Browse content similar to Denmark (20min). Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
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Beaches, boats and bicycles? | 0:00:15 | 0:00:18 | |
I must be in Denmark. | 0:00:18 | 0:00:20 | |
This stunning, windswept coast is apparently home | 0:00:26 | 0:00:29 | |
to the happiest people on earth, | 0:00:29 | 0:00:31 | |
and now we're here to meet them, our North Sea neighbours. | 0:00:31 | 0:00:35 | |
We've crossed the North Sea to embark on a great Danish journey. | 0:01:02 | 0:01:06 | |
I'm travelling down the coast of Jutland | 0:01:06 | 0:01:08 | |
heading for the Isle of Fano in the south, | 0:01:08 | 0:01:11 | |
starting as far north as you can go, Skagen. | 0:01:11 | 0:01:14 | |
'This is the tip of the top of Denmark, | 0:01:22 | 0:01:26 | |
'where two great bodies of water meet.' | 0:01:26 | 0:01:30 | |
Look at this, Denmark is a country that actually comes to a point! | 0:01:32 | 0:01:37 | |
A few steps this way, I'll be in the North Sea, headed towards home. | 0:01:37 | 0:01:41 | |
A few steps this way and I'll be in the Baltic, headed towards Russia. | 0:01:41 | 0:01:45 | |
Now this is my kind of coast-to coast-walk! | 0:01:45 | 0:01:48 | |
'And I'm not the only one. | 0:01:51 | 0:01:53 | |
'Crowds of Danes come here to witness the eternal battle | 0:01:53 | 0:01:56 | |
'between the twin seas.' | 0:01:56 | 0:01:58 | |
It's captivating to watch opposing currents collide | 0:02:01 | 0:02:05 | |
as two waters wrestle for control. | 0:02:05 | 0:02:07 | |
Many Danes make something of a pilgrimage | 0:02:14 | 0:02:17 | |
to this picturesque province of Skagen. | 0:02:17 | 0:02:20 | |
Why does the heart and soul of a nation seem to lie | 0:02:21 | 0:02:24 | |
at its most northerly tip? | 0:02:24 | 0:02:26 | |
'I'm hoping Skagen Museum Director, Lisette Vind Ebbensen can shed some light.' | 0:02:34 | 0:02:40 | |
Oh, yeah. It's so flat, and the sea on either side, | 0:02:40 | 0:02:43 | |
it just feels like the sea could take it. | 0:02:43 | 0:02:45 | |
Yes, take it all, yeah. | 0:02:45 | 0:02:47 | |
British people are fond of saying that they are a sea-going island race. | 0:02:47 | 0:02:51 | |
Do Danes have this connection to the sea? | 0:02:51 | 0:02:55 | |
I think it is. yes, and it probably goes back to the Vikings. | 0:02:55 | 0:02:59 | |
We're still proud of the Vikings, I suppose, | 0:02:59 | 0:03:02 | |
and the coast, and the sea does mean a lot. | 0:03:02 | 0:03:05 | |
And, I mean, in Denmark you're always close to the sea, | 0:03:05 | 0:03:09 | |
and especially here in Skagen where you have two different seas. | 0:03:09 | 0:03:14 | |
I've heard, that the Danish are the happiest people in the world. | 0:03:14 | 0:03:19 | |
Can that be true? | 0:03:19 | 0:03:21 | |
Well, I've heard that as well, and I guess the Danes are very happy. | 0:03:21 | 0:03:25 | |
-Why? -There's only like 5.5 million people here | 0:03:25 | 0:03:30 | |
and Danish people are happy people, they're warm, | 0:03:30 | 0:03:34 | |
they have a lot of hygge. | 0:03:34 | 0:03:36 | |
-Hygge? -Hygge is really hard to translate to any language in the world. | 0:03:36 | 0:03:40 | |
It's a very Danish work, and I suppose it means friendly or cosy. | 0:03:40 | 0:03:45 | |
We can have a hyggely time. | 0:03:45 | 0:03:48 | |
A hyggely time? You're making this up. | 0:03:48 | 0:03:51 | |
-No. -Is this just something that Danish people say to foreigners to make them go away? | 0:03:51 | 0:03:56 | |
