Travel: Fanø

This isn't quite the big travel post but I felt compelled to write about it nevertheless. At the moment, I'm visiting my grandmother in Jutland as I do every summer and as always she wanted us to go on expeditions. I think she really enjoys it and sometimes it's quite cool to see some places I otherwise wouldn't.

My second day here, we hopped in her car and drove over 60 km. west to Esbjerg to take a ferry to Fanø. If you're puzzled by this strange o with a slash through it, worry not. It's one of three letters exclusively in the Danish alphabet. The letter Ø as a word means island.

We had some trouble getting to the harbour where we could get on the ferry as the area had some sort of bicycle race and police directed us through a different route. We did find it though and as the ferry departed every 20 minutes, we got on one almost straight away.

The drive only took just shy of 20 minutes and we got to briefly enjoy the nice view. Two ferries drive back and fourth and we passed the other one on our way there. That day was also one of the very nice, hot but breezy Danish summer days and one of the reasons we decided to go.

We drove onboard with my grandmother's car as we wanted to drive from the town on the North tip to the town on the South tip. The ferry dropped off us at Nordby and we parked the car to have a walk-around while looking at the water and the small, cosy houses with thatched roofs.

We ate lunch at a little café and this was our view from the café:

Having finished our lunch, we walked back down to the water, where we had parked and jumped into the car and drove down to the South town of Sønderho. 

The drive from town to town was 13 km. and that was the length of the island. In total, the island is 56 square kilometre, so it's quite the small and long. We parked outside a white picket fence and talked to the chilled owner and was allowed to stay there for an hour or so. 

We took another walk around and looked at more houses and the houses here almost doll-like as they were so short and cute with their thatched roofs. We began with an ice-cream and I got chocolate, my favourite: 

We also saw Sønderho Kro, which according to my grandmother is very famous. Don't quote me on that though, however it has been there for a while (est. 1722)

It was also quite funny to see that sometimes neighbours don't always up-keep their houses equally well. Also, excuse the shadow of my finger but I thought it was too peculiar not to share:

One thing that Fanø is famous for is amber. So, of course, we had to visit an amber shop. I've never really gotten the hype about amber and do associate it with old people (sorry, Grandma) but it was interesting to see the variety in colour. Also, they had hung a clipping said that a 3 kg. of amber was found on Fanø. 

We spotted a little market or what one might call a car-boot sale as people had popped up car boots as well as having small stalls. It was panning out quite nicely to have gone on a Sunday.

We also walked past the church, although we didn't look inside. 

My grandmother loves her coffee and we sat down at another café and she ordered a black coffee. However, she found it too hot and too strong and didn't take more that a few sips before we hopped back in our car headed back to Nordby as the ferry would take us back from there. 

However, we had one stop as my grandmother had spotted a store while we had been driving the other way. Of course, she only said so when we had driven past the driveway but coming back, I was keeping a sharp eye and found it again. It was sort of a craft store and it was freaking huge, we explored all of it and every time we turned a cover, I thought it would be the end but it wasn't. 

The store was nice but what I really liked was the set of swings outside. I'm really a child at heart and I obviously had to get on them for a while. I had kind of forgotten how much I liked being on a swing. It's so fun!

That was the last stop on our little trip. We drove back to Nordby, drove onto the ferry and after the brief sail, we drove all the way back home. In total, I think I had driven for about 2,5 hours, which is a bloody lot. Esbjerg wasn't just around the corner, Grandma. ;)

I had a great time, mostly due to the lovely weather and the great company more than the island. However, it was a nice trip and it's a cute, little island.