Hammersholm helleristningsfelt

Henrik and I stayed on the northern tip of Bornholm, an area with lots of natural wonders and exciting historical sites.

After breakfast, we had planned to go on an easy hiking trip to Madsebakke and see the petroglyphs (rock carvings) from the Bronze Age. Standing in front of the map in the beginning of our tour, I noticed a place called Ostanovka (yellow circle):

“Ostanovka” in Russian means a place for “a rest” on the journey. Russian soldiers stayed there during their stay on the island from May 1945 to April 1946. We thought it would be interesting to see what is left from that time and decided to go there as well, and to the granite quarry nearby (orange circle on the map above). We began from Hammersholm, a farm from the 1700’s (indicated above with the blue circle).

Hammersholm was originally a barn of the Hammershus Castle. Today, it is a state-owned listed building.

Way to Madsebakke went through a beautiful forest full of anemones. Most of them were white, but I also noticed yellow and purple ones:

First there was Hammersholm petroglyphs site where on several exposed rock slabs, there were both bowl signs, ship motifs and wheel crosses, as well as the island’s only foot signs and horse signs, but they were difficult to see. Sheep were peacefully grazing on the hills around the site:

We continued through another forest:

And soon reached the Madsebakke petroglyphs site – one of the largest on Bornholm:

It’s said that the carvings are up to 3,000 years old:

It was interesting to think that for 3,000 years ago someone like you was standing there on those rocks, and created a message we look at today…

We went back the same way, and took the path to the granite quarry – it looked dramatic:

Ostanovka was somewhere there, but we couldn’t really locate the place as there were no signs, but the path we took was correct, and it led us to the same quarry, just from a different angle.