A Ferry Ride to Hirtschals, Denmark (August 15, 16, 2023)

August 15, 2023 to August 16, 2023

And a Bike Ride to Skagen, Denmark

We are now back in Denmark after a full day/ night of fun ferry and bike travel.

We took the overnight ferry from Bergen to Hirtshals, Denmark and then rode 50 km to Skagen, on the far northern tip of Denmark. It was a Tuesday and we didn’t have to check out of our hotel in Bergen until noon, so we did a quick - and painful - workout in the hotel gym before breakfast. It was painful because we hadn't worked out the entire time we were in Bergen, despite our best intentions. (Our abs were sore for two days afterwards- a bad sign).

We checked in at the Bergen ferry terminal in the rain and we had a long wait at the front of the line with the other cyclists- probably a dozen of us - until we were motioned onto the ferry. The advantage of that is that we had plenty of time to visit with a number of the cyclists. One German guy traveling solo had ridden across Sweden and Finland to the North Cape of Norway; another solo cyclist, Ben from Melbourne, started his trip by buying a very nice gravel bike in Trondheim and rode south to Bergen. Both men were camping and we had lots of discussion about the rain. A German couple were fully loaded and the ferry was the last leg of their trip before they picked up their car to ride back to their home near Hamburg, Germany. After boarding at 1:30 pm we learned our cabins were not ready for us so we decamped to the Starbucks seating on deck 7, which actually was pretty pleasant. We could read and watch the ferry leave the port of Bergen and just generally enjoy the scenery. We ran into Ben from Melbourne and invited him to sit down with us and we had a good visit for an hour with him. He reported that Australia is not that great for cycling, which doesn’t surprise us after spending a month there (in a car, not on bikes) in 2018. He was a Tour de France follower so we had an enjoyable discussion talking about the merits of Tadej vs. Jonas, and some of the Aussies that have done well recently. He had not paid for a cabin on the ferry so we felt bad for him sleeping somewhere random on the ferry- but plenty of people do it.

Fellow cyclists awaiting permission to board.

By that time our cabin was ready so we moved in. This ferry, the Beresford, was quite a bit nicer than the ferry we took from Frederikshavn to Oslo three weeks ago and our cabin was great. It even had a large porthole. Before dinner, the ferry stopped off in Stavanger - which is the center for Norwegian oil exploration so it’s full of heavy industry. Watching these ferries load and unload is an impressive lesson in logistics.

A bit of catch-as-catch-can for securing the bikes onboard the ferry.

Passing submarine but from which Navy was unclear.

We had booked a prearranged dinner. Our only choices were the buffet or the restaurant with fixed price 3 course dinners. I selected the later because we are not fond of buffets, but the prix fixe dinner is also problematic too; always way to much food for us yet we eat it anyway! The restaurant meal was surprisingly good, a shrimp appetizer and a ribeye steak. After all the fish, it was a nice change.

We slept well, but the ferry came to port in Hirtshals, Denmark at 7:30 am so all we did was pack up and make our way to the bikes. In line with our usual forgetful tendencies, we always have some concern whether we will find our bikes again. We did find them, after succeeding in navigating the ship's maze of hallways and staircases, and we rode out into the worst weather of what turned out to be otherwise a very nice weather day. It was raining and windy at the port. Fortunately, our first planned stop was the cafe/bakery in Hirtshals in order to get breakfast that we skipped on the boat. The cafe was a short 1 km away. A number of other cyclists from the ferry had the same idea so we visited again with the German cyclists (and took their pic!)

The weather improved by the time we did our 51 km ride into Skagen. It started with a minor detour (in the other direction) to visit the Hirtschals Bunker Museum. This is a WW2 era Museum showing a portion of Hitler’s Atlantic wall, built to defend the entire coast of the Atlantic against invasion. It is a series of bunkers and gun emplacements constructed in 1942 -44. The laborers were all Danish and it was paid for by the Danish government. The Danish government, in line with its practice of “peaceful collaboration” with Germany, thought it better to have Danes build the wall rather than have more Germans or POWs come to Denmark to do the labor. After the war, the bunkers were abandoned, although there was a lot of effort to find and destroy the German land mines. The bunkers themselves probably would have been destroyed except they were so massive it proved to be too expensive and difficult. The area only became a Museum in 1992. The Danes have had a difficult time coming to grips with their role in WW2 and it was controversial to emphasize this by creating the Museum.

Lighthouse near the museum. No longer in use, it nevertheless is being well maintained by local volunteers.

View from the top of the lighthouse. Note the bunker.

The rest of the ride was pleasant and varied. We stopped for lunch at a lovely spot near the beach and arrived in Skagen in the afternoon. Skagen is a small town on the far northern tip of Denmark. In another life I spent a night there on a bicycle in the Dannhostel. I always remembered it as a lovely little town and wanted to go back so we booked two nights there at the Brondrums Hotel. More on that tomorrow.

Our lunch stop where we found a picnic table to enjoy our sandwich and the scenery.

Today's ride: 51 km (32 miles)
Total: 1,543 km (958 miles)

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