I believe there are many people around the Gobe dreaming to visit the Riviera…The French Riviera! However, I do. Yet, to dream is given to everyone, to actually visit the place doesn’t happen to everyone for different reasons: time, distance, money etc. I am personally one of those who haven’t got to visit the French Riviera…no yet. Yet, recently, I have heard that there is actually another Riviera, more closer to where I live…the Danish Riviera! I know, it sounds very, very weird; at least it did sound weird to me, so I decided to go and check it out by myself. It all started with a simple research on one of our best friends, Google. This happened last night! It didn’t take long to convince me, so this morning I woke up early and the only thing I knew it was I was going to the Danish Riviera. I didn’t go alone, because I didn’t want to, and because I couldn’t…my girlfriend came with me as well. And here’s the story:
We left our home, in Skovlunde, and took the train, line C; not a long ride, because in circa 10 minutes we should change the train with line F, to Hellerup. There, after circa 15 minutes of waiting time, we took line A to Hillerød. Not yet our wished destination! At Hillerød we board the 940R train towards Helsingør! After another half of hour we finally heard that the next station was Gillelege.
It was a two hours and 10 minutes trip just to arrive there from our home. However, our enthusiasm was still at high levels. Surprisingly, we discovered with pleasure that in the Gillelege train station is a Tourist Information point, belonging to Visit Nordsjælland (the name of the region). So first we went to ask about what is to be done in this little town, and to ask of course where is the beach. We discovered that the beach is actually very close to the train station, and that there is also a touristic area in the town, with shops, cafes and restaurants.
Next target?…looking for a coffee shop. I kinda knew that there is not Starbucks or Baresso (Danish coffee shop chain, similar to Starbucks) so we had to be happy with whatever we could find; and we found a bakery called Bagt. There we got each a Latte; Latte which unfortunately didn’t taste really like a Latte but more like some water mixed us some leftovers of coffee. The only positive thing of it was that it was cheaper than what we were used to pay for a Latte in Copenhagen. Here the Latte costs 30 Danish Crowns a cup.
Not even this Latte ruined our mood, so we continued our way to the beach. Soon we arrived at the beach. I personally didn’t have any expectation from it, I was just curious to see how it is, because until we got there, we enjoyed the way this little town looked like. The first view of the beach was nice, especially due to the houses very close to the beach and the blue water. Yet the beach is kinda dirty from the tones of seaweed resting on it. There were also many stones, but in spite of all these there were people enjoying the sun. We also enjoyed the views and so we took plenty of pictures.
Than we walked to the end of the beach we had to go back to the town streets. In this way we luckily arrived to the Gillelege harbor, which is arguable the largest fishing harbor in the whole Sjælland Island (http://www.visitnorthsealand.com/ln-int/north-sealand/gilleleje). Beside this I can say that the harbor offers a very nice view, and so it is a nice place to walk around. We did so, and soon we arrived in an area with restaurants serving sea food and dishes based on fish.
It was around 13:30 and we felt kin of hungry so we thought that it was the best idea to stay and eat some fishy dishes from the largest port of Sjælland. Thus, we stopped at Adamsen’s Fisk (http://www.adamsensfisk.dk/), and chose a plate with sea food and a plate with baked shrimps. I don’t know if it was the excitement or it was true, but these dishes tasted delicious. Beside this -we discovered after we finished our lunch- this restaurant offers tables next to a local water channel as well!
No hungry any longer, we continued our walk on the other side of the harbor, direction Helsingør. The sights were pretty much the same, with a plus for the way houses look like. After about two more hours of walking we decided to go back to the train station, and to continue our trip to another town. For the next location we asked at the information point! From there we were biased to visit Hornbæk, an even smaller town somewhere half way to Helsingør.
The 20 minutes ride with the train was just good for us to rest our legs, so when we arrived in Hornbæk we were just ready to explore its offerings. Indeed, Hornbæk is not a big town, on the contrary it is very small I would say, but still very nice, colorful and cheerful. Following the main road, after we passed by some local, little shops we first saw its harbor. With a lot of different and colorful ships, boats and yachts, it was a perfect spot for pictures.
Then we realized that in both sides of the harbor, two beaches were waiting for was. They are pretty similar, both are very wide and have amazing and very fine sand, and no stones. However, the beach on the right side of the harbor is wider….actually it is the widest beach I have seen in Denmark in this three years I have been living here. Beside this there were a lot more people than on the other one.
At this point we were very satisfied; beside the evening was about to seetle its chilling weather and to push the light of the day away, so we decided to eat one more ice cream and then to return to our home. Doing so we arrived home at around half past seven.
After this experience we can conclude that Denmark has a Riviera, and surprisingly it is very nice and vivid one. I would even go as far as to say that visiting the Danish Riviera should be a must for anyone no matter whether s/he is a tourist or a local. However, in the end it is everyone’s decision…so for the ones deciding to visit these places, I hope you enjoy them at least as much as my girlfriend and I did; as for the ones deciding to visit other places, I hope you enjoy those places as well!
God tur…as Danes use to wish to someone travelling!
Spot'n'go! 