From Skagen to Tilbury

View over the yellow buildings and red roofs of Skagen and the North Sea beyond.

 This view of Skagen from the port illustrates the sandy strand it is built on, with a view of the North Sea in the background.

Our voyage home was fun. The ship has a tradition of parading baked Alaskas aflame around the restaurant before we consume them. Our waiter amused us by balancing his on his head.

we enjoyed both a comic Cold War spy mystery matinee in the Palladium and later, an excellent Blues Brothers show. We were also able to enjoy our favourite live performers, a violin and piano duo, as the sun set over the North Sea.

The following morning, the Kent and Essex coasts came into view along the Thames estuary and we docked at Tilbury.

Sunset over the North Sea. 27th June 2025.

14th century church lost in the dunes

The sand dunes were cleared to reveal the length of St Laurence church tower.

 In fact the shifting sands buried the whole of St Laurence church, and most of it was demolished, except the tower which could be used as a shipping location before the white and the grey lighthouses were built. After our coach parked at a car park, we took the half kilometre walk along the sandy path to the church tower.

I have never seen so many ties in a building before. The ties are probably necessary to keep the tower together on the shifting sands it is built on. Looking inside the building I spotted a spiral staircase which went up the tower. Under normal circumstances I would have explored it, but I didn't want to push my luck, reminding myself I was in a moon boot and dependent on two crutches less than a year ago. So I perched on a nearby grassy dune and watched the swallows which were nesting in the eaves, flying backwards and forwards to feed their young.

On our way back to the ship our guide pointed out the yellow ochre colour of the houses with red roofs. She suggested the local authority had bought a job lot of the paint. I wasn't too sure about that, but they look good.

Shops and housing in the centre of Skagen in the uniform yellow ochre colour with red-tiled roof.

 

Dramatic rescue stories and traditional dwellings in Skagen museum

Among the grassed, reclaimed sand dunes in Skagen is the 19th century Viking-style long house, fisherman's cottage and, Dutch windmill.

Our guide showed us framed pictures and stories of the local sailors who put their lives at risk time and time again to rescue shipwrecks driven by the turbulent seas leading to beachings and shipwrecks. Local crew were decorated again and again for their brave successful rescues. Some saved so many lives,  they were rewarded with money rather than medals. Ships' crews from Newcastle and Grimsby were among those rescued by Skagen's skilled mariners.

Outside among the grassed dunes is a long house, similar in style and use to the Viking long houses we visited on the Isle of Lewis, Outer Hebrides, Scotland. Built in the 19th century, the Skagen one was more up to date than the ones on Lewis, but shared the practice of accommodating farm animals in the house. There was another, smaller, more humble house on the site, a Dutch windmill, a lump of worn sandstone and two boat sheds, one of which displayed the local mariners gear and equipment.

The whole of Skagen up to the Grenen is built on reclaimed sand dunes.

The 19th century Viking-style Skagen long house has a thatched roof. In the foreground is a rough piece of local sand stone. 

 

 

North to the shifting sands at Skagen

View of people on the sand strand on the northernmost tip of Denmark at Skagen.

I was looking forward to my trip ashore on our last port of call. Skagen (the Danes pronounce it Skayen) is the northern most tip of Denmark. We boarded our coach early to catch the tractor train to the strand which straddles the point where the North Sea meets the Baltic. This phenomenon creates a shifting strand of sand stretching north with waves from the North Sea rippling over it from the west and waves from the Baltic going over it from the east. Out to sea, they meet in the middle creating strong currents  which makes safe navigation dangerous. We found out more about these on our visit to the museum.

  The tractor train turns and stops before the strand comes to a point where the two seas meet. When we walked to the apex, it was possible for the waves to cover our feet from either side, the sand is permanently wet and footprints are soon smoothed over. Some of us paddled, others got wet feet without expecting to, when a wave from one of the seas came in unexpectedly over their feet and changed the shape of the strand. Needless to say the light is special, frequently changing and bright, even when the sky is overcast. Sea and coastal wading birds are frequent visitors to the area, which is attractive for bird watchers, like the North Norfolk coast.

