The Durneys Go Dutch

City trip to Aalborg

We spent a really nice day in Aalborg, the 4th largest city in Denmark. I didn't have any expectations and found the city to be really charming. High schoolers were celebrating their graduations that week and all over town, graduates could be seen wearing suits or white dresses with what looked like sailing hats, the Danish tradition.

Jens Bang's Stonehouse from 1623.

Found some cute back streets

Aalborg Kloster

Budolfi Kirke

Lovely square for lunch at Sogaards Brewery

Back at our AirBnB, we walked to the coast, where there was a pretty nature reserve.

We learned that at low tide, you could walk a trail out to the island off the coast. The next low tide was 5:30 the following morning. Jude and I made plans to wake up early to do it, but he ended up with a stomach ache during the night and we decided it would be better to get a full night's sleep.

Rock painting

First s'mores of the trip

Father's Day in North Jutland

After Legoland, we drove to Hals in North Jutland to spend our last 3 nights in Denmark. We stayed in an AirBnB summer cottage near the coast and spent two days exploring.

Day 1 was Father's day, which started with celebrating our #1 over brunch and then driving to Skagen, the Northernmost tip of Denmark, with stops along the way.

Drove by as these horses (and others) were galloping freely through the fields.

The best lupines of the trip were along the highways and not able to be photographed properly, but this was a gorgeous grouping.

Voer Lutheran Church from 1586!

Aalborg is home to the creator of Trolls, who knew!

We walked the grounds of Voergaard Slot, admiring the building and the family of swans that call its moat home.

The best daddy!

We made it to Skagen. We got sidetracked at the playground and sort of missed lunch, but managed to quell the tantrums at an Italian place in town.

Cute yellow building everywhere (just like Legoland depicted ;))

We continued driving north to the end of the road at Grenen. Here, you can explore old WWII bunkers and walk the beach to the very tip of Denmark. We didn't have time for the walk, but enjoyed finding starfish and playing on the beach.

On our way home, we stopped at Den Tilsandede Kirke, the ruins of a gothic church from the 14th century set amid sand dunes, overlooking the sea in the distance. Super striking. The kids played at the playground while Pete and I took turns hiking to it.

One final church spotting in Frederikshavn

Scandinavian Road Trip: Legoland Denmark

As soon as the school year ended, we hit the road for the 1st of our 2 big euro road trips this summer: Scandinavia!

We had a long first day, driving 8 hours to get to our first stop outside of Billund, Denmark, home of Legoland. I'd love to say that the drive was without incident, but unfortunately, it wasn't, with not one, but two rather messy car sick incidents. Not ideal, but we made it! I'm sure the Danish border agent deeply regretted stopping us to inspect our documents.

I found a really cute AirBnB on a farm 15 minutes down the road from Legoland.

I was so happy to see Lupines in each country on this trip.

Sheep skins from the farm

The owner's dog was a huge help cleaning up our car!

As a reward for the long drive, we took the kids to the original Legoland. It was a fun-filled day for everyone. The park was not that crowded even though it was a Saturday, so we got to ride on all of the rides we wanted. The weather was also great! The section of the park with miniature replicas of cities had all of the Scandinavian cities we would visit on our trip!