Neat Nordic Navigation

Well … you know how much I love a good stone circle and just how good a great ship circle is too. I'm also a fan of really old graveyards (reserve your judgement please!). Even better than that is when you see a whole lot of these things all in the same place!! Today we visited Lindholm Høje, an ancient burial site dating way back to the 400's AD. Middle age man (and woman, Stan) were laid to rest under mounds of soil and surrounded by stone circles here. There are almost 700 graves at Lindholm Høje, about 40 of which are internment graves not surrounded by stones. The rest are cremation graves where the deceased person was cremated on a pyre at the grave site, covered in mounds of earth and surrounded by stones. The women were surrounded by circular and oval shapes, the men in triangular and ship shapes. The oldest graves (middle ages era) are located at the top of the hill while the newer ones (Viking era to around 1000 AD) are at the bottom. Interestingly, the shapes of the stone circles didn't change over time. There is a veritable stone ship fleet here!!!
From ancient times, the hills in this area have been shifting. Made almost completely of sand, the winds have been moving the dunes by up to 20m every year. As a consequence, this burial site was, itself, permanently buried under more than 4 metres of sand. Excavations began in 1952 to uncover the stone ship fleet.
There is a good museum here which looks at the things found when excavation commenced as well as giving a history of the area, back to the stone age. Even Samara enjoyed it, especially the really old stuff. The sheep didn't want to play with her today though…
We headed up to Skagen, the most northerly point in Denmark. On the way, we made a stop at Rubjerd Knude. We were heading there to take a peak at the lighthouse and the rugged northern coast. What we found were giant sand dunes and blasting winds which forced sand into places we didn't even know we had! The giant dunes of soft sand went straight up! Not a direction we wanted to go… instead, we skirted around the base of the dunes until we found a way through (can't go over it, can't go under it, can't go around it, have to go through it 🎼🎶🎵🎶) It was hard going in the brutal winds but we made it! We couldn't see much for our watering eyes and sand-battered faces though there was plenty of rubble from the old lighthouse keepers cottage, destroyed and swallowed by the shifting sands. I climbed the stairs to the top of the lighthouse but feared being picked up by the fierce winds and plunging to my death from the top! I didn't stay there long.
Then into Skagen to see the crazy meeting of two seas. Here, at the northerly tip of Jutland, the Baltic Sea and the North Sea meet in a swirl of waves. At the end of the sandy peninsula, you can stand with one foot in either sea. Both are cold! There are old WW2 bunkers here, partially buried by all that sand, overlooked by the Grey Lighthouse (which you can climb and see something never seen before … sand!!!) We ended our evening of sightseeing with a visit to Den Tilsandede Kirke. The hint of the significance of this place is on the name - TilSANDdede. You guessed it, this pretty little church, once the largest in the entire region, has been almost completely covered by sand! Built in the 14th century, the sand migration of the 16th to 18th centuries almost completely covered this little gem in little grains of shifting grit. For a hundred years, the congregation had to dig their way into the church whenever they wanted to attend services. The struggle against the sand continued until 1795 when the church lost its battle against Mother Nature and, now, all that is left visible is the ancient tower. Samara was stoked to be visiting during an outdoor service, complete with brass band and hymns. We didn't stay long!Weiterlesen