# Our Danish tour...



## peejay (May 10, 2005)

Here follows a brief resume of our tour through Denmark rather than bore you with where we went, what we did etc. It's not a definitive guide, just our general observations and information we picked up along the way....

Our rough route was out via Stena Harwich – Hoek Holland taking in a visit to the Dusseldorf show, then up through Northern Germany via Rugen Island and a quick pop across into Poland, then into mainland Denmark from Flensburg,
We were going to visit Copenhagen but the fees over the Storbaelt bridge for 3900kg van put us off at €92 each way, we could have gone in via the Putgarten – Rodby ferry at a slightly more bearable cost but in the end decided to give the capital a miss this time around and concentrate on the mainland. We will be visiting Sweden and Finland in the future so will visit on the way up there on a combined ferry ticket though Denmark into Sweden.

Ferry out...

Stena Britannica day crossing Harwich - Hoek, £166.50 one way for 2 adults and a 6 mtr van, paid for courtesy of Tesco vouchers. Unfortunately Tesco now limit clubcard deals to £100 for a single crossing and £200 for a return. Lovely new ships with excellent cabins and the usual shops for the missus to lather up with freebie beauty products, heaven forbid actually paying for the stuff!
Another plus point is free internet on board and in cabins so take your laptop or ipod with you.


Lingo and locals....

The Danish are incredibly friendly people and love us Brits, as soon as they know where you are from they instantly switch to perfect English, probably better than wot we speak it. Some of the older folk are not as fluent but still very friendly. One senior gentleman didn't speak very good English but once we got it across we were looking for the tourist info office he escorted us personally to the door which was well off his intended route. We lost count of the times people looked at our number plate, then smiled and waved.

A couple of words that might help...
Hi! - Hello
Tak! - Thanks
Autocamper – Motorhome
Aeg – Eggs – at first we thought everyone was selling white goods at the roadside!
2 timer, 24 timer – 2 hours, 24 hours (parking).

Roads and driving....

The Danish are very considerate drivers, unlike UK you wont see any road rage and they all seem to stick to speed limits. Daytime headlights are compulsory, I think I only saw one vehicle without headlights on throughout our tour.
Loads of speed humps in 50 and 40 limits that remind you to slow down along with annoying 'Din Fart' (your speed) signs that show your speed and flashes if you're going too fast.
On motorways and dual carriageways be careful when traffic joins from a slip road, there is no give way sign and as far as we could make out it is the done thing to use the 'zipper effect' for traffic joining the main route, ie, each vehicle in turn letting one joining vehicle onto the main route.
Free parking in towns is no problem with areas for ½ hour (timer) to 2 hours where you display a blue clock card with the time you arrived. The locals have little see through clock stickers on their windscreens for this which was very neat.
Parking in the bigger cities costs about 15DK an hour near the centres or you could park for free on the outskirts and walk/cycle in. City parking meters don't give change but honour the extra time if you don't have the exact amount, eg parking in Aalborg was 15DK for an hour but we only had a 20 DK coin which gave us 1hr 20 minutes.
The Margueriten route is a 3600km long tourist route that takes in all the best bits of Denmark, obviously you're not going to be able to cover it all but you can follow parts of it along the way to see all the picturesque towns and scenic bits. We found the Marco Polo 1.200.00 Denmark atlas handy as the entire route is clearly marked in this book.

Overnighting.......

