Denmark 3 - Hanstholm/Hitlers Atlantic Wall/Fish and Chips and poorly knees

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Gabby the motorhome is parked up on Plot 26 on a camping site called Tranum Klit . It is an ACSI site in the middle of the forest near to the Sandmosevej in the village of Brovst. The cost per night is 22 euros. I am trying to pick up Danish words and vej is a road . There are motorwayvej - motorways and just plain old vej at the end of every street name . I paid for our nights stop and ordered bread for the morning from the small but well equiped shop. The site is massive and I managed to get lost going out to fill the water bottles for the day. 215 plots spread on roads with names like Lidergarden , Brokkensvej and Favestien . There is even a naturist area although I felt that it would be too cold to be naked this far north. We slept well that night as it was extremely quiet . Much like most of the sites we had stayed on so far .

Our trip out today was to Hitlers bunker at Hanstholm and we parked up on their sandy car park near to the museum and bunker. When we were looking for something to see in this part of Denmark we found this site . Perhaps it was in Atlas Obscura or even on Google Earth . I cannot remember where I found it but it looked interesting and it was on the route we would be travelling . It also would make a change from castles . We knew we had a list of quite a few of those to visit .

The bunker was part of Hitlers Atlantic Wall that stretched from the south to the north along the coast. Part of Hitlers plan to dominate Europe . The museum would tell the story of the battery from between 1940 to 1945. It would tell us the story of turning a small peaceful fishing village into a fortress . It would explain the problems faced by the villagers who eventually had to leave their homes. Occupied and the occupier lived hand in glove for some part of the war . It was difficult to imagine what life must have been like during the war years . .

It is extremely windy in this part of the world and the sand from the fields is blowing everywhere . The car park is pretty full with buses full of local schoolchildren arriving for a lesson on Second World War history. I was not sure exactly what the teenagers got from the visit . They seemed more interested in talking to each other than listening to what they were being told about the war and this site .

The journey had been a difficult one with long roads and slow speed limits . Petrol stations few and far between and those open unmanned . Luckily after the last trip to France I was used to using the serve yourself petrol . But every time I put my card in I worried it would not be accepted or perhaps the machine would gobble the card up and refuse to give it back to me . Up to now though I had never lost my card . The drivers foot is sore from having slipped on a cobblestone in Ribe . It put his knee out and he is in pain which makes driving difficult .

With our jackets on we headed for what looked like the largest gun we had ever seen. It was massive and an amazing thing. I don't know if it was the original gun. The museum covers around 2500 square metres and is one of the largest that the Germans built in Denmark . In the middle of the bunker stood one of 4 38 cm guns that comprised the German coastal battery known as Hanstholm II. The battery had a range of 55 km and there was a corresponding battery on the Norwegian side of the Skagerrak which was intended to cut off the 120 km wide channel between Denmark and Norway.

We paid our fee to get in to the museum 80 Danish Krone each . No reduction for seniors. Plus we paid for a ride on the tiny train that once carried shells to the gun battery . The museum catered for everyone . Big guns for the big boys. Pistols for the enthusiasts, Large searchlights and clothing from the period . Day to day objects from the kitchens and the bunkhouses . It told a story of ordinary soldiers lives and the lives of the people associated with the bunker. Articles filled all the spaces , a propellor from an American B17 shot down by the big guns, clothing and uniforms . The large circular gun turret was amazing . I wondered if the locals were forced to labour on the site or was it built by the Germans who worked there . All that concrete. It was a massive achievement and showed the ingenuity of the Nazi war machine . We walked through the doorways into the sleeping quarters . Bunk after bunk along the walls . No privacy there . The ablution block with sink after sink placed against the walls . There would be the smell of fresh bread baking and of cabbages cooking . The atmosphere would have been claustrophobic .

We saw the bombs painted yellow and blue lined up on the walls and the railway track that ran from bunker to bunker . The ammunition for the guns was far too heavy to move around the site by handcart and yet again German efficiency and ingenuity kicked in . How about a single narrow gauge railway track being built on the site ? It can go from one bunker to the next and carry the bombs to where they were needed . The small green train only ran part of the open season . It began running in April through to September 11th . On the 12th of September it took a break until the half term week in October when it came out again before being put to bed until the Spring . The train ran every 30 minutes in the low season from the tiny station just a short walk away . It would run more often in the high season - every 15 minutes . Of course today we missed the train and had to wait 20 minutes for it come round again .

Can you hear it ? We did not need to put our ears against the track to hear it coming . There was a clank clank from a distance . And then it turned up coming towards us . The passengers on board all climbed out . We had to wait for the driver to take his break before he opened the gate and let us on board . The train set off and slowly trudged around the site . A ten minute trip through the site , into one bunker and out . On to the next bunker and finally through the largest bunker on the site . A seamless process of moving ammunition from one part of the site to the others.

The day ended up with fish and chips . The fish and chips wagon was set out just before the car park . I ordered one portion as I was unsure how much or how little we would get for our money . The young lady cooked the fish perfectly and salted the chips before handing them to me . We ate them in Gabby and they were some of the nicest fish and chips I had eaten for a long time . Those chips and fish were an unexpected pleasure . That is one thing I love about travelling - Expect the unexpected .

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