Denmark Coast

Beaches, boats and bicycles.

I must be in Denmark.

For most of us, this is uncharted territory,

but we're about to discover the stories we share

with this spectacular coast.

There are over 400 islands and the odd wind farm to explore.

In the dunes of Denmark, life really is a beach.

This stunning wind-swept coast is apparently home

to the happiest people on earth,

and now we're here to meet them, our North Sea neighbours.

From Scotland, we've crossed the North Sea to embark on a great Danish journey.

I'm travelling down the coast of Jutland

heading for the Isle of Fano in the south,

starting as far north as you can go, Skagen.

This is the tip of the top of Denmark,

where two great bodies of water meet.

Look at this, Denmark is a country that actually comes to a point.

A few steps this way I'll be in the North Sea headed towards home.

A few steps this way and I'll be in the Baltic, headed towards Russia.

Now this is my kind of coast-to-coast walk!

And I'm not the only one,

crowds of Danes come here to witness the eternal battle

between the twin seas.

It's captivating to watch opposing currents collide

as two waters wrestle for control.

Many Danes make something of a pilgrimage

to this picturesque province of Skagen.

Why does the heart and soul of a nation seem to lie

at its most northerly tip?

'I'm hoping Skagen Museum Director, Lisette Vind Ebbensen, can shed some light.'

Oh, yeah. It's so flat, and the sea on either side,

-it just feels like the sea could take it.

-Yes, take it all, yeah.

British people are fond of saying that they are a sea-going island race.

Do Danes have this connection to the sea?

I think it is, yes, and it probably goes back to the Vikings.

We're still proud of the Vikings, I suppose,

and the coast, and the sea does mean a lot.

And, I mean, in Denmark, you're always close to the sea,

and, especially here in Skagen, where you have two different seas.

I've heard that the Danish are the happiest people in the world.

Can that be true?

Well, I've heard that as well, and I guess the Danes are very happy.

-Why?

-There's only like 5.5 million people here

and Danish people are happy people, they're warm,

they have a lot of hygge.

-Hygge?

-Hygge is really hard to translate to any language in the world.

It's a very Danish word, and I suppose it means friendly or cosy.

We can have a hyggeley time.

A hyggeley time? You're making this up.

-No.

-Is this just something that Danish people say to foreigners to make them go away?

# Oh, the good life

# Full of fun Seems to be the ideal... #

'For my first lesson in this uniquely Danish concept of hygge,

'I've got to get on my bike like everyone else here.

'Am I having hygge?

'Maybe. Something tells me I need to investigate further.'

Every summer in Skagen, they celebrate the longest day

with a giant bonfire and whole lot of hygge down on the beach.

Sankt Hans is all about hygge.

Sankt Hans is all about hygge.

Sankt Hans, St John's Eve,

is a festival of light from the earliest times.

The celebration of Sankt Hans is a very old tradition

started by the Vikings or years before Vikings.

You put the witch on the fire,

then you light the fire sending the bad spirits away.

You come dressed as you are,

you don't have to dress up to come and hyggesheim.

You'll go and sit on the beach,

and you have some wine and it will all be hygge.

And people will have a beer and just walk around, and have some small talk with each other.

It's very romantic.

When the students come down here to the bonfire

and they want to throw their notes just before the fire

is getting started, as a sign of "We don't need them any longer".

So it has become a tradition

that they all do that for Sankt Hans evening now.

It's a big bonfire, you can feel it,

we're standing 50 metres away,

suddenly the heat is there and it's an incredible heat.

It was a lovely evening,

we had some good food and a very hyggely evening.

It may be 11 at night, but the sun's yet to set

and there's a lot more hygge to be had before dawn.

Winds whip over northern Jutland.

Its famous walking dunes have engulfed whole villages,

so conifers and grasses were planted to anchor the landscape.

But not everywhere has been pinned down.

A small desert has been left to roam free,

the Rabjerg Mile, a magic carpet of sand.

This entire dune system is ceaselessly on the move.

The whole thing began its journey over there on the west coast

and it's moving across country towards the east.

In 200 years or so, this huge ocean of sand

will have travelled cross-country from coast to coast.