# Oh, the good life | 0:03:56 | 0:04:01 | |
# Full of fun | 0:04:03 | 0:04:05 | |
# Seems to be the ideal... # | 0:04:05 | 0:04:08 | |
'For my first lesson in this uniquely Danish concept of hygge, | 0:04:10 | 0:04:14 | |
'I've got to get on my bike, like everyone else here. | 0:04:14 | 0:04:17 | |
'Am I having hygge? | 0:04:17 | 0:04:19 | |
'Maybe. Something tells me I need to investigate further.' | 0:04:19 | 0:04:23 | |
Every summer in Skagen they celebrate the longest day | 0:04:28 | 0:04:31 | |
with a giant bonfire and whole lot of hygge down on the beach. | 0:04:31 | 0:04:36 | |
Sankt Hans is all about hygge. | 0:04:37 | 0:04:40 | |
Sankt Hans is all about hygge. | 0:04:40 | 0:04:42 | |
Sankt Hans, St John's eve, | 0:04:45 | 0:04:47 | |
is a festival of light from the earliest times. | 0:04:47 | 0:04:52 | |
The celebration of Sankt Hans is a very old tradition | 0:04:52 | 0:04:55 | |
started by the Vikings or years before Vikings. | 0:04:55 | 0:04:59 | |
You put the witch on the fire, | 0:05:02 | 0:05:04 | |
then you light the fire sending the bad spirits away. | 0:05:04 | 0:05:10 | |
You come dressed as you are, | 0:05:10 | 0:05:12 | |
you don't have to dress up to come and hyggesheim. | 0:05:12 | 0:05:14 | |
You'll go and sit on the beach, | 0:05:14 | 0:05:16 | |
and you have some wine and it will all be hygge. | 0:05:16 | 0:05:21 | |
And people will have a beer and just walk around, and have some small talk with each other. | 0:05:21 | 0:05:25 | |
It's very romantic. | 0:05:25 | 0:05:27 | |
All the students come down here to the bonfire | 0:05:38 | 0:05:41 | |
and they want to throw their notes just before the fire is getting started. | 0:05:41 | 0:05:46 | |
as a sign of "we don't need them any longer". | 0:05:46 | 0:05:48 | |
So it has become a tradition | 0:05:48 | 0:05:51 | |
that they all do that for Sankt Hans evening now. | 0:05:51 | 0:05:55 | |
It's a big bonfire, you can feel it, | 0:06:01 | 0:06:03 | |
we're standing 50 metres away, | 0:06:03 | 0:06:06 | |
suddenly the heat is there and it's an incredible heat. | 0:06:06 | 0:06:11 | |
It was a lovely evening, | 0:06:25 | 0:06:27 | |
we had some good food and a very hyggely evening. | 0:06:27 | 0:06:31 | |
It may be 11 at night, but the sun's yet to set | 0:06:33 | 0:06:36 | |
and there's a lot more hygge to be had before dawn. | 0:06:36 | 0:06:42 | |
My journey continues south along the shore of Jutland. | 0:06:44 | 0:06:48 | |
This is a protected stretch of beach, | 0:06:48 | 0:06:50 | |
and you won't find many houses, | 0:06:50 | 0:06:52 | |
but strangely, you can park right on the sand. | 0:06:52 | 0:06:56 | |
No pay and display here, | 0:06:56 | 0:06:59 | |
but take local advice, tourists regularly get stuck, | 0:06:59 | 0:07:03 | |
and getting caught out by the tide costs more than a parking ticket. | 0:07:03 | 0:07:07 | |
Just behind the dunes, Miranda's seeking some residents | 0:07:13 | 0:07:17 | |
who've happily parked themselves in a very protected spot. | 0:07:17 | 0:07:21 | |
It's just after dawn, and I've come here to find some animals you don't | 0:07:24 | 0:07:28 | |
normally expect to be living by the sea, and that's red deer. | 0:07:28 | 0:07:33 | |
WHISPERING: This is great. I'm at the edge of the forest, using the forest as cover. | 0:07:47 | 0:07:51 | |
The deer are feeding out on this open grassland. | 0:07:51 | 0:07:53 | |
You can just see the dunes, and obviously there's the sea just behind me. | 0:07:53 | 0:07:57 | |
He's just put his head down, but I think that the deer | 0:08:00 | 0:08:03 | |
feeding behind us is probably a young male, just had tiny antlers. | 0:08:03 | 0:08:08 | |