   Our tractor train returned us to the coach park at Denmark's "Lands End" which has been hard landscaped among the sand dunes. Everything in Skagen has been constructed on sand. There are toilets and a shop here in a wooden building with a turf roof, where martins nest in the eves and wing back and forth with food for their chicks.

   Back in the coach my travelling companion said there was an altercation in the crowded souvenir shop. One visitor had asked another visitor if she would move, so she could pass behind her to reach the cash desk and pay for her selection. She received the reply: "No! I'm looking at these things!" and she did not move. The pettiness amused me.

One of the tractor trains waits for passengers to take the next run to the strand. The nature of the sand and the dunes make these vehicles the only method of reaching near enough to the northernmost tip of Denmark.

 

Art, archaeology and architecture in Copenhagen

The winter garden in the central atrium of the Glyptotek museum with its amusing sculpture of the babies crawling all over the mother figure.

 I found the width of my identity card frame coincided with a kilometre on the maps of Copenhagen we had picked up from the quayside. This revealed it could be a two and a half mile walk from the ship to the Glyptotek and National Museum we intended to visit. We decided we needed transport. My attempt to gain information from one of the QR codes on my map failed, so we opted for the open top, hop on and hop off bus. After noting there were as many cars in the car parks we saw, as bikes in the bike racks, and that in spite of all efforts by Copenhagen City Council to get residents and visitors to walk, bike or use public transport, the traffic jams and snarl-ups, some of which held our bus up, appeared to us to be as bad as any other European city.

As our hop-on, hop-off bus deposited us by the side of the Glyptotek, we went inside. It's Copenhagen's equivalent of the British Museum, plus some major art works. Architecturally it is stunning and we took the advantage of the lift to take in the views from the roof. We could hear the squeals of excitement from the rides in the nearby Tivoli gardens up there. In the atrium is a winter garden with a central goldfish pond, dominated by a sculpture of many babies crawling over a mother figure. We decided to stick together and visited the Egyptian collection, which has beautifully designed Egyptian-style wall and floor features in every room. I particularly like the Roman and Egyptian lions. One lion head, of the Egyptian goddess Sekhmet arrested my attention and made me laugh. There was something about it which reminded me of the late television presenter Huw Weldon, although it took us all the rest of the day and most of the evening to remember his name and the others took some convincing the sculpture looked anything like him. I also loved the figurine of the long suffering rat, although I have been informed it is probably a long suffering mongoose, rather than a rat. Unfortunately we discovered the Glyptotek's "Highlights" catalogue in English is out of print.

We returned to the bus stop to catch the bus back. I failed in my second attempt to find information from scanning a QR code at the bus stop, but we did not have long to wait and took the rest of the tour before returning to our ship. We noted the city traffic was even worse at this time of day. The bus stopped for ten minutes near the Little Mermaid statue, where there is an ice cream kiosk and conveniences, before we completed our return journey.

The expression of this Sekhmet sculpture is exceptionally evocative and very human.

   

A walk along the Nyhavn Canal

A visitor sightseeing craft on the Nyhavn Canal passes us. On the opposite side of the canal, is the medieval crane on the left hand side, with a Danish naval craft beside it. Next to that is the Danish Royal Yacht. 

 

From the port at Copenhagen, we left the ship to find information about accessing the museums in the city centre. We like to use the local public transport and therefore went on a mission to buy travel tickets from visitor information on the quayside. We were able to pick up maps, and continued our walk to find the Danish equivalent of Thames Clippers were taking visitors along the river estuary. we came across a marina, groups of twittering sparrows feasting on seeds and insects in the long grass, and views of the estuary. There we were able to view the Danish Royal Yacht and an intact medieval crane.

