Ferry town of Hirtshals

We head north from the beach of Tornby Strand to the town of Hirtshals. The city is located at the end of the highway south to the rest and Denmark and from this town you can catch the ferry to Norway, Faroe Islands and Iceland. It is easy to see the importance of the town for the international commerce – there are a lot of trucks heading up to the ferry to transport goods from Europe to Norway.

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Just before we head to the town we get to an old lighthouse. The lighthouse is located on a highpoint in the landscape and the lighthouse can probably be seen for miles away from the sea. Around the lighthouse there is a lot of old bunkers from World War II.

The bunkers has been changed into a museum which should open again soon but it was closed when we dropped by. Despite the museum was closed you could still see the bunkers from outside and have a look at the area and get an idea about just how much capital was invested in the Atlantic Wall during the war. I don’t think the allied ever even remotely considered attacking the coast of Jutland – the logistic would have been a nightmare having to cross the north sea to small ports and the German supply lines would be short.

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We head to the city and go down to the harbor where there are a lot of large ferries. One of them is getting ready to leave probably for Norway. The passenger travel has been virtually shut down for the moment – but the cargo transport continues and I guess most of the trucks to Norway want to cut off the long drive through Sweden and just take the ferry across Skagerrak to the south coast of Norway.

When we head back out of Hirtshals we stop at a street corner. Here are a couple of huge bunkers which has been left behind almost 80 years ago. I guess the concrete bunkers were very durable – it looks like they have survived the time intact without maintenance.