Stage 10: Bornholm

Monday 9 July
At last, there was a bit of wind from a good direction, south west, and fine weather. We left Ystad very early, and were able to sail immediately we got out of the harbour.

We were worried about the high speed ferries which shuttle between Ystad and Bornholm, and about a traffic separation zone where much of the shipping heading into the eastern Baltic passes between Bornholm and Sweden. In the event, the sea was so rough that a few extra waves from the ferry wash made no difference, and the traffic was sparse enough for us to pass between the ships with no difficulty.


The waves were quite big, though, and it was an exhilarating but quite tiring 36 miles. Jakob (our trusty autohelm) did almost all the work, while we spotted boats and features on the land we were passing and approaching. We arrived in the early afternoon, and watched boat after boat arrive and search for places after us. The marina had filled up by about 5pm, although a few more managed to raft up or squeeze into a place. There were a few heavy rain squalls, but we had time to have a look around the town (Roenne), which is an honest Danish small town, with some lovely old streets but also the usual shops and chain stores. We intend to stay here for a few days to explore Bornholm by bike.

The beach next to Roenne harbour

Tuesday 10 July
We woke to the familiar sound of heavy rain and the wind whistling in the rigging! The rain soon stopped although the wind stayed almost all day. It didn't matter, though, we had bike rides in mind. The island is really bike-friendly, with paths everywhere, lots of marked routes and traffic which respects stupid tourists on bikes doing silly things in the middle of the road. We headed towards the north of the island along a bike trail which circles the island (104 km).

We stopped at each of the harbours we passed - they were tiny stone walls with an outer harbour and a tiny well sheltered inner harbour about big enough for half a dozen Alshira-sized yachts.

The route was superb, at first through forest trails, then up and down into bays and over steep hills rather like the Pembrokeshire or Cornwall coast paths. We ended up at a castle, Hammerhus, close to the northern tip of Bornholm. It is the best castle ruin I've been to for years, and I do like castle ruins.

It is in a super position overlooking the north west approach, and has a massive keep, lots of buildings and an outer wall all in a state to be able to appreciate the structure. It is mainly stone, but with a lot of brick in the keep.

The villages in Bornholm are very Danish, with the same jumble of small single storied half timbered houses with many windows, painted bright colours, all opening directly onto the cobbled street, that you see in the Danish islands like Aeroe.

Wednesday 11 July
It was a fine day, little wind and no rain, and warm. We decided to cycle down to the south of the island, using the round Bornholm cycle path. It was a lot duller than the route north, following the road for most of the distance, but there were only slight hills, so we got along quickly. We stopped to look at a water mill, which looked exactly like a story book - thatched mill, mill pond fringed by reeds, woods in the background...

We arrived at Bornholm's most southerly point with hoards of Danish families. The beach there is gorgeous, with lots of white sand and a shallow sea for a long way out. The sea was cold, but lots of people were swimming.

At that point there are sand dunes backed by forest, with well separated holiday homes. The rest of the route was through farmland - mainly cereal crops, but the fields were dusted with blue from cornflowers or red with poppies.

We continued along the coast to Nexoe, which has a decent fishing fleet and the first harbour of any size since Roenne.

Then we headed inland into the woods which fill a lot of the middle of the island. They are interspersed with gravel or Tarmac cycle paths which are quite steep in places, but the woods are lovely. There are some conifer plantations, but a lot of mixed woodland. We got back, pretty exhausted - we measured it out at 80 km! We have now cycled around more than half the coast path.

Thursday 12 July
We were still tired from the 80 km of yesterday, so took it easy today. Shopping, a visit to St. Nicholas church in Roenne (most of the churches seem to be dedicated to St Nicholas) which was quite nice, but apart from some lovely stained glass and a huge votive ship, was undistinguished, filled the morning.
Then we cycled off to find one of the 4 remaining fortified round churches. It was stupendous! It looked like a whitewashed round castle keep with an oak shingle conical roof.

Inside the walls were very thick and there was a central stone column decorated with murals from Genesis. The roof was quite low and roughly domed - there are two higher floors that we were not allowed into.

It was quite unlike any church I have ever seen - they were built in the 12th century to protect the congregation from pirates. There were also two rune stones dating from about 1150 in the porch.

A white square tower next to the church used to be a barbican, but is now used as a bell tower. If ever you find yourself in Bornholm, do not miss visiting one of the round churches!

The other event of the day was haircuts - we have both become rather shaggy, so we bought a pair of proper hairdressing scissors and cut each others hair. They are hardly up to West End standards, or even St Albans barbers standards, but they are fine for now!

Friday 13 July
This was expected to be our last day in Bornholm, so another exploration of the island was planned. It was windy, but dry and reasonably mild. We cycled up to the north of the island on the same track that we'd used on Tuesday, but after the rain, it was quite wet and we got splashed with mud. Instead of going back to the castle, we went on to Allinge, a small town on the eastern side of the northern tip. It is in completely different landscape to that we'd seen on Bornholm before, very reminiscent of Pembrokeshire or Scotland, with rocky coves and little beaches.

There is a good sized harbour at Allinge which was very full, probably because there was a jazz festival going on. We stayed to listen to one group, but had to move on. There was quite a crowd there as well as the boaters in the harbour.

The next place, Tejn, also had a decent harbour which was much emptier. We stopped to look at some standing stones and a burial site on a rocky bit of the coast - there is a lot of prehistoric stuff on Bornholm, which we have not really got the hang of.

The route back was mainly along a disused railway track - it seems Bornholm had a Dr Beeching too. It ran through a rocky ravine, and alongside a long linear lake and marsh, which must indicate a major geological fault across the island.

The road took us past another of the fortified round churches, but we arrived a few minutes past 4 pm, which is when Danish churches close to visitors. It was super from outside, very similar to the one we saw yesterday.

We have decided to go back to Ystad and then Denmark rather than crossing to Rugen in Germany. This is largely because the winds are mainly in the south, and it's a long crossing to Rugen to do against the wind (we feel we have done enough bashing into contrary winds this year!) We'll be back to explore Rugen another year.