'It's hard to get close to them. These shy creatures are easily spooked. | 0:08:08 | 0:08:14 | |
'But the serenity of the scene isn't quite as it appears. | 0:08:14 | 0:08:17 | |
'These red deer have rather noisy neighbours.' | 0:08:17 | 0:08:21 | |
They share their home with the Danish army. | 0:08:24 | 0:08:26 | |
This is a restricted zone, | 0:08:29 | 0:08:32 | |
off limits to everyone not driving a tank. | 0:08:32 | 0:08:34 | |
Oddly, this unusual relationship between wildlife and warfare seems to work. | 0:08:36 | 0:08:42 | |
'I want to see it from the military perspective.' | 0:08:46 | 0:08:50 | |
Fritz, tell me how long the Danish army has lived side-by-side with the red deer here. | 0:08:50 | 0:08:55 | |
We have actually being living together since 1928-29 | 0:08:55 | 0:09:00 | |
approximately, so we know each other quite well, I have to say. | 0:09:00 | 0:09:05 | |
We have a little bit of a strange neighbourship because | 0:09:05 | 0:09:08 | |
when we are outside of our vehicles they are gone, | 0:09:08 | 0:09:11 | |
but when we're inside our vehicles we have no problems, | 0:09:11 | 0:09:15 | |
they can stay just beside the vehicle, | 0:09:15 | 0:09:17 | |
and it means they feel, if we are starting shooting and so on, | 0:09:17 | 0:09:22 | |
they just slowly disappear from the area. | 0:09:22 | 0:09:25 | |
All around the shooting area there is a big forest | 0:09:25 | 0:09:28 | |
so the deer can go into the forest | 0:09:28 | 0:09:30 | |
and stay there for a long period and come out again if we are finished. | 0:09:30 | 0:09:34 | |
-And do you like having them around, is it nice? -Very nice, yeah. | 0:09:34 | 0:09:37 | |
'Despite the disruptions, the deer love being beside the sea. | 0:09:37 | 0:09:42 | |
'There's tasty heather and shelter in the dunes from the constant wind. | 0:09:42 | 0:09:47 | |
'It's early autumn and the rutting season has begun. | 0:09:50 | 0:09:54 | |
'Ole Daugaard-Petersen is head of the deer reserve.' | 0:09:54 | 0:09:59 | |
There's interesting activity going on in the group down there. | 0:09:59 | 0:10:03 | |
There's a large number of hinds and there's that big stag | 0:10:03 | 0:10:06 | |
that's constantly patrolling, looking after that group of females. | 0:10:06 | 0:10:10 | |
Just now the mature stags are rounding up the hinds and | 0:10:10 | 0:10:14 | |
the point is he wants to mate with all of them. | 0:10:14 | 0:10:17 | |
He wants to keep his competitors away, | 0:10:17 | 0:10:20 | |
and you will see the young stags | 0:10:20 | 0:10:23 | |
circling around the herd, | 0:10:23 | 0:10:25 | |
hoping to get the chance to get a go with the hinds, | 0:10:25 | 0:10:29 | |
and the mature stag, he will keep them away. | 0:10:29 | 0:10:32 | |
So he can keep going for two, three weeks rutting, no eat, no nothing, | 0:10:32 | 0:10:38 | |
and then you will see the stag, | 0:10:38 | 0:10:39 | |
suddenly he will be lying sleeping for a few minutes, | 0:10:39 | 0:10:42 | |
up again and so he carries on for three weeks, | 0:10:42 | 0:10:46 | |
and then it's done and he leaves his hinds. | 0:10:46 | 0:10:49 | |
He might have lost 30-40 kilos during those three weeks, | 0:10:49 | 0:10:52 | |
so he's really busy, you know? | 0:10:52 | 0:10:56 | |
'Three weeks of rutting with barely a break, | 0:10:59 | 0:11:02 | |
'these majestic stags have got some serious stamina.' | 0:11:02 | 0:11:06 | |
We've reached Denmark's most westerly point, Blavandshuk. | 0:11:18 | 0:11:23 | |
A top spot for a great view. | 0:11:25 | 0:11:28 | |
