The hook
The northern tip of Denmark, where two seas crash into each other along a sandbar you can walk to and stand with a foot in each, under a clear light that drew a whole colony of painters.
01Why it's worth it
Skagen sits at the very top of Jutland, and its draw is partly the strange geography and partly the light. At Grenen, the long sandy spit at the tip, the Skagerrak and the Kattegat seas meet head-on, their waves colliding in a visible line, and you can walk out to the point and stand on the sandbar where they meet. In the late 1800s the extraordinary clarity of the light here drew the Skagen painters, an artists' colony whose luminous beach scenes made the town famous. Around it are pale dunes, a church half-buried in sand, yellow houses, and good seafood. It is a summer town, bright and breezy, with the pleasant oddity of the two-seas point at its heart.
02How to experience it
Walk or take the tractor-bus out to Grenen and stand where the seas collide. See the Skagen painters' work in the town's museum to understand the light, and visit the sand-buried church nearby. It is busiest and best in the long summer days.