Skagen: The most surprising beach holiday destination you've probably never heard of

It's no secret that I prefer my beaches with palm trees, tropical fish and balmy swims. Perhaps as a any beach beats a landscape without one. Even the coldest, cruelest of coastlines ... like the brutal sands of Vik, Iceland ... stir my soul. So I knew I'd find plenty to like in Skagen, Denmark.
consequence of coming from a profoundly landlocked place, however, I also believe that

Better than like. I loved it. Even in one of the coldest, wettest summers that Denmark's had in years, I immediately saw the appeal. By the second of our three days, I was eying up holiday cottages and speculating on prices. 

It's no wonder that Scandinavia's finest artists made this their summer hub in the late 19th century. (The image above shows P.S. Krøyer's painting of the beach in 1893 on top, and the same spot today on the bottom.) The sand is the consistency of finely-milled flour. Where shingle lies atop it, the stones are rarely more than egg-sized, polished to a smooth curve by ancient glaciers. They glisten in a bewildering variety of colours, seductive as semi-precious stones when slicked by the tide. Most of the beach is screened by dunes often as high as a three-story building, covered with grasses that undulate to mimic the waves of the sea they face.

Acting as a screen to civilisation and a barrier to access, the dunes ensure peace and quiet. Though there is relatively flat and easy beach access from a car park at Solnelgangen, walk a hundred meters in either direction and you can be almost alone. The place is reportedly packed in late June and early July, but by mid-August ... with Danish kids back to school ... I could spend a couple of hours reclining in the sun-trap of a hollow carved in the side of a dune, looking down at a spectacular stretch of beach that featured no more than 15 walkers during my whole time at rest. There are compensations for being too cold to swim.

More than a beach, Skagen is the northern-most town in Denmark, located on the eastern side of a narrow spit of land ... the Skagen Odde ... that extends from the tip of Jutland. There are just over 8,000 permanent inhabitants of Skagen, but more than 2 million tourists a year. Though there is still a working fishing port here (which can send unpleasant smells over part of the town centre's shopping area if the winds are right), tourism is obviously the main industry. From the car park at the town centre, the main road leading north is lined with galleries, gift shops and dining spots. This includes a large boutique for Skagen watches and accessories; though the company is American, its Danish-born founders named it after the beauty they remembered from this part of the country. Don't miss Krages Bakery, where I had some of the finest pastry I've yet to taste in Denmark, and Slagter Munch, a butcher famous for a beguiling line of sausages, salamis and cured meats. They also sell plenty of gourmet goodies to take away for beach picnics. There are several museums here, covering everything from local history to the Skagen artists to teddy bears.

Though there are plenty of modern buildings on the outskirts, the tourist centre is almost exclusively traditional architecture. Most are a distinctive mustard yellow beneath red-tiled roofs, leaving Skagen much the way it would have been in its first flush of fashionability in the early 19th century. Royalty and aristocracy followed the artists, and throughout the 20th century this was the place to be seen in the summer. Most of the homes in the immediate area are actually holiday cottages. Both the population and tourist numbers have been declining steadily in the 20th century, however, presumably in line with cheap flights to exotic, warmer beaches. Plans are afoot, however, to build a jetty for deep-water cruise ships onto the harbour. This will, no doubt, transform the economy ... but may destroy Skagen's old-fashioned charm. Go now, before the floating hotels arrive.

Land's End
Salt marshes and dunes clad in grasses and heather, coming into glorious purple bloom in August, provide several miles of barrier of between the town and land's end. The final point is called Grenen. There's a large car park here from which you can explore. Everyone will be heading for the sand spit on which Denmark ends. The North Sea and the Baltic crash together here. Head all the way to the
end of the sand and stand ankle-deep in the frigid surf and you'll get an unsettling sense of walking on water as big waves crash close at hand and shipping traffic glides by in a steady stream.

