My family and I just got back from someplace I hope never to forget; an island called Bornholm. It is in the middle of the Baltic Sea, and although to is closer to Sweden than Denmark, it is still Danish territory (although as I understand it, ownership of Bornholm was disputed over often hundreds and hundreds of years ago). We went with a group of DIS study abroad students. The group leaders were great, and everything went basically as planned! We went on a one hour bus ride to a ferry station, and then a one and half hour ferry ride to a bus stop on Bornholm, and then a half hour bus ride across the island to the small town called Gudhjem.
It was very dark as we all filed out of the bus, so we couldn’t see it, but the sea was right in front of us. We got everything together, and as it was late and we were all tired, we quickly got to sleep.
The next day was a wondrous adventure though! We were to go biking around the island, something which I was looking forward to very much. We had our breakfast with the students, and then were given bikes, after which my brother, father, and I began the trek to Hammershus, the biggest collection of castle ruins in Scandinavia. Along the way we passed a beach, and after backtracking some to get back to the path to it, we went down to see it. We went behind a sheep pen to get there:
There we saw the sea (the Baltic Sea more specifically)! I haven’t seen so much water in one place in a long time:
The beach itself was all rocks, and the we had to wobble across them to walk around:
We found some stone formations which were really neat:
I climbed to the top:
After that I climbed down and we began the trip back to the bikes. Was we got there we were all kind of tired, but we decided that the ruins were worth any pain we might endure, so off we went! We passed by some cows on the way to Hammershus:
Plus some fields:
And a quarry:
After some travel, we got to the ruins unscathed:
They look awesome:
Exhibits B-D:
There were some really cool window views too:
And here is one of my favorite parts:
The sheeples!
After that we went to the cafe just outside the ruins (as a note, I am not referring to the visitors center cafe, which was not completed during the time of our visit, but rather to a small cafe built into a museum by the parking lot), which had some REALLY good food, and a lot of it. We couldn’t eat all the fries! Anyhow, after that we got ready, and began biking back. It was mostly a good trip, but I tried to jump a curb with my bike and crashed in front of my father who got flipped off his bike right behind me. He scraped his hand, and his head smashed against the pavement, but he was saved by his helmet which was on securely! I skinned both my knees and the palms of my hands, but besides for that I was fine (in addition I had learned a lesson “don’t jump curbs!”). We got back to our hostel that evening well exercised and tired, and after dinner with the students we went to bed early.
Now, that was just the first day, Saturday (and Friday evening)… The second day was also super cool! But I will talk about that in another blog post… For now I’ma-gonna-go!