Beach hotel which didn’t want to die

In the 1920s it became more common to travel for a holiday – but people generally only had a short time for holiday maybe a week or two. So international travel was still out of reach for almost everybody. International travel was too expensive and in the era before commercial air travel and high speed trains a trip down to Rome or Barcelona would just take too long so nobody could go that far during their holiday. Instead a new tradition started – people went to beach hotels in Danish these were called badehoteller or swimming hotels. They were close to the beach and usually with a view of the beach.

Some of these old hotels has survived till this day – one of the most famous of them are Svinkløv Badehotel which was built in 1925 and people were coming to the rooms in high numbers during the summer time. Despite the fact the hotels didn’t have modern amenities as a private toilet and shower and the rooms were still pretty expensive even though you had to go to the hall and wait in line to use the communal shower in the morning or after a day at the beach.

The clientele at these kinds of hotels are generally people whose grandparents used to come here in the 20s and 30s and they are getting up there when it comes to age. But Svinkløv Badehotel has something special going for it. The food. They have always been well known for their food but a couple of years ago a new chef took over the hotel and restaurant – and he is one of the most talented chefs in Denmark. He won the world championship of cooking the Bocouse D’or in 2014. So I guess the food is top notch – but I have never stayed at the hotel or tasted the food.

He took over the running of the hotel in 2015 – but he didn’t get on to a good start – in 2016 the hotel burned down and the old main building which were completely built from wood was completely destroyed.

It was decided to rebuild the hotel and after a lot of thoughts it was decided to break with tradition and actually put in private showers and toilets in all the rooms. The hotel finally reopened in 2019 and they did upgrade the fire alarm system to avoid a future disaster. We went by the hotel to see it – obviously it is closed for the moment since all restaurants were currently closed. But we could see the famous hotel located right at the beach on the front row sand dune.