The surreal shifting sands of this fairytale world stretch down to the sea.

Don't stand around too long or you'll get gobbled up.

Now, this towering sand dune

is surely impressive enough, but I'm told there's a sight

at the top of it that's nothing less than spectacular.

Look at that!

That's like a special effect from a film about the end of the world.

Lighthouses, as we all know,

are built for protection from the power of the sea.

How ironic, then, that this tower

should have been overwhelmed by a much slower moving wave...of sand.

The light was lit for the first time in 1900

and finally extinguished in 1968

when the crew of this place had to admit defeat.

Some 1,600 years ago, people from hereabouts in Jutland

began getting in boats and heading for Britain.

They left behind their own sandy shores

and headed instead for the fertile lands of Kent

and the Isle of Wight.

The Jutes of Jutland were followed some 500 years later

by more famous and fearsome Danes, the Vikings.

Over on the east coast is Roskilde.

It's an ancient capital of Viking power.

Here, over 1,000 years ago,

they planned raids on Britain, as Alice is about to explore.

The cathedral at Roskilde is built on the site of a 10th-century Viking church.

Generations of Danish monarchs are buried here.

But there's one Danish king who's missing from Roskilde,

someone whose remains are buried in Winchester Cathedral.

That's because, in the early 11th century,

King Canute was the ruler, not just of Denmark, but of England.

Canute was a colossus of the Viking world.

He didn't only reign in Britain and Denmark,

but also Norway and part of Sweden.

In the 9th and 10th centuries, the Vikings were THE European superpower.

Each year, Roskilde throws a party to honour their warrior ancestors.

The secret of Viking power wasn't the sword or the axe,

but a weapon that guaranteed them speed and stealth.

This is a reconstruction of the ultimate 10th-century war machine,

the longship.

This one is called a Sea Stallion,

and she's based on an actual Viking longship

that was excavated from the fjord here at Roskilde.

She looks absolutely beautiful sitting here in the calm waters

of the harbour, but I do wonder just how sea-worthy she really is.

I've been offered the unique opportunity of signing up

for her 60-strong crew, but this is no free ride.

It's hard physical work

but it's quite relaxing in a weird way as well.

The rhythmic nature of it,

and there's a little pause at the end of each stroke where you just get to catch your breath.

This isn't a pleasure cruiser, the Sea Stallion's a living laboratory.

Building and sailing a replica of the ship found in this Fjord

has given the archaeologists a valuable insight into Viking technology.

Luckily for us, when it was found,

most of the keel and some of the floor timbers were found,

so, by looking at that, the reconstructors were actually able to estimate

the design, the length, the width and also the depth of the ship

from, actually, just looking at those 25%.

'This classic boat design was so successful,

'it was still being used by descendants of the Vikings,

'the Normans, for their invasion of England in 1066.'

So do you think that King Canute would have had similar ships

when he brought his fleet over to Britain?

I would expect so, yeah. At least a few of them would be this size.

And this size of ship, this was exclusively a warship?

Yeah, a warship is always long and narrow and has a shallow keel.

In 2007, to discover how Viking warriors like Canute

crossed from Denmark to attack the British isles,

the Sea Stallion followed in their wake,

attempting a hazardous voyage across the North Sea.

When I first saw the ship lying there in the harbour

she looked beautiful but it was hard to imagine

how she was going to perform on the open sea, so how does she perform?

Yeah. Yeah. That was a big question for me too

in heavy sea and heavy weather.

It's a wonderful ship, it's a wonderful ship.

I'm amazed how it's coping with these big waves,

five metres of waves and very steep, short waves.

-Five metres?

-Five metres...

Because I mean this rides very low in the water.

Yes, it's not one metre, so looking up at these waves coming, "Argh!"

Then you feel out there that it's a seagoing warship.

So can you imagine King Canute taking his army across to Britain in ships

like this, can you imagine what it would have been like for them?

We were over there in one ship.

They would have been sailing, maybe, 200 ships.

It must have been an incredible sight.

In 1015, Canute invaded England with a fleet of these ships.

