Bornholm, Denmark
We bounced back from Berlin to Bornholm, a little island off the coast of Sweden, but part of Denmark.
When the sun came up, it looked like there was a little cloud god right at water level, waving and welcoming us back to Denmark.
Reminder: you can click any image and see it complete on your screen, without having to scroll
We had to tender to shore (anchor offshore, then hop in the lifeboats and go to shore) in Gudhjem. It’s a cute little town.
This island is very small - we were supposed to dock in Rønne, the largest city, but they had some damage to their dock and so we were re-routed to the other side of the island to Gudhejm (GOOL-yem). And no, I don’t understand how that pronunciation happens from those letters, either.
Regardless, it’s all the way on the other side.
So you can see Rønne in the SW corner where we were scheduled and Gudhjem on the north coast where we actually did go. But it didn’t change our tour much at all, since we basically went counter-clockwise around the coast until we got to Rønne, then cut thru the middle to Østerlars and back to Gudhjem.
We had time to do that in two hours, plus stop and see a castle (more on that later).
But do you see that little “1” in the yellow marker?
That’s a coaster. I shit you not. On this tiny little island with just 40,000 people.
And of course, it’s tiny - but it’s unique in that there’s no motor to pull the car up the first hill. You gotta push.
..then you hop in the car and ride down
Those photos are from the Rollercoaster Database. Alas, there’s no transit system on the island and no Uber and it was a 2.5 hour walk to get there on foot. The boat had to leave at 3pm, so… had to skip this one.
Back to what we DID see.
There are a ton of ice cream shops near the docks. One of them employs a cute little 3-wheeled truck.
I wish I had taken note of the make - but I figured it would be easy enough to Google.
HAH!
It turns out that there are about 20 different manufactures of tiny 3-wheeled trucks out there.
Who knew?
After hopping on the bus, we saw lots of countryside.
And more little villages.
Then we stopped at a castle ruins, circa 1250. It’s in ruins because in the 1600s the castle was empty and locals scavenged it for stones to build their own homes.
There was a cute round church…
…and a windmill.
When the tour was over, we hit the shops. One of them had handmade glass items, including this chair with cute chicks on it.
There was also a hill close to the water where you could climb up and get a good view of the town.
And honestly, that’s about it for the stuff on shore.
When we got back to the ship, I had a Nordic hot dog. There are several variations, but this one is served on a potato flatbread called a lompe and topped with shrimp salad, dill, lemon juice, and a tiny bit of horseradish. It sounds terrible, but it was pretty good.
For dinner, we were back at Chef’s Table, the restaurant where you get five small courses with four wine pairings. You don’t pick the items, they just bring you what’s on the chef’s table that evening.
It started out with some king crab with coconut milk, coconut foam, and curry, paired with a Riesling.
Next came some lobster and chicken dumplings in a spicy dipping sauce. Delicious!
Next came a palette cleanser, shaved ice infused with hot peppers. Yes, spicy ice. It was so good, we had them bring us both a second one.
Dinner was Peking duck
Legit: the best part of the meal was the palette cleanser. That’s not to say the rest of the meal was bad - it wasn’t! Some of the courses were downright delicious.
But yeah. Spicy ice. I love good contrast!
After dinner, we saw a concert by Adam Johnson, whom we’d seen once before. He played mucis from stage and screen - with pretty much zero songs you’d have sworn would be included in a show with that theme. No John Williams… no Andrew Lloyd Weber? All the pieces were great, though.
And now we’re going to pour ourselves into bed and get some rest.