If you use campsites you will have no problems, theres loads. ACSI card is a must for out of season, virtually all are in the €15 bracket or 115DK.
We don't often use campsites but did on this occasion use one ACSI site which was OK, we had a look at a few private sites but they seemed expensive, even in the low season when most facilities were closed up.
If you like to overnight 'off grid' then i'm sure everyone knows about the difference between camping and parking overnight here, ie parking overnight is not a problem as long as no apparel is used outside the confines of the motorhome.
We found overnighting no problem outside the touristy bits but there are loads of places in the tourist zone with 'overnighting forbidden' signs or 'no motorhome' pictorgrams which can make it more awkward to find somewhere.
Some places can have mixed messages as to whether it is permitted or not, for example there is a well known car park in Ribe, a tourist hotspot which has big pictorgrams with motorhomes with a big red cross through them along with 'camping forbidden' signs, but also has parking 48hrs max signs and a motorhome service point. I checked with the tourist office and they said you are welcome to stay the night but when asked about all the signs they couldn't really explain why.
Away from the touristy bits no problem at all, there are some great picnic areas that make great overnight stops.
Farm stops are also a good cheap place to stay and some are also free, we used quite a few from the Bordatlas, another good source is the DACF book if you can get it.
Most marinas will also let you stay over but be careful with the fees, there aren't many free ones that we could see, one in Ega was charging 130DK for what was effectively just a car park in a working and noisy marina amongst all the cars.
Another good place to stoppover is in the small ferry parking areas, some of these close in the low season around 1900 and the road then effectively becomes a dead end, nice and quiet with good views over the water.

Diesel, LPG....

Widely available, stations open Mon – Sat in the main but there are also 24hr unmanned stations that take notes (no change given). UK credit cards accepted but some charge a handling fee so check first, see next bit about credit cards. The good news is that diesel is cheaper than UK varying between 10.30DK to 12DK max per ltr, the lowest we found only once was 10.00DK (about £1.25) per ltr at a 8dk - £ exchange.

There are a handful of LPG outlets around the country but we didn't need it as we filled up in Germany before entering Denmark. I would say its good practice to do this or if coming direct from UK fill up beforehand. 

Shopping....

We found basic groceries to be around a similar price in the budget stores like Lidl but a bit more expensive in the mainstream supermarkets, again we stocked up a lot in Germany beforehand but you know what women are like, they still like to have a browse at the prices. Judy pointed out that fruit is sometimes sold in individual pieces instead of by weight so bear that in mind and they seem to sell loads of stuff substantially cheaper if you buy more than one. Most prices are shown with the price for one item and also a discounted price for 3, check panels on shelves as it flashes two prices, one for sigle item and one for 3 at a discount..
Alcohol is about the same price as UK but you can get some excellent and cheap 1ltr and 3ltr wine boxes in the Lidls etc.
Supermarket trolleys take either a 10DK or 20DK coin so best to keep a few coins handy on the dashboard.

Credit cards...

Credit cards are widely accepted but check first as some charge a handling fee and some don't, its law that if they do it has to be clearly marked which was generally the case but we did use one 24hr fuel station (OK) which charged a fee but there was no warning sign.

Fuel Stations we used...

Shell manned station – No card charge
Statoil manned station – 2.5% fee
OK 24hr station – 2.85% fee
UnoX 24hr station – No card charge

Surprisingly we found the cheapest diesel to be at UnoX 24hrs stations in general but the prices vary from town to town so just shop around. There are of course loads of other familiar and no so familiar brands that we didn't use so can't comment on them, just check first before you fill up.

Supermarkets....

Lidl – No card charge
Aldi – Cards not accepted
Netto – 2.75% fee
Fakta – 3% fee
Bilka – 3% fee
Qvickly – 3% fee
Fotex – 3% fee

Needles to say we only used Lidl to pay by card and cash for all the mainstream brands. Bilka seemed to have all the biggest and poshest shops and were slightly dearer. There were also other shops including Spar but we didn't use those.

Ferry Return....

DFDS Esbjerg – Harwich, £300 one way which is considerably more than the Stena route but its a much longer crossing. The ships are getting a little tired but the cabins are ok. We noticed there was a bit of a pong of diesel in the corridors though. No free internet on these ships, its 30dk per hour with the first 15 mins free, but not available in cabins , only on the public decks, we gave it a miss.
Note, we changed our return date and came back a week early for the princely sum of £70 which seems to be a standard amendment charge over the phone. Don't even think of paying by credit card as they will sting you with a £9.25 handling fee, no charge for debit card though.

Highlights...

Its true to say that we weren't as 'blown away' with Denmark as we were with a previous trip to Norway but we had a good time all the same.
Best bits for us were the 'Top of Denmark' near Skagen where the two seas meet, it was a wild wet and windy day but that probably made it all the more spectacular. Dress appropriately, you will get wet!
Beautiful chocolate box thatched cottages all over the place.
Being able to join the Margueriten route at various stages of the tour for a bit of scenery or picturesque villages and towns.
We probably wouldn't visit again except to see Copenhagen as mentioned previously.