Just three miles or so off the coast here is the most notorious reef | 0:11:32 | 0:11:36 | |
in the whole of the North Sea. | 0:11:36 | 0:11:38 | |
In the days of sail it was known to the skippers as Duyvels Horn. The Devil's Horn. | 0:11:38 | 0:11:45 | |
'Once the graveyard of countless ships, | 0:11:45 | 0:11:48 | |
'today, Horns Reef is helping to save the planet. | 0:11:48 | 0:11:52 | |
'It's home to one of the world's largest off-shore wind farms.' | 0:11:52 | 0:11:56 | |
This is a site that's set to be increasingly familiar off our shores, | 0:11:56 | 0:12:01 | |
but what you don't often see is how these big beasts get built. | 0:12:01 | 0:12:05 | |
At the port of Esbjerg, engineer and green enthusiast, Dick Strawbridge, | 0:12:09 | 0:12:13 | |
is about to discover how the pieces fit together. | 0:12:13 | 0:12:16 | |
They assemble what bits they can on the quayside before shipping them out to sea. | 0:12:19 | 0:12:25 | |
Bolting the blades on is job number one. | 0:12:25 | 0:12:29 | |
The bloke in charge is Siemens's technical wizard, Jesper Moeller. | 0:12:29 | 0:12:34 | |
-It's huge! -This is a 45-metre blade made out fibreglass. | 0:12:34 | 0:12:38 | |
It's just literally fibreglass? | 0:12:38 | 0:12:40 | |
Yes, it's fibreglass, fibreglass and balsa wood, and it's cast in one piece. | 0:12:40 | 0:12:44 | |
Hold on, say, "It's cast in one piece" again. | 0:12:44 | 0:12:47 | |
There's an echo, it's long enough to give you an echo. | 0:12:47 | 0:12:50 | |
The shape is developed over many years | 0:12:50 | 0:12:54 | |
and it's actually consisting of different aircraft blade shapes. | 0:12:54 | 0:12:58 | |
This is the tip, but you look at that, that's sharp. | 0:12:58 | 0:13:03 | |
It's not quite straight. | 0:13:05 | 0:13:07 | |
It has a slight curve, because when it's pointing up towards the wind | 0:13:07 | 0:13:11 | |
-it has a slight bend towards the wind... -It flexes. | 0:13:11 | 0:13:14 | |
It flexes, then when the wind pushes on it, it straightens out. | 0:13:14 | 0:13:19 | |
Everything looks shiny and new right now, but out in the North Sea, | 0:13:19 | 0:13:22 | |
these turbines are going to face a right battering. | 0:13:22 | 0:13:25 | |
So why go to all the trouble of sticking them nearly ten miles offshore? | 0:13:25 | 0:13:30 | |
Well, offshore has a lot of advantages. | 0:13:30 | 0:13:33 | |
It has a very stable flow of wind. | 0:13:33 | 0:13:36 | |
Lots of constant wind? | 0:13:36 | 0:13:37 | |
Yes, and also higher wind compared to onshore locations. | 0:13:37 | 0:13:41 | |
It's time for this landlubber to brave the North Sea and take a look. | 0:13:43 | 0:13:47 | |
The installation vessel is already on its way, and I'm hot on its heels. | 0:13:47 | 0:13:52 | |
Another good reason to build out here, no complaints from the neighbours. | 0:13:55 | 0:14:00 | |
'But some people DO have to live near the turbines, | 0:14:00 | 0:14:04 | |
'and the maintenance team need a house.' | 0:14:04 | 0:14:06 | |
We're about 40 kilometres off the Danish coast. | 0:14:08 | 0:14:12 | |
This is the accommodation platform, and we're in the middle of nowhere. | 0:14:12 | 0:14:17 | |
'The engineers share the platform with an electrical sub-station.' | 0:14:17 | 0:14:21 | |
There's lots of technology here, | 0:14:21 | 0:14:24 | |
and that's not surprising as all the electricity from the wind turbines | 0:14:24 | 0:14:28 | |
is sucked in here before being sent ashore, | 0:14:28 | 0:14:30 | |
and when the wind blows, there's enough electricity to power 20 million light bulbs. | 0:14:30 | 0:14:35 | |
This is a paradise for engineers. | 0:14:42 | 0:14:45 | |
