Lost in transit

Architecture to drool over

Whenever I go travelling the first thing that usually catches my eye is the architecture. My recent trip to Denmark was no exception.

Me and my Significant Other spent a week in splendid isolation - - a remote holiday home 14km south of Skagen, a fishing port on the northern most tip of Jutland.

I had been advised that Skagen was a magical place, that the light there was special, somehow brighter and more vibrant as it reflected off two main bodies of water - - the North Sea to the west and the Baltic to the east. I had expected everything to be bathed in a wonderous golden glow. And I wasn't disappointed.

But what I didn't expect was the gorgeous, gorgeous architecture.

All the homes had a distinctive Skagen "look". The majority of them were painted yellow and had red-tiled roofs. The more detailed buildings had pretty white lacework. Everything was exquisitely well-maintained so that the entire town looked neat and uniform. There was narray a lick of paint or a blade of grass out of place.

In most other places this would appear sterile, perhaps artificial, something like the fake town in Peter Weir's film The Truman Show. But this wasn't the case in Skagen. There was a distinctly lived in feel about the place and, despite it being the off-season, there were plenty of locals wandering around - - most of them on bicycles - - that lent it a carefree air.

Along with the yellow buildings, there was a pleasant mix of pink ones and red brick ones. I'm told that you can work out the age of each building depending on its colour, and that because the original buildings were built on large plots of land it's not uncommon for newer buildings to be built right alongside older ones. It all added up to an incredibly picturesque, photogenic mix.

Sometimes I think it's not the people who make a place, but the buildings.

Posted by kimbofo at April 4, 2004 10:14 PM