Manvannoplan visits Romo Beach, Denmark
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Manvannoplan visits Rømø Beach, Denmark as part of our 2022 Spring Tour of Northern Europe.
The island of Rømø is situated in the south western corner of Jutland and it attracts around two million visitors a year to its famous beach, known as Lakolk, and the island is part of the Wadden Sea National Park.
It is linked to the Danish mainland by a road running across a causeway, and the island lies about 3 km from the neighbouring German island of Sylt, to which it is connected by ferry.
Day 46 – Good Friday the 15th of April 2022
Time to move on today from Tonder to the world famous island of Romo which is about forty five minutes away, but before we do there is an interesting factoid to pass on about Tonder.
As Tonder is the first town over the border in Denmark from Germany, the town has been a particularly popular place to elope since the 1960s. This is due in part to Denmark’s liberal marriage laws, compared to those in nearby Germany which requires a minimum of three months administration and the ceremony has to be in German. However, in Denmark it can be done in just around a week, with fewer documents required and the vows can be done in languages other than the national language. In one year alone over 2,500 marriages were done at Tonder town hall by non-resident couples compared to just 150 local couples.
From Denmark’s Gretna Green we set off for Rømø and it’s incredible beach, which, if you have a motorhome or camper van, is the place to come as a sort of right of passage.
Rømø is Scandinavia’s widest sandy beach at 15 km long and is possible to drive a vehicle all the way down to the waters edge. The beach is rather unusual because of its width – between 1.5 and 6 km in places – which invites beach activities of every kind. Activities like windsurfing, kite buggy driving and kite flying are very popular here. It is a right of passage for motorhomers visiting Denmark to drive their vehicle onto the sand but it is forbidden to camp overnight on the sand.
We wanted to be there fairly early, as although it was a grey overcast day, it was Good Friday and bound to be busy so we serviced the van then went round to an Aldi where there was a self-service fuel pump and filled up with diesel. Our fuel gauge was below a quarter and It was concerning to see the pump race on to 780dkk but at 13.99dkk (£ 1.56) it was the cheapest diesel we had seen on our travels so far.
The drive to Rømø only took half an hour and when we were still a good few miles to go we joined a convoy of motorhomes heading in the same direction. Rømø is actually an island and you get to it over a causeway then drive a few kilometres through the island and then straight on to the beach on the west side of the island.
It is a little concerning to drive a motorhome that’s almost four tons onto sand but there were already motorhomes as far as the eye could see on the beach. The sand is compacted and there is no problem driving on so I drove until I could see a space to park where we would be on our own to mark the occasion with some pictures.
It is said that the salt air on Rømø is a balm to body and soul and once we were parked up on the beach we set off for a walk about but that didn’t last too long as there was a bitterly cold wind as you can see from the above picture of us!
As we couldn’t get the chairs out we decided to find the Aire I had in mind and secure a pitch as it was bound to be busy – and it was! It is a huge site with 176 pitches and we managed to find the very last one so I reserved the pitch for 3 nights to take us over the holiday weekend. There were loads of empty pitches but once you pay for your place and turn the pitch marker red you can leave the site at any time knowing no-one can take your place so most of the empty places would be people we had seen on the beach earlier.
This video shows what the Lakolk beach looks like when the sun shines The campsite shown in the video is not the one we stayed at.
After lunch it was time to wrap up against the cold wind and get the bikes out to explore the south of the island. The Navigator was in her element now as the electric assist was working again and she would be off the road on cycle paths. Our first destination was to a part of the beach on the south east of the island which turned out to be just as hard as the main beach further north. This particular beach had loads of motorhomes on it as well with the majority towing box trailers as this was the designated area for beach buggy sailing and it seemed perfect conditions for it with the wind and hard surface.
After watching them scoot up and down the beach for a while we headed to the village of Havneby which has a sizeable harbour with a lot of trawlers tied up for the holiday weekend. It was a busy place, especially the two fish restaurants and the fish shop was queued onto the roadway. We had our customery mid-afternoon latte / tea before cycling back to the site and a curry in the evening.
The part of the site we are on surrounds a large pond and a few vans further along from us is a massive German registered Concord Centurion motorhome with slide out panels like an American RV. I looked it up online and there is a YouTube video of one like it and it is said to be a million pounds new!
Day 47 – Saturday the 16th of April 2022
The sun is out today and the icy wind had gone so it promises to be be a good day. Before we decide what to do with the rest of the day, The Navigator was up and away to use the nearby washing machines – a woman’s work eh!
Because it was so nice we decided to have a lazy day at the van and enjoy the warm sunshine, the first day like this for about three weeks. In fact it was so nice that we had a barbecue at lunchtime just in-case it cooled down later. After eating we sat out most of the afternoon with a few glasses of the very agreeable German white wine from Aldi. As it was a litre bottle The Navigator decided that she needed to give me some assistance drinking it while leaving her own red wine intact for another day!
