Try Jutland for an easy, off-the-beaten track summer holiday

We’d been toying with the idea of exploring Denmark beyond Copenhagen for years. Then circumstances demanded that we take our holidays in August. As childless people we’d always been able to avoid the limited availability and the jacked-up prices of the school holidays. Even if we succeeded in finding an option with heat, sun and sand, I realised we’d be surrounded by children. Even staying in the UK would be tricky; by the time I started planning in late June everywhere I called in Devon, the Lake District and Scotland was booked.

The fates … or, more appropriately for this story, the norns … were clearly calling us to the Bencard homelands. Who, takes summer holidays in Denmark? (Other Scandinavians, Germans and a few Italians, it turns out, but not in any great numbers.) Flights were reasonable. Almost all the hotels I called had availability. I booked a table at a Michelin-starred restaurant with less than a month’s notice. Despite the reputation of Copenhagen as a fabulously expensive city, hotel and restaurant prices on Denmark’s main peninsula of Jutland were in line with or a bit below English prices. There would even be the possibility of a beach.

Of course, there were drawbacks. The temperature would rarely top 20C (70F). Sunshine alternated with pounding rain, and the wind never let up. (Admittedly, all the locals have said it’s been a horrible summer.) The rain had a strange way of descending when we walked out to dinner. Danish hotel rooms tend to have a monastic austerity that discourages lingering within them, and none have bathtubs. Most companies charge a phenomenal premium to hire an automatic car (not, thankfully, Europcar). The country has an old-fashioned approach to Sundays; without advance planning you’ll find yourself with little to do and nowhere to eat.

These are minor irritations in what turned out to be a fantastic holiday choice. And an exotic one. Go to a specialist travel bookstore and you’re likely to find just a single guide to Denmark beyond Copenhagen, while neighbouring shelves groan beneath the weight of Italian, Spanish and French titles. Almost everything we did felt like a real discovery. We found museums at the cutting edge of using technology to bring their collections to life. A world-renown aquarium. Dramatic landscapes. Truly spectacular food. An independent micro-brewery in every town and high streets that have far more boutique shops and independent restaurants than chains. All in places that almost nobody I know has ever set foot.

Go North, tourist!
We started with a week exploring Jutland. This is the thumb of land that sticks up from the European

continent. (The rest of Denmark is comprised of an archipelago of more than 400 islands, meaning that you get to cross some spectacular bridges ... most notably the Great Belt Bridge, above, which covers the longest span of any bridge outside Asia.) We’d go all the way to the northern tip of the country at Skagen, then work our way back down.

Skagen is the last town at the northern tip of the country. This fishing port and critical guardian of
shipping lanes was “discovered” by a group of 19th century artists who did for this part of the world what the French impressionists and post-impressionists did for Provence. Thus you’ll find picturesque 19th century cottages clustered behind dramatic grass-covered dunes, linked by bike paths and quiet, sand-dappled roads. Once you clamber over the dunes, the sand is smooth as finely-milled flour, scattered with pebbles fascinating in their variety of colour and scrubbed smooth by the power of ancient glaciers. Most gloriously, even in the middle of the summer holidays you can have vast tracks of beach to yourself once you walk a few hundred yards from the main access points. It’s a beach resort from the imagination of Hans Christian Andersen, distilled for holiday makers with a Disneyish flair. Half an hour along the coast in Hirtshals, the Nordsoen Oceanarium shows off how vibrant life is in the waters off those sands.

About an hour further south, Aalborg was underwhelming. We’d hoped to tour the eponymous distillery here, maker of the country’s most famous and widely exported line of aquavit. Akvavit (also called snapps) in Danish. It’s a requirement at any traditional family meal, particularly when pickled fish is involved, and a mainstay of the Bencard bar in a variety of flavours. Though both Aalborg’s web site and Trip Advisor talked about tours and a museum of Danish akvavit, a walk around a dilapidated and very quiet factory complex told a different story. Not a tourist sign to be seen. Eventually we found a local who revealed that the museum and tours had shut down a couple of years ago and the distilling had moved to a new factory on the outskirts of town. The picturesque 19th century complex had been sublet to other businesses. This is, admittedly, the kind of occasional disappointment that comes with the risk and adventure of going off the beaten track.

