We’ve enjoyed excellent sunny spring weather on Bornholm, but even Bornholm gets its stormy days sometimes. Gusts were going to be up to 40 knots, and early morning Henrik and I hurried up to Rønne airport – to tie down my Aeroprakt in a slightly better way.
We moved the aeroplane to face the wind, and arranged a three-point tie-down so that it would withstand the gusts.
Our plan for the day was to drive the island around, with stops in different places:
We wanted to do the aircraft stuff first, and therefor didn’t stop in Hasle. Now that everything was in order, we returned back to Hasle. It was early, and everything except local supermarket was closed – but there we could get a cup of coffee and a dry Danish pastry from the day before. After breakfast in the car (it was damn cold!) we went for a walk in Hasle harbour:
By the rudder of an old ship:
It was blowing a lot, and the waves were high – we didn’t dare to come close:
Henrik and I wanted to see Hasle church, but it was closed:
Well, if one church is closed, then another one is open. We went to see the Nylars round church instead of. It was much smaller than the Østerlars round church, but also with frescos and more rustic interior:
Henrik and I read that on Bornholm we have a geographic junction – the intersect of latitude 55N and longitude 15E, located on the southern part of the island. Visiting that place was also on our long to-do list on Bornholm.
Central European Time (CMT) is determined on the basis of longitude of 15E, and since this degree of longitude passes through Bornholm just east of Gudhjem, a town of the north coast of the island, it is often called Gudhjem Time in Denmark. This also implies that at 12 noon Bornholm is the only place in the country, where the sun is at its zenith.
A granite stone marks the geographical spot where longitude 55N and latitude 15E intersect:
If we travel west, we end up in the North Sea opposite Newcastle on longitude 0, the prime meridian. Greenwich is located on the prime meridian. Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), also known as universal time, is used as the standard of calculating elsewhere. CMT = GMT+1. Travelling east along the 55N latitude we intersect the 35E longitude at the city of Vitebsk, Belarus (where the famous painter Chagall was born, by the way), where the time is GMT+2.
To the north, the 15E longitude intersects the 60N latitude near the Swedish town Kopparberg, whilst to the south we’d come close to Prague (Czech Republic) before reaching the 50N latitude.
Since there are approximately 111 km between latitudes, Bornholm is located 6,105 km from the Equator, and 3,855 km from the North Pole.
From that interesting geographical crossroad, Henrik and I walked down to the beach – it was so beautiful, white sand and strong waves…
Our next stop was Nexø, where we noticed a propeller by the Nexø museum:
Quick Google search revealed, it was from a Junkers 88, crashed into the sea near Bornholm during WWII. On the other side of the museum building, there was memorial site called “Liseruten”. Liseruten was the name of the illegal connection for smuggling of refugees between Copenhagen, Bornholm and Sweden during the WWII:
It was time to have lunch, and we drove to the Nexø Old Smoke House where we could have a table on the terrace. The storm was almost over, and the weather greatly improved:
Then – driving to Svaneke, Denmark’s easternmost town, and a walk in its harbour:
North of the harbour, one can see the exhibited reconstruction of a keel from the ship “Svanen”(built in 1858), a three-masted barque – the biggest and handsomest ship ever built in Svaneke:
“Svanen” was 37 metres long, 7.6 metres wide and 4 metres deep. It was big enough to carry a load of approx. 300 tons. “Svanen” crossed the Atlantic more than 25 times during its lifetime. In the end of 19th century the ship was sold to an unknown owner in Argentina, and there its trace disappeared; nobody knows the fate of that ship.
Svaneke town is quite picturesque, with half-timbered cottages, flower gardens, and tiny streets.
We had a long walk there, and saw this interesting ceramic commemorative plaque on a wall of one of the houses:
It tells us about a man called Tage Nissen-Petersen, who lived in that house. He was married twice, had three children and a nice girlfriend later in life, what he did for living and in his free time. It is a very nice memory from the friends of that man, who obviously did a lot for the local society during his lifetime.
For the afternoon coffee, we drove to Gudhjem that was full of people. Many shops and galleries were open, and it took us time to get a parking place.
We went to Bech Chokolade café – it has become our favourite. I have to be honest, their coffee is very ordinary, but the handmade chocolate is excellent – dark and rich.
A walk literally up to the town, and a marvellous view awaited us:
Walking through those small passages of Gudhjem, we med this gorgeous cat:
I hope, I can have a cat one day. With my lifestyle, it is not an option to own a cat, but one day when I retire and buy a house on a small island somewhere, then I’m going to adapt a stray cat.
We visited a couple of galleries, didn’t buy anything – there is no room in my aircraft. But I bought a small gift to Flemming (don’t tell him, it’s a surprise) – a nice package of Bornholm’s caramels – he loves them.
The weather was getting better and better, and I couldn’t get enough of all those flourishing trees:
After 10 hours on the road, we were tired and drove directly home from Gudhjem, without stopping in Allinge or Sandvig – we’ve been there so many times, after all.
At home, we used some time for checking the weather and trying to guess when we would be able to fly home…