It may look like the turbines are in nice neat rows, but it's more complicated than that. | 0:14:45 | 0:14:49 | |
The turbines aren't in a block, they're in a fan shape, | 0:14:49 | 0:14:52 | |
which means when the wind blows from the west, | 0:14:52 | 0:14:55 | |
any turbulence doesn't reduce the efficiency of the other turbines, | 0:14:55 | 0:14:58 | |
so all the energy from the wind can be captured by the wind turbines and turned into electricity, | 0:14:58 | 0:15:03 | |
and there's absolutely masses of it. | 0:15:03 | 0:15:06 | |
The installation vessel is now in position, | 0:15:11 | 0:15:13 | |
and they've started to erect turbine number 70. | 0:15:13 | 0:15:17 | |
I'm on my way. | 0:15:17 | 0:15:19 | |
Denmark's the land of Lego. This is the ultimate big piece of kit to put together. | 0:15:21 | 0:15:25 | |
Seapower with its crane is going to assemble it all, good job. | 0:15:25 | 0:15:31 | |
So, how do they do it? | 0:15:31 | 0:15:32 | |
It's a really simple system. | 0:15:32 | 0:15:34 | |
They drive a mono-pile into the sea bed about 20 metres, then put the yellow section on - | 0:15:34 | 0:15:39 | |
actually the transition piece - and they make sure that's perfectly vertical. | 0:15:39 | 0:15:43 | |
Then they've already added on one piece of tower, | 0:15:43 | 0:15:45 | |
we're about to see a second piece of tower go on, | 0:15:45 | 0:15:48 | |
then they'll shove the turbine on the top, then the blades and it's done. | 0:15:48 | 0:15:51 | |
The engineers are battling to complete the job before the autumn storms hit. | 0:15:54 | 0:15:59 | |
In calm weather, | 0:15:59 | 0:16:00 | |
they can put up three turbines in 24 hours of non-stop effort. | 0:16:00 | 0:16:07 | |
This thing is massive! | 0:16:07 | 0:16:09 | |
Thank you. | 0:16:09 | 0:16:11 | |
I've got to get myself one of these. | 0:16:17 | 0:16:21 | |
It's awesome! | 0:16:21 | 0:16:23 | |
This beauty is over 1.5 times taller then Nelson's Column, | 0:16:30 | 0:16:35 | |
but the technology doesn't stand still. | 0:16:35 | 0:16:38 | |
The ones planned for our seas will be even bigger than these guys. | 0:16:38 | 0:16:41 | |
Look out for them coming to a coast near you. | 0:16:41 | 0:16:44 | |
'I'm on the final leg of my journey.' | 0:16:56 | 0:16:58 | |
In my quest for happiness Danish-style, | 0:17:01 | 0:17:03 | |
I'm off to visit a very contented community on the island of Fano. | 0:17:03 | 0:17:08 | |
'My destination, the Isle of Fano, Denmark's oldest holiday resort. | 0:17:23 | 0:17:28 | |
'Life here's laid-back, the legacy of a privileged past.' | 0:17:28 | 0:17:33 | |
In 1741, this canny community clubbed together | 0:17:36 | 0:17:41 | |
and bought their island from the king, | 0:17:41 | 0:17:43 | |
and soon the good times started to roll with a whole lot of happiness ever since. | 0:17:43 | 0:17:48 | |
'Originally, the island's wealth was built on shipbuilding. | 0:17:52 | 0:17:56 | |
'The money was put into bricks, mortar and thatch. | 0:17:56 | 0:17:59 | |
'My quest to experience hygge in Denmark | 0:17:59 | 0:18:03 | |
'has come to a cosy conclusion.' | 0:18:03 | 0:18:05 | |
# It's the good life | 0:18:06 | 0:18:10 | |
# To be free and explore the unknown... # | 0:18:10 | 0:18:16 | |
For me, this place embodies what I understand of the Danish concept of hygge. | 0:18:18 | 0:18:25 | |
If it's about finding contentment in comforting, cosy places, | 0:18:25 | 0:18:29 | |
then there's definitely hygge here. | 0:18:29 | 0:18:32 | |
Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd | 0:18:52 | 0:18:55 |