Steps in the Sand

We brought back simple souvenirs: the wind in our hair, salt on our lips, and sand in our shoes.

The washing machine spins our colorful clothes, mixing memories. Everything blends together: reality, nature, art, old houses, impressions from long walks.

We dream of Skagen, already thinking about when and how to return.

Wanting to go back, to be there together again, is a sign of love.

Skagen lies at the very top of Denmark. Here, all the houses are yellow, and the tiled roofs, edged with limewash, look as if they’ve been stitched with white thread.

We went there right after the exam. When I told the hotel staff I had passed, they immediately started speaking to me in Danish! So, speaking practice continued – out of the classroom and into the world.

Our home by the sea, "Strandly", felt like a quiet shelter. In the sunlit lounge, real paintings lined the walls. During breakfast, I studied the seascapes with sailboats. What a hidden treasure we had found! Prints decorated the hallways, the rooms – even the bathrooms.

We lunched at Jacobs, and for dessert we visited Café Skagen. The matcha we ordered was the color of freshly unfurled leaves – the green of new spring, of a season just beginning.

We walk through the dunes toward the tip of Denmark – Grenen, where the Baltic and North Seas meet.

We’re keeping a good pace, when suddenly a huge hare bounds past us, leaping across the sand! In a quiet backwater, we pause to listen to a frog concert. And then – wild deer, first in an open field, then beside a yellow house.

The sky is an artist’s palette, with cloud-strokes like brushmarks. The weather is clear, and we catch every golden and copper shade.

On the way back, we pass by the lighthouses – white and grey. Den Grå Fyr has already begun sending out its signals, though the path is still clearly visible.

We love exploring and discovering our own special landmarks. And so, in Skagen, we wandered to the very edge. We found the streets of the Northern Lights - Nordlysvej.

Then we stumbled upon streets named after sunlight itself: Morgensol (Morning Sun), Middagsol (Midday Sun), and Aftensol (Evening Sun)!

Nearby, a little forest welcomed us with tiny birch trees, their leaves still sticky and fresh, and twisted pines. Low trees, heather, moss. Northern nature feels familiar, close, and deeply understood. My heart responds to this beauty, for we, too, come from the far north. All these scents work their quiet magic on us.

And then, sunset. Let the Danish words catch the feeling:

Aftensolensglød – the warm glow of the evening sun

Aftenrøde – the red glow of the evening sky

Aftenstemning – the cozy feeling of evening

Solnedgangshimmel – the sky as the sun goes down

Solnedgangens farver – the colors of the sunset

The street names reflect Skagen’s history – its ties to the sea, to art, and to the northern landscape. Many streets bear the names of painters, like silent tributes to those who once captured this light, this wind, this place.

The Anchers’ House stirred memories of our summer house with feasts in the apple orchard. Just like in Krøyer’s “Hip, hip, hurra.” Our kitchen walls were green too, like in the Drachmanns House. It all felt so real then. Now, it’s a distant echo.

Memory lives in what we see and sense: a scent, a creak, a shaft of light.

Wooden floors whisper under soft shoe covers. The house starts small, then opens up – room by room, story by story. Doors bloom with birds and flowers. Walls stretch like canvases from floor to ceiling.

And the light! Pouring into the living room, dancing in reflections, drawing the windows in golden lines.

In Skagen, paintings and nature mirror each other.

Not distant, but near.

Not outside – but within.