The walk here from the car park is about a mile, or you can pay a modest fee (DK 300) to hitch a ride to-and-fro in the Sandormen (sand worm), a glass enclosed carriage pulled by a heavy tractor. Given how strong the winds often are up here, the sheltered transport isn't just for the lazy! The dunes here are pockmarked with German bunkers from WW2; no surprise when you look at a map and see how vital this narrow shipping lane is. Most are abandoned, or used as storage for holiday cottages, but one near the car park holds a small museum. There's also a restaurant (only open seasonally) and a tourist hut with gifts and ice creams to provide distraction.

Holiday headquarters
We stayed a similar distance from the town centre, but to the west, in an outlying village called Højen. Also known as Gammel (old) Skagen, the cluster of long, low, yellow-walled cottages huddled against the dunes looks so uniform, and is so daintily pretty with colourful gardens and gaily waving Danish flag pennants, you could be forgiven for assuming that the whole place was built by a modern developer as a single holiday resort. But these were indeed once the homes of fishermen and shepherds, with records dating back to the 10th century, and the bleak dunes stretching away from town hint at how hardscrabble life must have been for them. The gentrification started with those Skagen artists, and now it appears all the dwellings are either hotels or holiday homes. There are only a few shops and restaurants, and everything lies within old buildings with very subtle signage, giving Højen a quiet, restrained elegance. (Anyone in search of nightlife would clearly need to head to Skagen centre.) Though you can hear the sea, it's mostly blocked from view by those grass-covered dunes. Aside from the grass, the most prominent local flora is the wild rose, with hedges of the stuff carpeting much of town with dusky blooms and ripening rose hips. Like the architecture, nature here is beautiful in a quietly restrained way.

We stayed at Ruths Hotel. Its 1904 founding doesn't make it the oldest in town (that distinction belongs to the 1888 Jeckels across the street), but it's clearly the best known, has two highly-regarded restaurants and an indoor pool and spa. It's much easier to take a benign view about blustery weather and the North Sea's unswimmable temperatures when you can relax in a glass-walled pool pavilion complete with fireplace and mood lighting to create the requisite sense of Danish hygge. 

The hotel is comprised of several different cottages spreading out from the main building, now subdivided into individual rooms. The original architecture can lead to some quirky floorplans: our bedroom would have been much improved if it could have incorporated the entry hall that divided it from the bathroom, but I suspect that centuries-old dividing wall was structurally significant. Walking between buildings to get to the restaurants, lounge and spa could be a challenge in the off season, but even in the rain we weren't bothered by the quick dash.

Because there's little in the immediate area, most of Ruths' guests seem to be on dining packages. A room with dinner in the brasserie will set a couple back about £300 per night. Upgrade to the gourmet package, which moves you in to Ruths' small, modern fine dining room, and you've reached about £400 ... before ordering drinks. Ruths' pricing definitely puts it in the resort hotel category and was the splurge of our trip. It's a splurge best appreciated if you're not going to stray far from the immediate area, and really enjoy your food. If we returned for a longer stay, economic realities would force me to look at the other hotels or at renting a cottage for a week. But as a luxurious introduction to the area, Ruths was ideal.

A fishy excursion
One outing did entice us more than a few minutes from our luxurious bolthole. The Nordsøen Oceanarium is the largest aquarium in Northern Europe, about 40 minutes' drive away on the edge of the town of Hirtshalls. It's well worth the drive. Most aquariums I've visited focus on the showy dazzle of the coral reef. This, place, as you'd expect, turns its attention to life in the seas outside its door. Its 1,200,000 gallon central tank is a jaw dropper, built to enable schooling fish like mackerel and herring to swim en masse. They put on a mesmeric show. In other tanks, we watched plaice and turbot slide down rocks and across sandy surfaces. It's one thing to understand the concept of a flat fish, another to actually see what that means. One of the delights for both of us, in fact, was seeing so many fish we eat on a regular basis in their natural habitat. It increases our respect for them, and when you've frequently filleted something you can understand more about the living animal.

