Strandweg

 The Strandweg must be a very ancient road hugging the coast all the way round the edge of  Sjælland.  Sometimes it carries the traffic of the main road, and sometimes it’s a small lane with scarcely any surface and with sand and trees and parked cars keeping it calm and quiet. For a large part of the way you can see across the Øresund to Sweden. It’s clearly a favourite place to build expensive houses, and has been so since the 19th century.

The light on the water is really beautiful, silvery and radiant. Along the coast people have built small private jetties going out into the water which is calm and quiet, at least at this time of year. And of course it is a favourite swimming place, either for families or for retired people who go for their daily constitutional swim.

That’s what we did yesterday afternoon - my aunt, her sister and myself.  We were keeping a lookout for red jellyfish - thankfully there were none about. My two companions went briskly down the ladder at the end of a little public jetty and sploshed straight into the water. I did my usual act of loathing the coldness coming around my waist, but of course once I was in it was marvellous. We swam for about quarter of an hour and then went back to dry ourselves off on the grassy banks.

Andrew and I stopped off at the little harbour at Espergærde, where we sought out the best ice cream shop in the world, according to us.  Mysteriously it is an Italian business run by a man called Nikolai, and the ice cream is really remarkable. We had a grapefruit and a raspberry cone and then took home a frozen block of passionfruit for supper later in the evening. We walked away from the sea between beautiful modern villas and quiet behedged  gardens. This is a privileged place no doubt.