Bornholm Part 1 - Rønne

This past week I took the opportunity of time off and good weather to venture out to Bornholm for a few days to play tourist with Morten on his day off while working there. Bornholm is a Danish island about 3 hours from Copenhagen (bus and boat) located in the Baltic Sea slightly southeast of Sweden and north of Poland. Bornholm has changed hands over the centuris between Denmark and Sweden a few times. It was also one of the few areas of Denmark to suffer fighting and bombing during World War II. Its location between Germany and Sweden made it a key place of contention. According to wikipedia (again, yes I am being lazy in my referencing) the Bornholm town of Nexø was one of the last holdouts of the Nazis. The island was also bombed by the Russians in 1945. Currently, there are NATO installations on the island most likely due to its proximity to Russia.

While touring around the town of Rønne, the main port for boats from Denmark and Sweden, I found this piece of artwork over the door of a home in the town, it clearly references the bombings inflicted on the island.
















This is the view of Rønne when you enter the harbor by boat from Ystad, Sweden. It was a cloudy day but the cheerful colored buildings in the historic center make the weather a little less gloomy.














Bornholm is actually called the Sunshine Island by Danes because it gets many more hours of sun per year than other areas of Denmark. Rønne is very small, you can see the whole downtown in less than an hour, but at least its a pretty stroll. The local economy of Bornholm used to be based on fishing and smoked fish (herring in particular) but this is less so now as herring populations in the Baltic Sea have apparently declined to the point where a lot of the herring sold on the island is from somewhere else. There are also many artisans living on Bornholm as is evident by the numerous ceramics and glassware museums and galleries. Here is another snap of those cheerful houses. You may notice the similarities with the homes in Dragøer in my previous post.