Check times in advance for feeding: we didn't and missed the excitement in the main tank. We did, however, make it in time for the seals. This merry community lives in an outdoor tank complete with a glass tunnel below it, so you can inspect their jolly antics from every perspective. All of the exhibits are in both English and Danish and, like so many of the Viking attractions, manage to strike a great balance between fun for the kids and worthy info for adults.

Though the fish were enough to lure me away from Skagen on my first visit, I doubt I'd bother on a second. More time on the beach, exploration of other local restaurants, a deeper understanding of the offerings from the Skagen Bryghus (Brewhouse) ... all reached on a bicycle borrowed from the hotel. That's the return I'm dreaming of.

Dining at Ruths

Meals here were uniformly delicious. The breakfast buffet was standard Danish fare: yogurts, sliced meats and cheeses, fruit, pastries and some fabulous home-baked breads. You could also order a broad range of hot dishes cooked to request, included as standard. The high-ceilinged breakfast room with big windows overlooking the dunes, cool colours, early 20th century portraits, Georg Jensen silver accessories and burning candles (yes, even at breakfast) was a picture of Nordic elegance. One of my favourite things about Danish breakfast: the assumption that everyone drinks coffee. It's there, already waiting for you when you sit down, rich and hot in a fat-bellied Jensen thermal carafe. Bliss.

The main hotel building wraps in a C-shape around a courtyard, where you can enjoy meals or drinks in fine weather. We managed one lunch and afternoon drinks there, but the evening chill drove everyone into the hotel's brasserie for dinner. The profusion of windows, high-gloss white woodwork,  touches of blue, brass and nautical accessories give the place a beach vibe. It was packed every night with a convivial, mostly Scandinavian crowd; the only anglo-saxons in the place were, like me, with Danish partners.

As I've come to expect from any good restaurant in Denmark, the food was locally sourced, seasonal

and beautifully presented. Ruths' menu is Scandinavian with a heavy French influence. Favourite dishes included a cured halibut fresh from local waters with a fresh cucumber and creme fraiche sauce and a magnificent salad notable for the inclusion of ice salad. Most Danes were astonished that I'd never encountered the plant before and considered it wildly exotic. This small, leafy herb grows wild beside the sea and protects itself from harsh sea spray by covering itself with tiny bubbles of salt water that sparkle like ice in the sun. The taste is remarkable: extremely green and fresh, both sweet and salty, leafy yet with a crunchy bite. It's fantastically good with seafood. Duck turns up a lot on the menu (no surprise given all the wetlands on this peninsula), we had it paired with a rich red wine and cherry sauce.

If you're staying more than one night (or only one), I'd recommend upgrading to the gourmet menu. Our five course menu of local delights with matching wine flight would have been our best meal of the trip, were in not for an extraordinary Michelin-starred outing in Aarhus (story to come). The restaurant is hidden in a back corner of the main building, so subtle you could stay here for days and not realise it was back there. The night we ate there only four other tables shared the room with us. Service is attentive and intimate, with lots of discussion about local sourcing and the logic of the mostly French and Italian wine matches.

We enjoyed local scallops, and given that we both hate mussels were delighted that the "mussel fume" beneath them was remarkably subtle ... just enough to give the dish an extra umami kick. I was even more delighted to find some more ice salad. A second fish course brought turbot, the king of flat fish, beautifully paired with some grilled cucumber (a preparation I must try at home, as it brings out a more sophisticated side to this kitchen staple). Dried duck breast with truffles and lightly pickled black currants gave us a chance to try Slagter Munch's production. If not for the fruit (Danes love incorporating fruit into savoury courses) we could have been in Gascony. The main course was a classic veal in mushroom sauce. We saw veal on almost every menu and I suspect this is more proof of the Danes' love of seasonal eating: spring-born male calves surplus to the Danish dairy industry's requirements would be reaching a tasty maturity for the table about now. Dessert was strawberries with "caramelised grains" ... a bit granola-ish, with the grains becoming almost meaty yet sweet and almost fermented as I suspect they'd been soaking in something. It was an ending that felt distinctly Danish ... much like everything about this charming beach resort.