Has anyone driven to denmark

[Clearinguptheclutter]

Dh isn’t keen on flying (nor is one DS) and is keen on roadtrips since he got a pretty nice electric car with lots of space

He (and to some extent me) are keen on driving to Copenhagen (and possibly on to Malmo) this summer and we are wondering if we are nuts or not. It would be a bit of a roadtrip - overnight ferry to Rotterdam both ways, stopovers in the Netherlands and Germany (looking at Hamburg and/or Bremen). Kids will be 10/12. We really like Netherlands so i’m wondering if it might be sensible just to go there instead and then fly to Copenhagen separately.
Though I also fancy Hamburg but possibly not enough for a separate trip.

wondering if anyone did similar and enjoyed or is it just a totally silly idea.

Oh no what do you mean by nightmare. Crazy German drivers or bad roads or traffic?

That’s a shame, friend used to do booze cruise on that route

It's undergoing roadworks at the moment but I don't find it a nightmare. Been in worse in the UK

I’ve done it for work, we drove to Germany, then Denmark, back to Germany and home via eurotunnel.
Recall is being very easy and lovely drive, especially in Denmark.

One thing you do need to be aware of is that in Denmark you have to have lights on your car all the time while driving. It was made law in 1990 (2 weeks after I moved to the UK) 😀

appreciate these responses

to those suggesting train instead we will definitely consider an interrail trip when kids are a bit older still but

1. dh wants to I think justify the the cost of the big expensive car with the big range
2. we’re a very long way from the Eurostar and channel. Hull ferry much easier.
3. we don’t want to be limited to city centre accomodation especially as I am very fussy and want separate bedrooms where possible for the boys. Happy to stay on the outskirts of cities and get trains in
4. we will want to partly self cater partly to keep costs down and partly due to fussy kids. This means bringing more stuff than can go in rucksacks

def looking forward to train adventures in the future though!

That sounds awesome. I'd definite do it if everyone is up for the driving.

We are beginning to favour the Hull-Rotterdam ferry as our gateway to continental Europe - so much easier and less hassle than flying, and only an hour away.

We travelled to the Austrian Alps by train last year, via London/Eurostar/Amsterdam/night train to Innsbruck. Not a single train ran on time, and 3 were cancelled entirely. Ok went was the local train from Munich to Innsbruck, and the was another in an hour; not ok when LNER booted us off the London train at 9pm on a Friday night at Peterborough (£350 taxi to London to meet our Eurostar connection), or when the Amsterdam - Innsbruck sleeper was cancelled once we were actually on it (extra night in Amsterdam at short notice; lots of grief and extra expense to get to Innsbruck). Everyone thinks European trains are excellent; my experience is very different (not just this trip). If you are going to train it, make sure your dc can run with all their luggage!

As it happened, a colleague did a very similar Austrian trip to us, but by electric car, with no issues at all.

You need to work out the UK driving hours, but you can drive across the Netherlands from one side to the other in about 3hrs, and it's quite practical to visit for a long weekend.

1. Rotterdam - Bremen via Arnhem (if you're interested in ww2 history) is about 5hrs driving. Half an hour less if you don't take the side trip to Arnhem.
2. Morning to see Bremen. Bremen to Luebeck is about 2.5hrs driving. Luebeck is a pretty Hanseatic town. Explore Luebeck in the evening.
3. Luebeck to Rostock is about 1.5hrs driving. The ferry from Rostock to Trelleborg is about 6hrs.
4. Several options for a day or two exploring Southern Sweden - Ystad is Wallander town (motto, "A fine town for a murder"), the stranding stones at Ales Stenar and the coastal village of Kaseberga are a short day trip. Ystad to Malmo is only an hour.
5. Malmo to Copenhagen via The Bridge.
6. Copenhagen - Tivoli gardens, Little Mermaid, etc.
7. Working your way back, Copenhagen to Hamburg is about 5.5hs driving.
8. Hamburg is worth a day or two. You'd definitely get a flavour for it in a day seeing the riverfront, Speicherstadt, and a visit to Miniatur Wunderland.
9. Hamburg to Rotterdam is about 6hrs driving.

That's a nice loop for a road trip over a couple of weeks.

It's only about 3 hours to drive between Billund and Copenhagen. There is plenty of time to break the drive with a visit to somewhere in between. We did Odense one way and Egeskov castle the other way.

@GetDressedYouMerryGentlemen
@DogInATent

thanks a lot for these useful suggestions I hadn’t thought about -
i’m in the fairly early stages of planning an itinerary and budget

@IbizaToTheNorfolkBroads
oh no how annoying! My pet peeve is the state of UK trains. Sort of reassuring I suppose that they are not necessarily that reliable in Europe either. We had a bad experience coming back from Belgium last year (significant delay then missed connection) which put me off too. In contrast other than a couple of navigational errors and queues at the border, previous European road trips have been relatively stress free (so far)

PM me - we did exactly this (all the way to Malmo and back, from Eastern England) in 9 days three years ago, with kids aged 8/5/2. Not in an electric car though. It was brilliant, would love to share tips on places to go/stay/see!

