Driving to Denmark

Beatle_Ray

Hello, can anyone advise me please, I'm planning on a trip to Denmark by car most likely on Boxing day this year and returning early January, most likely it will be just outside Copenhagen, i'll be leaving just outside North London, so my queries are which is the best route, avoiding an overnight stay on a boat, i'll have the dog with me, how long its expected to take and should i break the journey somewhere, plus any tips would be useful, thank you in advance,

eskbanker

There will doubtless be more sophisticated journey planning sites or software, but personally I always plug endpoints into Google Maps to get an idea of routes - it doesn't seem to cope with London to Copenhagen by road but does show Calais to Copenhagen as taking about 13 hours, which is likely to give you plenty of short cross-channel choices (tunnel or ferry), rather than the long crossing from Harwich to Hook of Holland.  I'd have thought it unlikely that you'd make it the entire way (safely) without staying over somewhere en route, but it obviously depends on how much driving you feel comfortable with doing on any given day....

k3lvc

I've done Calais to Flensburg (German/Danish border) on a summers day and it was a long day - given Copenhagen is another 3hrs beyond there (and timings are based on good driving conditions where you're talking deep winter) I'd be looking at minimum 2 overnight stops - obviously your (and dogs) choice whether one of those is on a ferry

zagfles

You can drive all the way to Copenhagen without going on a boat at all. Channel tunnel, then up through Jutland and over the bridges to Copenhagen. But you'll definitely need at least one night's stop somewhere, you'd be mad to attempt it without an overnight break.

But I think the Puttgarden to Rodby ferry is better, it's more direct than the Jutland route and gives you a break, it's about an hour crossing IIRC and about the same cost as the bridge tolls on the Jutland route. IIRC you can just book a ticket for a day and can get any crossing that day, they're regular.

You could look at a longer crossing from the UK too, but I think they've stopped the Esjberg route so the best you'd get is probably somewhere in NL (Hook van Holland, Rotterdam or Amsterdam)

Beatle_Ray

Thanks for the replies, seems as though a mid way stop is the sensible and safe thing to do, thanks for the tip about Puttgarden, i'll look into that