On the Kattegat
The past two Sundays we've driven due north to Tisvildeleje, a charming town right on the coast of the Kattegat. The day of our first trip was sunny and clear but cool, a good day for a hike, not good for swimming. Last Sunday, on the other hand, the temperature had risen, and we went north in our swimming suits.
To get to the beach, you drive down through the town past several restaurants, ice cream parlors, galleries, and thatched cottages on a narrow street made narrower by parked cars, down to the biggest parking lot we've seen in Denmark with the exception of the Ikea lot. On the first Sunday there were few cars, but on the second, the day before a national holiday, maybe a fourth of the lot was filled. It was easy to imagine a summer day with the lot just packed with cars and campers. On the town end of the lot is a little pølse (hotdog) and ice cream stand, and on the other end is a modest bathroom, still locked for the winter.
The beach itself stretches on and on in both directions, white sand broken by pebbly areas, with no lifeguards or garbage cans or beach-chair-rentals or any other signs of human presence other than the human beings themselves. If you go inland, you climb up the dunes and then enter a scrubland where people have formed paths to get to a lovely hiking/biking trail that cuts between the scrubland and the beech/pine woods and hillside that rises to the south. Many people bike in on the trail, lock their bicycles to a scrubby bush and then cut in to the quieter western end of the beach. And it's here where the nudists find the sun.
If you continue west you come to Troldeskoven, the Witch Wood, a fantastical wood of trees twisted and gnarled by the wind off the sea.
I had packed our beach towels in a big blue Ikea bag (thanks Lise and Luther!) and felt rather sheepish about it, but Anika immediately pointed out a number of other beach-goers who'd used the same bag. So we plunked down in the sand, spread our towels out, and opened our books. To our right were two young men speaking Polish. Between us and the sand was a trio of women, one older, perhaps the mother, of the two other women who looked to be in their 30s. The mother, a plump woman with sagging breasts, suntanned topless. To our left was a single man who lay in the sun and then cooled off in the water and lay in the sun some more. Off further to the right was a group of women and several small children; one woman, who was hugely pregnant, swam naked and stood drying herself beside the children.
The water was cold. And clear right to the bottom, so clear that you could watching the refraction of light off the rippling water as it moved along the sand at your feet. A man in waders fished and caught something, but then, while his admirers on the beach watched, the fish got away.
Arne and I slipped through the brush to the trail and walked west and then cut back to the beach. There, high on the dune, we sat on a crude bench and watched the people below. Here came a ripe and elderly gentleman, completely naked, tanned all over, and carrying an overstuffed backpack. Down on the beach we passed a family with small twin sons, naked except for big white floppy hats, both of them digging in the sand with bright blue shovels. A little ways on an elderly couple came walking toward us carrying nothing, then they stopped, stripped off their clothes, and walked into the water.
No one had music, we heard no one speaking loudly or shouting or even laughing loudly. We could hear the sea, pulling in and pushing out, pulling and pushing, its rhythm a reminder of eternity.
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