Yeah, we drive there often, but we live in the North of Germany about 20 minutes drive from the border. Tonder is only 26KM from our house, we often go to the island of Romo as a relative has a holiday house there.

I agree trains can go wrong sometimes but as a fool to @IbizaIbizaToTheNorfolkBroads I also went to Innsbruck by train this summer and it was fine (we went Eurostar to Brussels then on to Cologne, night train to Vienna and had time in Vienna first). The night trains are more vulnerable to delays because you're doing such a big leg in one go. In the day, although German trains are having a bad time with unreliability at the moment, there's enough redundancy in the system that you can usually get where you want to go without tooooo much hassle.

I feel it’s a bit of a diversion on the thread to discuss trains, as OP is not going down that route for this trip, but for my own therapy I just wanted to empathise with those on the end of mad train trips. We went to Austria last year and I think of about ten train journeys only two ran as they should. It almost broke me! We ended up hiring a car to get to our final destination on time. German trains used to be so good - that wasn’t our first train trip by any means - but last year was a shocker (combined with French strikes too).

@Clearinguptheclutter slightly off topic but what ev do you have? We are looking to change ours

We have a Hyundai Ioniq 5. I’m not a huge fan tbh- a bit too high tech for me- but it is big and comfortable and on a motorway in summer will do close to 300 miles at a time very smoothly.

Thank you

Having family in Denmark this is a trip that we do often, via Hook of Holland/Rotterdam and Hamburg.

Denmark is more than Copenhagen. Crossing the border from Germany there is Tønder and Ribe on the west side of Jutland, or Sønderborg on the eastern side of Jutland.

OP has already been to Billund (Legoland, Lego House and WOW Park) but my family actually preferred Djurs Sommerland, which is north of Aarhus and close to the charming town of Ebeltoft, from where there is a ferry to Sjælland.

Then there's the Jutland west coast with huge beaches (rent a summerhouse, or an apartment at somewhere like Henne Strand), Silkeborg and the lake district, Odense and Fyn, Roskilde for all things Viking - all before you get anywhere near Copenhagen.

Danes also have a good sense of humour - here are the pedestrian crossing lights from Aarhus, which has been an important town since Viking times.

This is very helpful thank you. I will investigate these places. I have a vague recollection of going to Roskilde on a family trip to Denmark in the early nineties. I loved Billund (two years ago) but didn’t get an authentic Danish experience there I don’t think!

Gosh I will bear this in mind when we plan the future interrail trip! I too thought German trains would be super efficient and reliable.

(they def are in Switzerland!)

I think the Germans view the current situation as a bit of a national shame. Hopefully they will be better at sorting it out than we’ve been.

Thanks for this thread though as it’s got me thinking about Denmark as a potential holiday destination, particularly given that we are also very close to Hull!

They seem to be similar to the UK in terms of reliability. In that perhaps 4 out of 5 mainline train journeys I take are absolutely fine, and the fifth is a baffling clusterfuck. We crossed the entirety of Germany in a day whilst Interrailing 2 years ago, with everything running nearly 100% smoothly, save for a 6 minute delay coming into Frankfurt, which turned an already tight connection into a bit of a circus.

Something to remember when planning a trip to Denmark is that the Danish schools go back in mid-August, so the second half of August is less crowded and the accommodation prices can be a bit lower than in the July/early August high season.

Personally I think that Jutland or Fyn provide a more "authentic Danish experience" than Copenhagen does - Copenhagen being a more international capital than some of the smaller towns on Jutland such as Ribe, Tønder or Ebeltoft, or Odense and Svendborg on Fyn. Although having said that, the Jutland west coast is hugely popular with German tourists in the summer. Brits are rarely sighted, particularly since the Harwich-Esbjerg ferry stopped sailing a decade ago.

Copenhagen is still a great place to visit, with loads of things to do for families - we liked the Experimentarium and Tivoli. Malmo is an easy hop across the water. We preferred Lund, which is just a bit further on into Sweden.

I am currently on a road trip to Sweden, me and my partner decided to take the Euro tunnel to Calais and we drove from there through Belgium and made a stop at Bremen for 3 nights. It took about 6 hours to drive from Calais to Bremen but it’s worth it if you like adventures and the views.

we’re now on the way to Denmark and will be making a stop in Malmo (as we have Swedish friends live there) so will be spending 2 nights in Copenhagen and then heading up to Stockholm for 3 nights before we return back making a overnight stay near Hamburg.

Overall, it’s a very long drive. According to maps it’s about 20 hours from Stockholm back to UK hence the overnight stay but I think it’s part of the experience if you go a road trip around Europe. Would have travelled by ferry but I get major sea sick so we took the adventure of driving and I’m loving it!