Wednesday morning, extremely early (though not before the crack of dawn, seeing as it's practically dawn here in Scandi-land at 3am), we headed for a few days on Bornholm, our favorite island smack dab in the middle of the Baltic. Our friends living on the island, and with whom we exchange homes once in a while, had asked us if we'd like to stay at their place while they also were there, since Bornholm was hosting the first ever Folkemødet, which is a politics based festival, which is a concept the Swedes have been doing for years and we've only just decided to steal now. Our host was actually one of the project managers, and he knew that there was a good chance that Mikael, our very own political journalist at home, would be covering it. After a bit of hemming and hawing, his workplace did decide to send him, and the kids and I tagged along, ever eager to visit this craggy island and enjoy some R & R.

We rode our bikes to the station, and drove them right on to the stepless train carriage, it couldn't have been easier. We enjoyed having our bikes with us, since busses run only once an hour or so, and it's nice to not be dependent. We also rode our bikes straight on to the ferry as well. Again, almost floored over how effortless it all went.



The goings on were spread all around the town of Allinge, and we did do our fair share of walking around. We took the bus to the site, as it was a bit far for biking. No matter, all the bus routes on the island are stunning. I might just want to be a bus driver there when I grow up, and that's only half in jest. I imagine it's hard to be stressed surrounded with views like that. Gentle sloping fields, forests, rocky beaches, quaint villages with medieval round churches dotting the landscape. Ridiculous!

The kids went about most of the time gathering balloons and pinwheels, not to mention candies from the different parties that were out flaunting their views.



Our bonus gran Cornelia joined us the days we ventured up to the festivities, and we had our own route of sights to see, including the local grocery store where she had to get cat food while visiting the "big city". We enjoyed visiting Gæstgiveren, a very colorful and personal inn that's always buzzing with city slickers. Did a bit of celebrity spotting, and had coffee and juice while enjoying the show de jour.



The boys enjoyed jaunts by the sea as well, lugging huge stones around, only to throw into the water. The scenery here is lovely, not Danish at all, geologically akin to Sweden. The people speak a lilting dialect of Danish that's very similar to southern Swedish, but not quite as harsh to the ears as Skånsk (sorry to any Skåninger out there!). At any rate, I'm glad the people of Bornholm insisted on being Danish, back when Skåne was handed over to Sweden in the 1600s. I'm glad it's "ours" to be honest. Our only chance at getting a few meters above sea level!




The boys also enjoyed playing with the children, in fact, I used to go to Lamaze with the host, which is how we hooked up to start off with, and Dante and one of his very first friends had some serious catching up to do! It went extremely well. Their two boys and our two boys kept themselves seriously occupied! (Not always watching films, mind you, this was just the only shot I had of them together!)



We saw some local petroglyphs as well, almost 3000 years old! Love it! Always so fascinating to speculate as to the whys and wheres of the people who were on this very spot so many years before.




This is a library. It has nothing to do with anything.



These are clouds. See above.



This is "our" street, at 10:30 pm. Seriously.



It was a lovely trip, Mikael did quite a lot of working, and we did quite a lot of walking about alone and such, but it was nice to be back at any rate. Yes, it was.