The Great Belt Bridge, Denmark

OK, you might ask "what crazy person CHOOSES to camp right by the toll-booths before a bridge??" Well, that would be ME!!

Last year when we drove through Denmark we crossed the Great Belt Bridge going east, and took a picnic break on the little beach area we found right after it. Just next to the beach is a campsite and I remember wishing WE could stay there and wouldn't it be cool to have a campervan so we could camp instead of staying in hotels? Well, fast forward a year and here I am!

For some strange reason I love this bridge (full name: Great Belt Fixed Link) - it's far more beautiful and interesting than the more famous Øresund Bridge at Malmö. So I have very much enjoyed camping a night here. (See yesterday's entry for sunset at the bridge)

I was up at dawn and enjoyed a sunrise walk around the campsite and along the waterfront. It then turned into a sunny and warm day and I just didn't feel like moving on very quickly. The area around the bridge is beautiful - the nature doesn't seem to be spoiled by the bridge and highway above. There's a sandy beach, several paths, picnic tables, and you can even walk under the bridge and along the cliffs on the other side.

The little orange building (once a railway station, I think) is part of a free ice-boat museum which I took a look at again this time. It's amazing what these ice-boats used to do, carrying mail and passengers across the ice (although the passengers usually walked beside the boats), the journey often taking 8 hrs. See the extra photos for a description as well as a couple of wild examples of other transportation on the ice!

Once I'd done all my exploring it was time to get on the road again and actually CROSS the bridge! This time I was going west, crossing onto the middle part of Denmark, Fyn (or Funen) island. I had decided to stay the next night on the Hindsholm peninsula, the north-east extremity of Fyn, north of Odense. I found a campsite at Fyns Hoved, almost at the tip of the peninsula, overlooking the water with a little beach below the cliffs. I hadn't gone very far - across the water I could see the bridge on the horizon. But since this beach was east-facing, I decided to save it for sunrise tomorrow and I headed out to the west side of the peninsula and found a parking spot on a beach with a picnic table. The kitchen in the campervan came in very useful and I heated up some soup to have with the sandwich I'd bought on the way. Once dinner was done I walked a little further along the cliffs and enjoyed a stunning sunset over the sea! A perfect end to a fabulous day! (See Extra photo)