It probably took him just three days sailing from Denmark,

his vessels both fast and seaworthy.

When the longships reached the British coast,

their shallow draft meant they could navigate up the rivers

to take the English by surprise.

Canute claimed the crown of England

and cemented a relationship with our monarchy that has spanned the centuries.

Which explains why Canute, King of Denmark and England,

doesn't rest here in Roskilde,

but back in Britain at Winchester Cathedral.

Vikings no longer race down this coast, but the Danes are still drawn to their shore.

In the summer, whatever the weather,

they'll head to the west of Jutland for its feel-good factor.

I'm off to the beach, to continue my quest for hygge,

the uniquely Danish sense of wellbeing or happiness.

I'm going to need some tips from a Dane.

'Whenever you wash up on foreign shores, a little local knowledge goes a long way.

'So I'm joining Mette Lisby,

'who's going to show me how to enjoy the seaside Danish style.'

I've been on a sort of pilgrimage in search of hygge,

or to experience hygge.

Is there hygge to be had on the beach?

There is, but it's actually not the best place for hygge.

Is it a bit too exposed and a bit too open on the beach?

Exactly, yeah, and most people when you say "hygge"

will think about the long winter evenings where it's dark outside

and you have candles inside, you might even have a fireplace.

'So it's hard to find hygge on the beach, but you don't have to go far.

'Apparently, you head for your summer house.

'One in four Danes has one.'

-I'm more used to a hut with a door and a padlock.

-Oh, no, no.

We have big beach houses, or summer huse, as we call them.

Could I have one of those?

-No.

-No?

-No, we're very protective of our beach houses.

The rules are that you can only buy them if you're Danish.

-Really?! No foreigners?

-No.

That's not really in the spirit of the European Union.

It's not at all, no. In Denmark, foreigners can't buy the beach houses.

You're very possessive about your coast.

Yes, I think so. Yeah, it's mentioned in all the national songs and anthems of Denmark.

I think it's something we're proud of, really.

You can come, you can look at it, but you can't stay.

-And then you have to leave!

-When are you people going home(?)

I'm not ready to throw in my beach towel just yet.

There's hygge to be had out there somewhere.

My search for coastal cosiness continues.

Heading away from the open sea is the Limfjord,

which twists and turns as it carries the coastline

deep into the heart of Jutland.

Carved out in the last ice age,

the landscape around Limfjord's had a surprisingly big impact

on the British breakfast.

On the banks of the fjord, Nick's making himself at home.

For generations, Britons have been connected to this country

by what's written on the back of their bacon, Danish.

Mass-marketing has always been a vital ingredient

in the Danish recipe for success,

but what got them started them on the business of selling us bacon,

and why did we gobble it up?

'One name is enjoyed by more homes in this country

'for its consistent high quality than any other.'

It's British consumers who have helped to make the Danes

one of the biggest exporters of pig meat in the world.

There are two porkers for every person in Denmark,

that's over 12 million pigs.

'Surprisingly, this rich bacon business

'was built on very poor coastal terrain,

'a landscape familiar to rural expert Flemming Just.'

Is this a beach or a field?

It's a field and, in fact, it is very typical for Jutland - sandy.

It is just sand, isn't it? There's not a lot of nutrients in sand.

Until the middle of the 19th century,

it was totally covered by heather and almost no forest.

Once this was a windswept wilderness without a pig in sight.

Its transformation to bacon central

began with a disastrous defeat for the Danes some 200 years ago.

In the Napoleonic wars,

Britain attacked Denmark to capture its fleet.

In the aftermath, the Danes lost control of Norway

as the map of Europe was re-drawn.

Later, the Germans grabbed a chunk of Danish territory,

their rich agricultural land in the south.

To survive, the Danes had to make the most of their infertile coastal plains in North Jutland.

Denmark's bacon boom was about to begin.

So, from that time on, they started to cultivate the heather land here in Jutland,

so a kind of agricultural revolution at the same time as Britain had its industrial revolution.

Those two revolutions, they combined,

so Britain deliberately decided only to focus

on their industrialisation and not care about farming.

