Long and Winding Road
We’re not the kind of travelers who make a run for their destination. We have tried this strategy in the past, and it has only left us exhausted: while we do arrive at our goal fast, once we’re there we need a few days of proper rest. Since our trips are usually not limited by vacation days, we have found that taking it slow works much better for us. And so, it took us two whole weeks to get to the ferry crossing to Norway.
Luxembourg
It’s the first time for both of us in the Duchy of Luxembourg. We spend a slightly-too-hot afternoon roaming the narrow streets of the capital, surprised by just how long it has been since we last stepped into a proper city. Traveling as we do, visiting cities is not easy, and we usually avoid it unless it’s a place we really want to visit. With Luxembourg, we’re out of options - there’s not much to visit apart from the capital and the country is so small that all roads inevitably go through the city, so we decide to take the plunge. We manage to find a safe but expensive garage that could accommodate our height, and in no time we’re away from our home on four wheels, free to explore the vibrant city of Luxembourg.
On a sunny August day, the winding streets of the capital are flooded with visitors. The cityscape is surprisingly diverse: medieval landmarks blend harmoniously with modern architecture. A city of just over 100.000 habitants hides its high standard and good quality of life in plain sight: coffee shops, pastry corners, quirky shops and creative initiatives of all kinds are abundant. No wonder: it’s notorious for its flexible tax policies, which are so important for the small country that its entire economy revolves around attracting foreign businesses.
The country is famous for its mostly trilingual population: most native citizens speak all three of the official languages - French, German and Luxembourgish. The latter is a Germanic language with a distinct French influence, that has been standardized only in the 20th century, and recent years have seen increased interest for its more intense study, promotion and usage.
Off-road driving of any kind is strictly forbidden in Luxembourg. We spent the one night there hidden in a narrow forest access, opening the tent late in the evening and closing it with the first light of dawn. There are many less than perfect things about Spain, but while in Luxembourg, we’re immensely grateful that this is not one of them: amazing and accessible nature awaits in all communities, ready to be enjoyed by citizens and foreigners alike. In the morning, we managed a short hike around Lac de la Haute-Sûre in the countryside, and continued on our way through Belgium.
Belgium
Deciding that it was finally time to speed up a bit, we spent only an afternoon in Belgium, taking the shortest possible route through the country, but this didn’t stop us from squeezing in just a bit of off-road. The narrow trail slowly expanded to the most scenic forest tracks, where we had lunch and enjoyed the silence. Off-road possibilities in Belgium are quite limited as well, but in comparison to Luxembourg, there’s more open space and more trails to follow. Next time the road takes us through Belgium, we’ll make sure to explore it in more detail.
The Netherlands
As soon as we crossed the border to the Netherlands, the weather changed, from wonderful sunny days it went to rainy, windy grey days not unlike November in Spain. We chose only one place to visit in the country, and we believe we chose well: we visited the windmills in Kinderdijk, a national symbol of the Netherlands, and a UNESCO heritage site. Here we learned more about windmills, the invention that revolutionized the country and the world, machinery so important that it propelled the Dutch golden age in trade and made The Netherlands the prosperous, high-standard country that it is today.
Germany
We drove one entire day, something very rare for us, in order to make it to Denmark and have some time to spare before crossing to Norway. Between the bad weather and endless traffic jams, we saw nothing of the country apart from the highway and the one forest near Bremen where we spent the night.
Denmark
The notoriously bad weather in Jutland did not stop us from recovering a bit and enjoying almost everything that the peninsula has to offer. The first thing we did after crossing the border was to look for a proper Scandinavian-style swimming pool: unlike the ones in Spain, swimming pools here always have hot tubs and dry and moist saunas, and are dotted with a thousand small conveniences, such as swimsuit dryers and phone chargers. Additionally, Scandinavia is famous for its more open approach towards nakedness, so changing rooms are nowhere to be found, and visitors are expected to shower naked using a special antibacterial soap in order to ensure maximum cleanliness at the facility. (Iceland’s swimming pools, our favorites, usually also have open air pools and hot tubs, which are especially enjoyable on snowy winter nights, when the outside temperature falls below 0). Warming our bones in the sauna, followed by an overpriced but amazing coffee, helped us greatly to recover our strength, and so we set out to explore the western shore of the peninsula.
The road took us through the Thy National Park, true Danish wilderness, a good place to see bird migrations in the spring and autumn. We’re here out of season, so we enjoy the desolate landscape only made more impressive by the strong winds hitting the seashore.
We spent our last day in Denmark driving along Svinkløv Strand, a beach where off-road driving is allowed and even regulated. We had a lot of fun driving in the sand, although it was less fun to clean the sand out of our hair, clothes, car and sandwiches.
Our final stop was the inescapable Skagen, the point where Skagerrak meets Kattegat, where the North Sea crosses waves with the Baltic Sea. We watched the sun set from the Grenen beach in Skagen, and got to Kristiansand just in time for our ferry to Norway.
