, which ended up being much smaller than we anticipated. We had to play a game of jenga with our luggage and cram Scott into the jump seat - which he was a very good sport about! We figured we would take the train if we ever made the journey again, but there has typically been construction that makes the journey quite long.

So we decided to add a stop to our journey - Aalborg! My friend Kasia from Danish class went to university there, and she gave us plenty of fun recommendations. We happened to plan our trip for the hottest weekend of the summer, so we went for a lovely evening walk after our flight into town. Since it's a college town, things were much more popping than I would normally expect on a Thursday night.

We started by walking down the "party street" Jomefru Ane Gade - where we were greeted by many ads for cheap shots and one rather inexplicable mini golf establishment. We wound through the streets, encountering lots of beautiful buildings before circling back to the water, where we stumbled into a concert for a band celebrating their "50th birthday."

The next day, we enjoyed a sweaty walk to the other side of the river and hiked to Skanseparken, a pretty park with a nice view. Other exciting stops along our stroll: the USCGC Eagle, a US Coast Guard boat running various drills; the Toldbod Plads fountain, which plays music by Handel several times a day; Nordkraft, a former electricity generating center turned cultural center; and the Salling mall rooftop, where we stopped for a spritz with a view. We capped our Aalborg adventure off with a lovely lunch in CW Obels Plads before catching the train up to Skagen.

The train ride was beautiful and, thankfully, air conditioned. Upon arriving, we said hello to Skagen Station - the place we stayed at during our last visit. After a quiet evening walk and a stop at a cocktail bar that makes a mean negroni, we headed back to our bed and breakfast to try to get a good night's sleep - alas, the hotel had chosen that night to build a terrace right outside our window, meaning the only quiet hours we got were between midnight and 6AM. Oh well.

The following day featured a very nice nap in between our site seeing adventures. We stopped at the shops, found a delightful wine bar, and had a tasty lunch of fish and chips. That evening, we ventured down the coastline, checking out the various lighthouses (including my fave, the vippefyr) and the World War II bunkers. Unfortunately, there were no seals this time, but the walk was still fun, and a good workout!

The bed and breakfast we stayed at was lovely once the construction was done, and we very much enjoyed the outdoor lounge area and the tasty breakfast. We also enjoyed a tasty dinner at the northernmost restaurant in Denmark, as well as a few more glasses of wine at our fave wine bar. We got a healthy dose of history by exploring a few museums and historic houses before catching the train, which capped off a great trip.