The distillery’s evolution is a fitting metaphor for Aalborg itself. It feels like a town past its prime, shrinking through a long, dignified and never-ending recession. Once a manufacturing powerhouse and a key port on a fjord, now a lot of businesses have moved elsewhere and it feels a bit of a backwater. There are some pretty buildings in the centre of town and an impressive promenade along the fjord that would have been excellent for a bike ride. There’s a dignified town square hemmed by half-timbered buildings and dutch gables and a community centre by the fjord designed by the same guy … a local … who created the Sydney Opera House. It has an interesting roofline but doesn’t make it into iconic architecture territory. Aalborg is a pleasant place to wander around, but there appeared to be nothing to hold your attention for too long. It’s worth a day and a night, but probably not longer.

Far more significant is Aarhus, the 2017 European capital of culture and Denmark’s second city. A mix of sprawling port and major university town, it’s obvious that money has poured in here over the past several years to get things ready for this year’s honour. (It appears some improvements didn’t meet deadlines, as there’s still plenty of construction around the harbour.) There are new museums and attractions, long stretches of pedestrianised shopping streets and a river walk lined with restaurants. The square around the cathedral is bright with freshly-restored historic buildings … and a few new ones … filled with hotels, shops and restaurants. The town also boasts two Michelin-starred restaurants, one of which became a highlight of our trip. Our two nights here could have easily been three.

Viking heartland
Continuing south, almost to the major highway that heads east towards Copenhagen, Jelling is well worth a detour. A picturesque drive through forested hills leads to a small village with some Viking burial mounds and a couple of carved rune stones beside an old parish church. This might not sound like much, but the former palace and and family funerary complex of Harold Bluetooth is one of the most significant Viking sites in Denmark, and a discovery centre is arguably the best I’ve seen at using technology to bring ancient stories to life. There’s not much beyond this, so it’s probably not worth more than half a day, but there is a tempting-looking inn called Jelling Kro I’d consider booking if I wanted to start or end my day there.

Anyone with children would naturally head from here to Billund, Lego world headquarters and home of the original Legoland. Those in the know told us that, unlike Disney, it’s really not a place that offers anything for adults without children. So, as tempting as it might have been for the husband to revisit scenes of childhood delight, we headed for a different scene of his youth.

Back in the ‘70s, my husband understandably thought that watching experts scraping away at selected dark patches in a field of mud while your uncle tried to explain how Viking archeology worked wasn’t as much fun as getting your Lego driving license. Year’s later, the fact that the uncle ran the excavations in Denmark’s oldest city, uncovering the history that makes Ribe one of the best sites to visit for a Viking experience, is exciting. The legacy of Mogens Bencard’s work is a fine little history museum in the centre of town (much more old school than Jelling, but filled with interesting stuff) and a Viking Centre just outside of town where they take the “experiential archeology” approach to let you wander through a very authentic Viking village peopled by re-enactors. Ribe is also unbelievably pretty, with a small Romanesque cathedral surrounded by streets of charming shops and houses. It looks like one of Denmark’s museums of historic buildings … yet it’s still a working town. My biggest planning mistake was only allowing one night here; we clearly needed two.

Jutland is popular with Germans, particularly Ribe which is a charming excursion not far over their border. I heard a few Italians who I assume, as with their visits to Scotland, like heading here to get a respite from their hot summers. We encountered only a handful of Brits and Americans and, with the exception of one American family, they were always travelling with someone with Danish connections. English is widely spoken here, so you’d have no problem getting around,but Jutland is clearly an undiscovered country for those groups. In the coming stories I’ll offer a bit more detail on our Jutland adventures: the glories of Skagen, the Viking trail and a validation of Danish high cuisine’s heady reputation.