{"id":6232,"date":"2024-07-18T07:07:43","date_gmt":"2024-07-18T07:07:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/zjunk.net\/blog\/?p=6232"},"modified":"2024-07-18T18:28:53","modified_gmt":"2024-07-18T18:28:53","slug":"day-16-wednesday-july-17-boat-ride-to-christianso","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zjunk.net\/blog\/index.php\/2024\/07\/18\/day-16-wednesday-july-17-boat-ride-to-christianso\/","title":{"rendered":"Day 16: Wednesday, July 17 ~ Boat Ride to Christians\u00f8"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Thin red line: boat ride to Christians\u00f8<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

A different kind of adventure today! After a leisurely breakfast (and a little early-morning walk for Mark and me, who also procured fresh rolls from the little campground store around the corner that advertises freshly-baked goods, we went on a longer boat ride to a small archipelago of islands, some no bigger than just a rock poking out of the Baltic. They are called the Ertholmene or Pea Islands, and toured the largest of those two–the only ones that are inhabited, Christians\u00f8 and Frederiks\u00f8 (also called Lille\u00f8, little island–the “\u00f8” part is basically the “is-” part of island and isle). That was a blast! We made our way to Gudhjem harbor for the boat that takes tourists to those islands three times a day for about a three-hour stay. (People can also stay overnight on a campground or in a guest house, but there is not a whole lot to do on the teeny islands, so day visitors are much more common.) It was a bright sunny morning and we found a spot on deck (there were benches and stools for more than a hundred people), and savored the 50-minute ride, especially the last part, which took us by the largest of the uninhabited islands that are part of the Ertholmene. It is a bird sanctuary, and we saw more of the delightfully silly-looking auks that look like they have propellers as they fly very close to the ocean surface.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Our boat to the Ertholmene<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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Peter discovered that the boat was built in the town where he grew up, Husum. It’s of our generation, too (Peter: 1964, Andrea: 1965, Antje: 1966, Boat: 1967)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Sailboats on the way from Bornholm to Christians\u00f8<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Auks racing along our boat<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Once we alighted just about 11, we started our walk around the larger of the two islands, Christians\u00f8. Only about 90 people live here year-round, but there is a tiny school for 15 kids, grades 1-7 (currently looking for a new teacher), a small church, a bunch of sturdy, rustic farmhouses and stables (now mostly vacation rentals) mostly built out of huge rocks, and ENORMOUS fortifications all around, with cannons, walls, and barracks. The islands, the Easternmost land belonging to Denmark, became a strategically important (if tiny) harbor in the 17th century and was primarily used for military purposes for hundreds of years. There was an 18th-century jail that once housed an important political dissident for 15 years, a surprise church ruin that looked much more impressive from the inside than the outside, and little walled gardens that are nestled all over the center of the island. We had a wonderful time walking around and over the island, and then, after our picnic lunch, also crossing the bridge to the second one, which is only about 1200 feet long and took less than 20 minutes to walk. We wrapped up with a cup of coffee for Andrea and Peter and a latte for me (Mark wanted nothing!) and then it was already time to board again at 2 pm. It is hard to describe how beautiful these islands are, but hopefully Mark’s and Andrea’s photos will give you a sense of that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Ertholmene — we walked all around the two inhabited islands in less than 2.5 hours<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Fortifications on Christians\u00f8<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Babies sleeping in their strollers, protected by cannons (a playground was nearby, and this was in the shade, but it was still funny)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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More fortifications<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Ruin from the outside, with Mark for scale<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Ruin from the inside<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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The “Little Tower” on the little island (Frederiks\u00f8) through a cannon embrasure<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Garden gate with seagull<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Mark with giant thistle<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Little housies on the islands. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Andrea thought this one looked like a swallow’s nest squeezed in between the fortifications<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Bird island on the way back — if you click on it to see the large version, you’ll see that the rock at the front is full of auks standing around like penguins <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The return ride was a little rougher and it sprinkled on us, but by the time we landed back in Gudhjem, the sun came back out. We had some delicious ice cream by the harbor (I think pretty much everyone else on board had the same idea, judging by the lines that formed in front of every ice cream shop) and went home to just rest and relax for a bit (always with ocean view). After another pasta dinner at home, we went for one more little walk to the bathing pier and across the rocky promontory that is just two minutes from here, but it was really nice to have a somewhat slower day. Peter’s and Mark’s knees were in favor, too. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A different kind of adventure today! After a leisurely breakfast (and a little early-morning walk for Mark and me, who also procured fresh rolls from the little campground store around the corner that advertises freshly-baked goods, we went on a longer boat ride to a small archipelago of islands, some no bigger than just a … Continue reading “Day 16: Wednesday, July 17 ~ Boat Ride to Christians\u00f8”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[47,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6232","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2024-germany","category-photos"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zjunk.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6232","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zjunk.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zjunk.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zjunk.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zjunk.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6232"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/zjunk.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6232\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6254,"href":"https:\/\/zjunk.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6232\/revisions\/6254"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zjunk.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zjunk.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zjunk.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}