Britain couldn't feed itself,

whereas Denmark became the larder for the British industrialisation.

These sandy fields weren't good for growing crops,

but pigs aren't that fussy,

so this coastal region became farmland to feed us bacon.

As intensive rearing replaced this rural idyll,

pigs grew into big business, and, 100 years later,

Danish was one of the first foods advertised on British TV.

Hello there, I'm the Danish bacon Viking.

The majority of Jutland's pigs end up here in Esbjerg.

Denmark's largest North Sea port was founded in 1868

especially for exports to us.

But before they can be loaded onto ships, Danish pigs have to become Danish bacon.

140 countries now buy Danish,

but they claim the best cuts head our way.

These are backs of bacon.

7,000 of them are going through here today,

and they're all bound for Britain.

It's staggering to think how, from humble beginnings,

shipping pig meat from this port really did save Denmark's bacon.

Now they send us over 250 lorry-loads each week.

That's 300,000 tonnes of the stuff every year.

And it's not just bacon the Danes have fed us from here.

Over the years, we've spread butter that's past through this port,

gulped lager, and even done a bit of building with the odd plastic brick.

They've all passed through Esbjerg bound for Britain.

My journey continues south along the shore of Jutland.

This is a protected stretch of beach,

and you won't find many houses,

but strangely, you can park right on the sand.

No pay and display here,

but take local advice, tourists regularly get stuck,

and getting caught out by the tide costs more than a parking ticket.

Just behind the dunes, Miranda's seeking some residents

who've happily parked themselves in a very protected spot.

It's just after dawn, and I've come here to find some animals you don't

normally expect to be living by the sea, and that's red deer.

(This is great. I'm just at the edge of the forest, using the forest

(as cover. The deer are feeding out on this open grassland.

(You can just see the dunes, and obviously there's the sea just behind me.

(He's just put his head down, but I think that the deer

(feeding behind us is probably a young male, just had tiny antlers.)

'It's hard to get close to them.

'These shy creatures are easily spooked.

'But the serenity of the scene isn't quite as it appears.

'These red deer have rather noisy neighbours.'

They share their home with the Danish Army.

This is a restricted zone, off limits to everyone not driving a tank.

Oddly, this unusual relationship between wildlife and warfare seems to work.

'I want to see it from the military perspective.'

So, Fritz, tell me how long the Danish army has lived side by side with the red deer here?

We have actually being living together since 1928-29,

approximately, so we know each other quite well, I have to say.

We have a little bit of a strange neighbourship because

when we are outside of our vehicles they are gone,

but when we're inside our vehicles we have no problems,

they can stay just beside the vehicle,

and it means they feel if we are starting shooting and so on.

They just slowly disappear from the area.

All around the shooting area there is a big forest

so the deer can go into the forest

and stay there for a long period and come out again if we are finished.

-And do you like having them around, is it nice?

-Very nice, yeah.

'Despite the disruptions, the deer love being beside the sea.

'There's tasty heather and shelter in the dunes from the constant wind.

'It's early Autumn and the rutting season has begun.

'Ole Daugaard-Petersen is head of the deer reserve.'

There's some interesting activity going on in the group down there.

There's a large number of hinds and there's that big stag

that's constantly patrolling, looking after that group of females.

Just now the mature stags are rounding up the hinds and

the point is he wants to mate with all of them. He wants

to keep his competitors away, and you will see the young stags

circling around the herd,

hoping to get the chance to get a go with the hinds,

and the mature stag, he will keep them away.

So he can keep going for two, three weeks rutting, no eat no nothing, and then you will see the stag,

suddenly he will be lying sleeping for a few minutes,

up again and so he carries on for three weeks,

and then it's done and he leaves his hinds.

He might have lost 30-40 kilos during those three weeks,

so he's really busy, you know?

Three weeks of rutting with barely a break,

these majestic stags have got some serious stamina.

We've reached Denmark's most westerly point, Blavandshuk.

A top spot for a great view.

Just three miles or so off the coast here is the most notorious reef

in the whole of the North Sea. In the days of sail,

it was known to the skippers as Duyvels Horn. The Devil's Horn.

