Our day docked in the northern Denmark town of Skagen had included an excursion that started with a visit to a museum with a great exhibition about the Danish resistance movement in World War II and concluded with some time exploring the bunkers of Bangsbo Fort. As is often the case when you have a tour while taking a cruise where the ship is not due to leave for some time after the tour’s conclusion, we were given the option on the drive back to Skagen to be dropped off nearer the town if we wanted to explore it on our own. And we did.
“Lars, I hear you’re the mayor of Skagen!”
“Yes, that’s true, Viggo. How nice to hear from you after all this time. To what do I owe this pleasure?”
“Well, Lars, I come with an amazing offer. I happen to have come into possession of more yellow paint than I can handle and I’m willing to let you have it for less than cost price. I’m taking a loss here and you’ll be doing me a favour while also getting an amazing bargain!”
“I… I don’t really know what to say, Viggo. I don’t think I need any yellow paint.”
“But your town, Lars! Picture it! Skagen. The yellowest town on Earth. Tourists will flock there!”
“It’s an interesting offer, Viggo, really it is. But I don’t think I can really…”
“How is your wife these days? Did you ever tell her the story of how you were also seeing my sister Kamilla when you were first dating her?”
“That yellow paint. How much did you say you wanted for it?”
And that’s the story behind Skagen’s yellow-plastered buildings with red tiled roofs. Probably.
There’s also probably a good story behind the prevalence of pizza places in Skagen. As we headed up through a pedestrianised area it seemed like every other place was selling pizza, and with it being so bright and sunny and with the cruise ship in port they seemed to be doing a decent trade. We, however, had another destination in mind.
We passed by plenty of market stalls before coming up a small square with a fountain and some modern art sculptures in it. These were designed by Poul Winther, an artist who was born in Skagen in 1939, and of whom there is very little other information available. We liked the artworks here; they’re our sort of abstract modernism.
The final landmark of note that we encountered before our intended destination was Skagen Church. It’s a hard-to-miss sight.
This building in this form dates from the turn of the twentieth century. A smaller church had existed in this spot for around fifty years prior to that but Skagen had become more religious than its size could cope with so it was extended and the taller tower was added by architects Ulrik Plesner and Thorvald Bindesbøll. Before that earlier church there had been other church buildings for the people of Skagen but this area of Denmark farmed to excess, removing too much vegetation in the area, and the result was shifting sand dunes that ended up winning the battle against man’s constructions. Indeed, if we’d not taken the war-related excursion earlier in the day then we would most likely have visited the still partly-buried church on the dunes instead.
“Father Henrik, long time no see.”
“Viggo? Is that really you?”
“It is I, Father, Jacob’s older brother, and I come with a bargain you and your congregation are going to love.”
“Yes, I bumped into Lars last week. How much do you want?”
Barely a minute’s walk from the church was what we really wanted to see: Skagen Brewery. This is the northernmost brewery in Denmark – which you probably could have guessed – and it boasts Denmark’s largest beer garden too. Established in 2005 in a former power-generating facility it brews its own beers and also distils gin. We tried the former in the garden and bought the latter to take back home with us. We are very fond of locally-produced drinks when we travel and I have to say that the beers were absolutely gorgeous, with different styles for all tastes.
After a very pleasant time in the sunshine we decided to make our way back to Sky Princess in the port. Now, if we’d paid a little bit more attention to the map then we’d have taken a shorter route – almost directly south – but we initially started off roughly heading back the way we’d come. This brought us in time to the statue of the Danish Fisherman and Rescuers dedicated to local heroes, which was nice enough but, it turned out, not that convenient for getting back to the cruise ship. We ended up having to double back on ourselves quite a bit in order to find the route that would get us back on board and that’s why there are perhaps more photos of Skagen’s waterfront area here than you might be expecting.
Back aboard Sky Princess we chatted and decided we really liked what we saw of Skagen, a place we’d never heard of prior to booking this cruise, and a place we’d neglected to look into too much. Skagen has a number of museums that look like they’d interest us, it’s got that dune-covered church we’d love to go and see, and there’s always the lure of a return visit to the brewery, so we’d jump at the chance to return here on some future trip.
We had plenty of time to chat about Skagen and gaze out at the sea because we ordered some snacks and drinks to our room. That took seventy five minutes to arrive. Not good, Princess Cruises.
We sat in a fairly empty lounge with the intention of having some drinks before dinner but after twenty minutes gave up waiting and placed orders on the app rather than hope some member of staff considered checking on the tables. Not good, Princess Cruises.
At sea in the evening we decided to dine in Alfredo’s after taking a look at the menu for the main dining room and not seeing anything that set us alight with excitement. The view from our table was very good and the food was lovely even if service was a bit sluggish. I say “sluggish”, but I mean “glacial”. The first courses were fine but dessert took forty five minutes to arrive after ordering it, and that was only after I’d attracted the attention of a waiter twice to see if we’d been forgotten (and we clearly had been). Not good, Princess Cruises.
In the next post in this Sky Princess cruise travelogue series we’ll be making the first of two visits to Oslo in 2022 and we’ll be heading off on an excursion that starts with a look around Vigeland Park.