Pete


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## EJB (Aug 25, 2007)

Thanks Pete,
I agree with every word  
We've known Denmark for more than 50 years and it never seems to change. The friendliest of people and the nicest of countries.

We used to visit because the whole athmosphere is so pleasant.


However, Norway is amazing and a completely different world as you intimate


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## peejay (May 10, 2005)

One thing we both found strange. Denmark is a huge producer and exporter of bacon but we never saw one pigfarm on our trip - weird. :? 

Pete


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## Zozzer (Aug 13, 2006)

peejay said:


> One thing we both found strange. Denmark is a huge producer and exporter of bacon but we never saw one pigfarm on our trip - weird. :?
> 
> Pete


Thanks for the report Peejay, very usefull. We are heading over to Denmark next May via Ebsjerg and taking the oppotunity to visit an old mate of mine who has been living in Randers for 30+ years. He was telling me that even the Danes cannot buy Danish Bacon as it all goes for export.

Not sure where we'll be going on our travels, but Skagen had allready been earmarked along with a few fishing villages.


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## Zozzer (Aug 13, 2006)

Well our trip to Denmark has been and gone so I thought I'd pass my experience.

Harwich
Queuing to board the ferry was obmissal, and was slowed down by checkin staff asking everyone if they wanted to book meals on board.
I'm normally a very patient person, but that took the biscuit. Surely people know if they want a meal or not when they book the ferry.

On board the Dana Sirena, I was more than happy with our standard class Seaway cabin with seaview and TV that had some programs in Engish or english with Scandinavian subtitles. The bed was comfortable and I had rest full sleep.

Having read Peejay's report I'd pre loaded the satnav with Shell & Unox POI's to cut out the credit card charges when filling the tank.
The only exception we found was a Shell garage on the outskirts of Skagen that we noticed on checking bank statement had added a 3% levy.

I too agree that Skagen & Grenen are must see places on a trip to Jutland. There is something really weird about standing on the beach at the northern most tip of Denmark and having waves from the North sea lap over your left foot, whilst at the same, waves from the Baltic sea are lapping over your right foot. A thoroughly cherished moment.

Being surrounded by water there is an abundance of fishing villages and towns which we loved visiting. Skagen, Hirtshals, Frederikshavn.

Other places we visited were Ebeltoft, Aahus, Randers, Silkebourg, Billund and Ribe. Of course we couldn't leave Denmark with visiting Legoland at Billund and I retitorate what others have said don't think it's only for children, we really did enjoyed our day there longingly wish our grandson and niece were with us. It was expensive to get in, and so was the food inside.

On the subject of food in the shops, we didn't find Denmark as expensive as we feared it would be. Alcohol is expensive, I was not allowed to buy any when I met up with an old chum I'd not seen for thirty years. Well that was because I'd taken him some thick English Bacon, Lancashire Cheese and Lancashire Black Pudding all of which they cannot get in Denmark. He runs a pub
in the centre of Randers "Barry's Bar" so we sunk a few pints whilst we remonisted about the old days and he took us on a tour of the town.

Language wise, we didn't have a problem when speaking to people as soon as they realised we were english they switched from Danish fluent English. Shops can be a bit daunting as the written Danish needs a team of code breakers to decifer. But we soon got to grips with the early morning trips the bakery having taken pot luck buying our first loaf of bread, we liked it and continued buying the same whilst in Denmark.
the same one 

Whilst I enjoyed my stay in Denmark and meeting up with my mate, would I go again. If I'm honest, No as it seems to lack something. We came away thinking is that all there is to Denmark. It does however knock spots off the UK when it comes to touring with 24hours stops being tolerated providing you don't spread furniture around the van. There are very good motorhome sanitation points on the motorways that are free, again something we in the UK could do with learning.


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## peejay (May 10, 2005)

Nice write up Kevin.  

Looks like we had some similar views about the country.

Pete


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