Once the graveyard of countless ships,

today, Horns Reef is helping to save the planet.

It's home to one of the world's largest off-shore wind farms.

This is a site that's set to be increasingly familiar off our shores,

but what you don't often see is how these big beasts get built.

At the port of Esbjerg, engineering and green enthusiast, Dick Strawbridge,

is about to discover how the pieces fit together.

'They assemble what bits they can on the quayside before shipping them out to sea.

'Bolting the blades on is job number one.

'The bloke in charge is Siemens's technical wizard, Jesper Moeller.'

-It's huge!

-This is a 45 metre blade made out fibreglass.

It's just literally fibreglass?

Yes, it's fibreglass, fibreglass and balsa wood, and it's cast in one piece.

Hold on, say, "It's cast in one piece again."

There's an echo, it's long enough to give you an echo.

The shape is developed over many years

and it's actually consisting of different aircraft blade shapes.

This is the tip, but you look at that, that's sharp.

It's not quite straight.

It has a slight curve, because when it's pointing up towards the wind

-it has a slight bend towards the wind...

-It flexes.

It flexes, then when the wind pushes on it, it straightens out.

Everything looks shiny and new right now, but out in the North Sea,

these turbines are going to face a right battering.

So why go to all the trouble of sticking them nearly 10 miles offshore?

Well, offshore has a lot of advantages.

It has a very stable flow of wind.

Lots of constant wind?

Yes, and also higher wind compared to onshore locations.

It's time for this landlubber to brave the North Sea and take a look.

The installation vessel is already on its way, and I'm hot on its heels.

Another good reason to build out here - no complaints from the neighbours.

But some people do have to live near the turbines,

and the maintenance team need a house.

We're about 40 kilometres off the Danish coast.

This is the accommodation platform, and we're in the middle of nowhere.

The engineers share the platform with an electrical sub-station.

There's lots of technology here, and that's not surprising,

because all the electricity from the wind turbines

are sucked in here before being sent ashore,

and, when the wind blows, there's enough electricity to power 20 million light bulbs.

This is a paradise for engineers.

It may look like the turbines are in nice neat rows, but it's more complicated than that.

The turbines aren't in a block, they're in a fan shape,

which means, when the wind blows from the west,

any turbulence doesn't reduce the efficiency of the other turbines,

so all the energy from the wind can be captured by the wind turbines and turned into electricity,

and there's absolutely masses of it.

The installation vessel is now in position,

and they've started to erect turbine number 70.

I'm on my way.

Denmark is the land of Lego, this is the ultimate big piece of kit to put together, isn't it?

Seapower with its crane is going to assemble it all.

So, how do they do it? Actually, it's a really simple system.

They drive a mono-pile into the sea bed about 20 metres, then they put the yellow section on.

It is actually the transition piece, and they make sure that's perfectly vertical.

Then they've already added on one piece of tower,

we're about to see a second piece of tower go on,

then they'll shove the turbine on the top and then the blades and it's done. Really simple.

The engineers are battling to complete the job before the autumn storms hit.

In calm weather, they can put up three turbines in 24 hours of non-stop effort.

This thing is massive!

Thank you.

I've got to get myself one of these!

It's awesome!

This beauty is over 1.5 times taller then Nelson's Column,

but the technology doesn't stand still.

The ones planned for our seas are going to be even bigger than these guys.

Look out for them coming to a coast near you.

I'm on the final leg of my journey.

In my quest for happiness Danish style,

I'm off to visit a very contented community on the island of Fano.

My destination, the Isle of Fano, Denmark's oldest holiday resort.

Life here's laid-back, the legacy of a privileged past.

In 1741, this canny community clubbed together

and bought their island from the king,

and soon the good times started to roll

with a whole lot of happiness ever since.

Originally, the island's wealth was built on ship building.

The money was put into bricks, mortar and thatch.

My quest to experience hygge in Denmark has come to a cosy conclusion.

# It's the good life

# To be free and explore the unknown... #

For me, this place embodies what I understand of the Danish concept of hygge.

If it's about finding contentment in comforting, cosy places,

then there's definitely hygge here.