   We were still seeking the information to travel on the local trains, buses or metro, when we walked on to the Little Mermaid statue, who was attracting crowds from the coach and open-top bus tours parked nearby. The Little Mermaid, who sacrifices herself for love, but becomes immortal, is one of the enchanting stories by Danish author Hans Christian Anderson friend of Charles Dickens. My favourite Hans Christian Anderson story is the Snow Queen, which, although very different, is the basis of "Frozen."

    Still hoping to find the information we were seeking, we found other attractive sculptures in the park before we abandoned our mission, and walked back to the ship, to study our maps

  
 

Swedish farewell from a marching band

 Not only did they look good, but our farewell from Sweden was given by a marching band, which braved the breezy Gothenburg port to give us some rousing numbers with clarinets, flutes, saxophones, trombones, trumpets, drums, cymbals and tuba. It was a treat to hear them as they played in their blue, white and gold uniforms.

  We had been unable to visit the other Swedish port scheduled, as local authority bylaws had limited the size of ship they could handle at the port since the initial booking had been made. Therefore we spent the next three days at Danish ports.

A rainy day in Sweden

Many homes on the Swedish west coast are white weatherboard with red pan-tiled roofs.

One of the best things about our trip along the Swedish west coast to explore the scenery and the fishing villages was our entertaining and good humoured Swedish guide, Annika. She explained a few useful words in Swedish, such as "tak" for thanks,... as we could say "ta". "Window" is a Swedish word which explains that it is something to stop the wind from blowing into the home, yet allow the eye to see out. Translated "window" means "wind eye". In the towns and villages, our coach took us through, Annika explained that the houses are built close together to shelter the community from the prevailing strong winds, which had, when deforestation took place, effectively blown away much of the top soil, which made these coastal communities more dependent on fishing than farming.

    Sweden has more islands than anywhere else in the world, many of them uninhabited, but we did have to cross a few bridges between them, one of them, had spectacularly collapsed,   when a ship barged into a strut in fog, resulting in tragic loss of life. I nearly lost my way in one of the villages, I was so keen on exploring and taking photographs, I went down the wrong lane, but fortunately I was rescued by a fellow passenger, clutching a jar of pickled herrings bought from the museum. Although the weather was wet, I was nevertheless reminded of the Northern Isles, as the light changed so quickly, transforming the views of the inlets and islands from the bridges.

    On my last trip to Sweden, a few years ago, we explored Stockholm and I identified one or two people I liked to think of as descendants of the famous "Berserks" of norse legend. Today Sweden is known for Ikea and Volvo, which have shops and manufacturing worldwide. Annika has some amusing stories about Swedish culture and eating habits. I was most amused with the statistic of Sweden eating the most bananas per head of population of any European country. Although the Swedes also out-eat the Italians in ice cream, I was nevertheless so impressed by the banana eating statistic,  I thought I could put the Swedish nation up for a Nobel Prize in the prowess. 

    Before we returned to Ambiance, Annika sang us a couple of Swedish songs. One has to accompany the drinking of snaps, which you can't drink unless you sing; it's a rule. Before we left the coach she treated us to a song about a frog, which involved actions and jumping up and down and made us laugh. "We Swedes have a silly sense of humour" she said.

   That evening, at dinner, I was attacked by a "pirate", one of the ship's photographers in a swashbuckling disguise. The resulting print is embellished with a picture of the "Bounty" notorious for its mutiny!     

 

A midsummer voyage

The sun sets over the North Sea at the end of Midsummer Day

 On midsummer day, 2025, we embarked the ship, the Ambience at Tilbury and unpacked our luggage in our cabin. After making a choice from the menu we enjoyed a superbly cooked dinner in the restaurant and watched the sun set over the North Sea, 

   We found we had left the sweltering heat at home. It was delightful to feel the breeze from the sea. Before we made port at Gothenburg Sweden, there was a spectacular show in the Palladium. Called "Masquerade" the costumes and sets were superb, although we arrived late and had an oblique view, nevertheless we were able to enjoy it in comfort.