Bornholm looks as though it should belong to Sweden but is in fact part of Denmark. Getting there is no easy task and just as long and expensive as going to any other European sunshine destination. We had to get up at 2.30 am to make the 8.00 am ferry which then took 6 hours to get to the island. Going home we took the ferry to Sweden and came back via the new (-ish) Ø
resund bridge between Denmark and Sweden.
Bornholm has the reputation of having good weather and while the mainland Danes were dealing with flooded cellars we got sunburnt, so that bit is true. The landscape is different mainly because of the underlying granite which is reminiscent of Brittany or Cornwall. It also makes for fantastic rock pools which we explored from day one. The whole island seems to have a preservation order on it and we were staying in an olde worlde town house in Svaneke one of the attractive harbour villages around the island.
The tourist experience here seems quite different to our part of Denmark for several reasons. There are lots of natural attractions such as Ekkodal, a valley in which you can hear your voice echo, Jonas Capel, a natural clifftop pulpit from which a mad Irish priest used to preach to the heathens on the beach below and several rocking stones, massive boulders left by melting glaciers and which you can rock by hand. Even the largest fortress in Northern Europe, Hammershus, is free of charge to visit.
There are of course paying attractions too and we visited about half of those. But there is also the cafe culture which means that if one restaurant is full you can just walk to the next one. Too trite to mention? Well I do remember some very long treks in search of a place to eat back here in Djursland. Once we had to give up in Ebeltoft and drive all the way to Grenaa. Another time, a favorite eating place was closed because the ovens weren’t working and one time we were the only diners in the only restaurant open in Grenaa on a winter’s Sunday night. So we certainly don’t take these things for granted. Plus Bornholm is supposed to be a very arty place so there are lots of interesting (and many not so interesting) little craft shops and exhibitions to go to.
Bornholm even has its own desert island, Christiansø¸, which has been a fortress and Denmark’s version of Robben Island.
Bornholm is where Gwen came on a school trip two years ago so she was our guide. Mia will be making the trip next year and is looking forward to it even more now that she has been once.
Of course not everything is olde worlde on the island and we did visit one harbour town where the highlight was the conversion of a grain silo on the harbour front into attractive holiday flats. We put our name down straight away! Apparently sales are quite slow.