A new island

Denmark Road Trip 2011 - Day 2

The crossing to Esbjerg was as smooth as expected, and by 9:00am we had had breakfast and were out on the sun deck sitting in glorious sunshine. It was difficult to believe that it could be this warm when we were still 30 miles out in the North Sea.

Less than an hour after disembarking we had checked-in to our hotel, washed and changed, and were back at the harbour for the ferry to the island of Fanø. A short wait, and 12 minutes crossing time later, and we were on our first new island of the trip.

Nordby, the main village on Fanø, is a very pleasant, relaxing place, if a little touristy - which is not surprising really, given the multitude of ridiculously quaint thatched cottages.

 

Cottages in Nordby, Fanø

We had a long relaxing drink sitting out in the sunshine by the harbour at the Fanø Krogaard inn. Of course, we tried the local Fanø Bryghus beer. I had the Fanø Lynghvede - a wheat beer flavoured with heather and heather honey. Very nice indeed. Dave had the Fanø Veskyst IPA.

After a short stroll around the town we stopped for a pancake in the "Witches Garden" at the similarly quaint Hans & Grethe Crêperie. Yummy!

After a very relaxing three hours or so on the island we got the ferry back and returned to the hotel before going out to find somewhere for dinner. After looking at a few alternatives, we settled on the Dronning Louise (where we ate the last time we stayed in Esbjerg) and decided to sit at the tables outside in the main square as it was still a nice evening.


Bakskuld



Although our main courses were not anything out of the ordinary, for a starter (to share) we decided to order a local fish dish which we had never had before - bakskuld, a traditional Esbjerg/Fanø dish. We had no idea what to expect, but were very pleased with what we got. Bakskuld is dab (in Danish "ising" or "slette" - a plaice-like flatfish) which has been salted, dried, and smoked (in that order), and then fried in butter before serving. I suppose that it is the west Jutland version of the kipper, except that it is not so fishy-smelling and rather saltier than kipper. Also, there are not really any small bones, and the flesh comes easily off the large knobly bones. I quite liked this, which is unusual, as I really don't like kipper, and two whole bakskuld with rye bread and remoulade was more than enough for us to share as a starter. The rest of the meal was fairly unremarkable (I had a burger), but I am really pleased that we tried bakskuld.