The Island Landscape

Fields and Forests and Lakes:

Evening Hike with Hubert

A walk in the Woods. 

(Just Lilli and I)

Lost in the Forest

A view from the top. 

Bodil took us took a look-out tower so we could get a fabulous view of the Baltic. 

 

 

The Coast:

 

Unlike most of Denmark, Bornholm has rocky breaches oppose to sandy ones.

Cliffs and Sheep:

Walking with the Sheep

The Castle

The Castle

We took an evening walk to the Hammerhus, Northern Europe's largest castle ruin which was constructed in the 13 century.

Art on the Island

On our first full day on the Island, Bodil took us on a tour of the Island. 

As we were driving along we passed two girls hitchhiking on the side of the road. Bodil pulled over and we picked them up. They turned out to be two french girls who are studying in Copenhagen and were visiting Bornholm for the weekend. They had missed the bus and needed a ride into town. 

They decided to ditch their original plans and tagged along with us for the day. It was a lot of fun! 

Our first stop-

A Glass Museum

Bornholm is full of glass museums, pottery studios and just art in general. Our next stop on the tour was an artist  commune in an old chicken house. I think 13 or so artists purchased an old chicken house which was then renovated in to their studio space. They were having a 'open house' so we got to peek around their studios and chat with the artist. It was so inspiring! 

 

We went to a few more museums before heading home.

The culture museum which had an exhibit of locally made woven works. 

Then the last stop was at the history museum. 

Hello Denmark

Down on the Farm

This is the home of our lovely hosts Bodil and Hubert.

On their property, there were several of these little cottages, all very cute a brightly colored. It was sort of unclear what they were for exactly but Hubert said WOOFer often will stay in them during the warmer months. Since it was quite chilly during our stay Lilli and I got to stay in the guest room in the main house.

Diggin'

Of the 5 full days we were in Bornholm we had two full days of work, one half day and two days off. It was a perfect balance of work and play. 

Sunday was our first full day of work. Breakfast was at 7:30 and after fueling up we worked straight through till 1:00 when we broke for lunch. 

Poor Lilli was stuck cleaning the chicken house. She spent all morning scraping up poop and power washing the chicken house. I spent all morning digging. First 

I dug a new sand pit for the chickens to bathe in. Then I cultivated the earth and built garden beds.

Sheep.

 

Getting there

Sunrise

Lilli and I took the night train to Ystad in Southern Sweden. We spent the afternoon there hanging out in a cafe. From there we took a ferry to Bornhom where we were met by our host Hubert. He drove us the 20 km back to their house just outside the town of Allinge. There we were greeted friends and family for an Easter Lamb dinner. (luckily all the vegetarian sides were excellent and made a delicious meal).

Time Flies

I can't believe how fast time flies. It was two weeks ago (thursday the 5th) that I set out on an adventure of unknowns. One of my friends (who a did not know too well) and I decided to spend a week WOOFing in Bornholm Denmark. We barley know each other, we barley knew where we were going or what we would be doing. But none of this held us back, in fact it added to the excitement. 

Let the adventure begin!

Thursday morning I took the train to Stockholm to spend the day with my corridormate.

When I arrived in Stockholm I took the Subway to Johanna's neighborhood. 

We cooks a  delicious lunch before setting out into the city.

 

We decided to spend the day in one of Johanna's favorite parks in Stockholm, a place I probably would have never been to if she hadn't taken me there. 

Cold but clear day.

 The park reminded me much of Wintertur. It was a manicured and well kept nature park with gardens, orchards, and fields as well as a mansions, art museums and a beautiful garden shop and cafe.

The park we walked around.

Adorable shop full of locally made goodies! I wanted to buy everything.

Pastries :)

Time for fika! 

Local and organic Blueberry Ice Cream and a cup of coffee. Dining al fresco.

 After fika, we continued our walk.

Do you see what I see??

So as we were walking along I saw what looked like a reindeer running across the field. I shrieked and pointed it out to Johanna. She laughed as said "A reindeer?? Really Avery, that's just a regular deer....right???" This was no regular deer and it was running around like it was just set free. That's when we realized it had probably escaped from Skansen. Johanna and I found some park workers and told them about the reindeer on the loose and they said they would take care of it. 

 Later we had dinner at the most delicious vegetarian buffet called Hermans. The restaurant is located in Södermalm and has a beautiful view overlooking the water. We sat on the terrace (which was inclosed for winter) and enjoyed a long and leisurely mulch-course meal. After filling our bellies, we said goodbye to Johanna and Lilli and I hopped on the night train.