Bikes, trains, troll hunting, nude beaches, smørrebrød, and friends: A perfect day trip to Greve Strand.

We had the good fortune to connect with friends (our next door neighbors) from Cambridge, MA (We lived there summer 2012 to summer 2013). Christine, the mom, is half Danish, so I had reached out to her a few weeks ago, and turns out they were going to be visiting Denmark! So we made plans to meet in the small town where they were visiting her cousin – Greve Strand.

I’ll also say that once again, careful study of the week’s weather was a factor in the decision to meet in Greve Strand and go to the beach on Monday. Monday was going to be the sunniest day this week. Although this is definitely *not* the Danish way. The saying is “there’s no bad weather, only bad clothing.” And in the 3 short weeks we’ve been here, I can say this is true.

First the girls and I had to get there. This required:

• biking to the nearest train station (Norreport Station) with the S-tog that went directly to the Greve Strand train stop.
• figuring out which train was ours,
• determining which direction to go,
• find the right platform
• buy train tickets.
• validate train tickets
• get on the right train.

Norreport Station is huge. Lots of entrances. Lots of S-tog trains and metro trains.

• Here’s the one map we found

Where do we go? There was some disagreement.

I stayed out of it and let them lead the way. The oldest was also very frustrated that I wouldn’t just ask someone. I’m determined to figure these things out. Also, I’m reluctant to ask for help…

Buying tickets

After confusing an ATM machine for the ticket machine, I did buy a ticket. But I was expecting 2 tickets – one for me and one for the oldest. The youngest doesn’t need one because she’s not yet 13. But only one ticket popped out and I thought I’d done something wrong. (Ticket was in Danish) I have just accepted that I will make plenty of mistakes and blunders as I/we try to figure things out here and figured this was one of those times. And this is where my hours and hours and hours of trying to learn some Danish on Duolingo came in handy.

On the little ticket, about 1/3 of the way down, there was a line with “1 Voksen 1 Barne” I didn’t know voksen, but I knew barn (child). One adult, one child. So whew, we were good.

Validating the ticket.

I remembered reading somewhere about validating train tickets. And while on-train checks for validated tickets are random (and it’s not like US metros where you have to scan a ticket or card for the gate to open. No gates here), according to whatever guide book I was reading, ticket-checkers do not have much sympathy for tourists (which we totally are right now and likely will be for the duration of our stay). So we tried to validate our ticket.

So I figured we needed to just get on and if I’d done something wrong I’d just do my best to talk my way out of it.

Later that day, I asked our Danish friends about this – and turns out the kind of ticket I’d bought “use now” is good for up to 2 hours and does not need to be validated.

Finally! We’re on the train. Hope it’s the right one!!

We arrived, met our friends, and set out to the beach. It was absolutely beautiful.

Decision points for the group:

• Lifeguard? Or no lifeguard?

• Nude beach? Or non-nude beach?

We asked the kids about nude vs non-nude beach and they all just kind of shrugged. Not a big deal to them.

The flag in this picture indicates there is a lifeguard here.

But THEN our friends told us about the TROLL!!

Apparently trolls are important in Denmark, and there’s an artist (can’t remember his name) who has built trolls in random places all over Denmark. There’s a hashtag on instagram #TrollHunting. I was super curious about this troll under the bridge nearby.

We walked another 25 minutes down the path along the beach.

And arrived to the troll bridge!

But where’s the rest of the troll?

TROLL FACE!

I took a few pictures from the troll bridge.

Now can we please go to the beach and swim?

Off to the beach we went.

The beach!!

SWIMMING!

We headed home at 4pm and had to get on the train without a ticket (!?!?!) The ticket kiosk was broken, and although there was a little 7-eleven at the train station that sold train tickets, the minute the clerk went to put in my order her ticket system went down. The oldest and youngest were very very tired and begging to get on the train (we’d walked about 7 miles and they had swum for about an hour). So the clerk said “just get on, they probably won’t check tickets and even if they do, they’ll be able to see that the ticket buying system is down here so you’ll be fine. This sounded a bit far fetched to me, but I was willing to give it a go (getting on the train without a ticket)

Thank goodness we got a bit of rest on train ride home. Because when we got back to Norreport station, the rows upon rows upon rows of bikes greeted us. And we hadn’t paid much attention to where we’d put ours.

Oops.

Where oh where are our bikes?

Fortunately, the oldest’s bike really stands out (it’s red and white) and the youngest’s is fairly distinct as well. Mine is black and looks like thousands of others at this train station.

We found the bikes within about 10 minutes. Whew.

And encountered some bike traffic on the way home. It was rush hour.

For friends and family who plan to visit, if you’re interested we can definitely take a similar day trip. There are towns like these all along the coast. Just delightful.