The Red Cloverleaf Route at Skåstrup

The Red Clover Leaf Trail by Skåstrup is known as the nature route, because it offers lovely scenery along the beach, through woodland and across meadows – come along for the trip.

The Red Clover Leaf Trail by Skåstrup is a 7.2 km walking route. The route starts and ends in the small village of Skåstrup, and it is marked with red Clover Leaf signs all the way.

The route takes you through gently hilly terrain, with medium gradients of up to 5%. You pass fields, grass meadows, the woods Skåstrup Frihed and Nyhave, and the beach.

Tips for the trip

• Remember to stay on the paths in the woods, and that you may only be there from sunrise to sunset.
• Bring a packed lunch, so you can enjoy lunch on a bench along the route or have a picnic on the beach.
• There is a car park on Donnervej by Nymark right by the Red Clover Leaf Trail, and parking along Strandgyden by Skåstrup Strand, not far from the nature area where the route passes.
• If you want to get to Skåstrup from somewhere else in North Funen or from a neighbouring municipality, it is possible to book a Flextrafik trip.

Along the route

The Red Clover Leaf Trail by Skåstrup starts, like all four Clover Leaf Trails in Skåstrup, at Skåstrup Torv in the small, cosy village with its duck pond and old houses – a classic Danish countryside idyll.

The woods

The Red Clover Leaf Trail passes through very varied nature. You come past fields, grass meadows and the woods Skåstrup Frihed and Nyhave. The route does not go through the woods, but passes right by them.

There are also paths leading into the woods, which you are welcome to use if you want to enjoy the peace beneath the treetops. Please note that the woods are privately owned. You may only walk on the paths and only between sunrise and sunset.

Hugget

The route also passes fields and Hugget, which H.C. Andersen visited as a boy with his mother on his very first journey. Andersen’s mother had worked for the parents of the lady of the farm.

H.C. Andersen and his mother walked there from Odense, and the trip took 2 days. It made a great impression on the young Andersen, as he later described in “The Fairy Tale of My Life”: it was a beautiful farm, they were given good food, and the countryside itself made such a powerful impression on him that his greatest wish was always to stay there.

H.C. Andersen later travelled to many other places – but the area is still beautiful.

The beach

The route also follows the dyke and the beach. The dyke was built when the area was reclaimed in the late 19th century. But people lived here long before that. They left traces in the form of several burial mounds, some located in the woods by Nyhave and Hugget, and others between the woods and the beach.

The mounds date partly from the Neolithic period and partly from the early Bronze Age. From the beach, you also get a lovely view across the Kattegat, and you can see all the way to Jutland. There are benches in several places along the beach, and there is also a bathing jetty out into the water if you fancy a dip after the walk.