Grenen

Grenen is the northernmost point of Denmark, a sand spit projecting from Skagen at the tip of Jutland. It is where the Skagerrak and the Kattegat meet, and the meeting is visible: two sets of waves arrive from different directions and collide along a line running out from the tip.

The collision is real and the reason nobody swims here. The currents where the two seas meet are strong and unpredictable, and swimming at the point is prohibited. You walk to the tip and stand with a foot in each sea, which is what everyone does, and then walk back. The spit is also growing — sand carried by the currents extends it north-eastward by several metres a year, so Denmark is slowly getting longer.

The beaches either side are broad pale sand with dunes behind, and they are usable for swimming away from the point. Skagen's light — clear, reflected off sand and water from two directions — drew a colony of painters in the late nineteenth century, the Skagen Painters, whose work is in a museum in the town and is the reason many Danes come. Grenen sits on a major bird migration route, and the point is one of the better places in northern Europe to watch raptors funnelling north in spring.

Access to the tip is a walk of around two kilometres over sand, or a tractor-drawn bus called the Sandormen. There is a car park, a lighthouse and a buried church nearby — Den Tilsandede Kirke, whose nave was swallowed by moving dunes in the eighteenth century and whose tower still stands above the sand. Råbjerg Mile, twenty minutes south, is the largest migrating dune in northern Europe and is moving east across the peninsula at around fifteen metres a year.

Two seas meet at the tip and you can see the line where they do. Stand with a foot in each, and do not swim — the currents there are why it is prohibited. The spit grows a few metres a year, so Denmark is slowly getting longer, which is a pleasing thing to know while standing on the end of it.