Only a handful of vans departed the site permanently today but quite a lot left to spend the day on Römö beach, some even leaving in the early evening to probably watch the sunset up there.
Day 48 – Easter Sunday the 16th of April 2022
It makes such a difference to wake up to the sun streaming in the windows through clear blue skies. After a bit of a lie in The Navigator produced her own Easter miracle by rustling up scrambled eggs and Danish bacon, and although it wasn’t back bacon, it was very tasty and our first bacon since crossing the channel. You might think that with Denmark being the recognised home of bacon that the supermarkets would be awash with it but not so far.
We decided to cycle back to Havneby to buy some fresh fish from Otto & Ani’s Fisk which is half fish shop and half fish restaurant. This wasn’t a random choice of destination as I was going to indulge The Navigator by buying some Toska (Cod) from this superb quayside fish shop and cook it on the barbecue this evening with some boiled potatoes and green beans – very healthy I’m sure you’ll agree!
However, before we got to it we stumbled across a fairly big car boot sale and it struck us that it was a pretty upmarket one and little would be going for the knock down prices of a car boot sale back home!
As we were chaining up the bikes we spoke to a German bloke who bizarrely was wearing a Scottish tartan hat with the fake ginger hair attached. I had seen him come out of this ex German fire brigade truck which he said he had converted into a unique camper van, although goodness knows what MPG he gets in it! Maybe it was not so unique as he told us there were another two fairly similar ones in this area as well.
Although I asked the assistant in Otto & Anni’s Fisk Shop for Toska obviously the other words in the sentence were in English so he answered in perfect English thankfully as our Danish is not up to a satisfactory standard yet (and never will be). As well as the Tosca we bought a tub of shrimp salad which would accompany our fishy meal later. This may be the most expensive piece of Cod and shrimp salad ever purchased, or, we still don’t understand the value of the Danish currency and there is probably an element of truth in both theories.
After cycling back we had lunch and I brought this blog up to date before sitting out enjoying the brilliant sunshine.
On the cycle back I deviated from the cycle path to take a shortcut through a pine wood much to The Navigator’s displeasure and she walked part of the path as there were tree roots on the surface making it slightly hazardous. This island has a lot of pine trees with random holiday cottages scattered throughout them and as this was the holiday weekend all seemed to be occupied, many by Germans. It is a bit of a tradition in Scandinavian countries to have a holiday cottage in remote woods or by the coast and it is tastefully done here with most unseen from the main road.
Back at the van we sat out in the sunshine while making use of the electricity to charge the bikes back up ready to use in the future. Surprisingly there were hardly any other barbecues being used given the great weather and number of vans on this site. Suffice to say our investment to keep the Danish fishing fleet afloat paid off and we had a delicious meal washed down with our last bottle of my favourite white wine from the duty free allowance of our last trip to Spain. The Navigator has been drinking my white wine rather than her own red wine again as we haven’t bought any red meat yet as it is very expensive here and fish is far more plentiful, if not cheap either.
Day 49 – Easter Monday the 17th of April 2022
We had packed the bikes, table, chairs and barbecue last night as we were heading on today. As I mentioned when we arrived we were on the only pitch that was available on Friday and are so thankful that we managed to get on as the facilities are superb and so well organised. Once you check in at the machine you are issued a card which controls everything like entry to the toilet block, paying for the shower, electricity, water, washing machine which are all charged in addition to the pitch. That said when we serviced the van and checked out on the machine the total cost was only £ 17 a night which to me was a real bargain given the facilities, location and popularity of the site.
Camping Oasen – GPS = 55.091167, 8.538337 & What3Words = ///milks.passer.genetics
You can visit the Camping Oasen website HERE.
The following YouTube video does show the motorhome Aire we stayed at but the commentary is in German so unless you speak German you can turn the sound down!
Today we were moving on to Ribe, reputedly Denmark’s oldest town, in fact, the oldest town in all of Scandinavia and it celebrated it’s 1,300th anniversary in 2010. As it is only just over half an hour away and we were in no hurry to get there we headed back to Romo beach to spend the best part of the day along with hundreds of other motorhomes and day trippers in cars enjoying the fantastic weather.
We spent just over five hours parked on the beach sitting out watching loads of people of all ages flying kites in the breeze. After lunch we had a long walk to the dunes where vehicles are not allowed, returning via the water’s edge. Of all the people on the beach we only saw one man going into the water for a swim, as although the sea looked enticing, it also looked icy cold. We left the beach in mid afternoon and headed for Ribe which turned out to be a real gem of a place…
Day 49 – Easter Monday the 18th of April 2022
At 3pm we reluctantly moved off Romo beach and set off for Ribe and our planned stopover for the next two nights.
We hope that if you visit Römö you enjoy it just as much as we did…
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