While Legoland’s miniaturized landmarks may be more famous, Northern Jutland’s claim to be home to “Denmark’s equivalent of the Sahara” doesn’t look quite as ridiculous as that sounds when you’re actually standing amid the windswept white sands of Rabjerg Mile.
Certainly a budget Nordic remake of “Lawrence of Arabia” wouldn’t be out of the question.
Covering an area of 1.5 square kilometers and containing 3.5 million cubic meters of sand, Rabjerg Mile is the largest migratory dune in northern Europe.
In fact, the dune played a starring role in the desert epic of its day.
In 1915, Danish filmmakers erected a sphinx and a pyramid as the backdrop for “The Secret of the Sphinx,” one of the more ambitious productions of the Scandinavian country’s so-called “golden age” of silent cinema.
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Endless horizon
At the time it was the largest and most expensive film set ever built.
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“The lighthouse is a reference point, but the most fascinating things are the landscape and the light. They are constantly changing,” he says.
Kristensen may not have to drag his easel to the top of the dunes many times more.
The lighthouse is expected to crash into the sea by 2020 if the cliff continues to retreat at its current rate, though bad weather over the next few winters could accelerate its demise.
“Maybe it will be a reef down there,” he says, pointing a paintbrush toward the beach below.
“Perhaps I’ll sit on it and try fishing instead.”
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Simon Hooper has covered international news, politics and sports for websites and publications including the New Statesman, Sports Illustrated, FourFourTwo and The Blizzard.
