Munkaby Abbey

This is a now ruined Cistercian Abbey. The church ruins with its thick walls are all that remain. Other buildings have not withstood the test of time.

Getting here should have been relatively easy, but at one stage, I wasn't paying enough attention and failed to take the cycling path. It became obvious when I reached a point where the trail entered some woodland, and the track was so overgrown that it was going to be very difficult to get through with the trailer. After backtracking for a little over a kilometre, I got myself back on track.

I found a convenient height rock at the edge of someone's front yard to sit down on for lunch, waved at the woman watching me from the house as I left, and started back uphill. Shortly after the place where the hiking and cycling trail join, there was a group of 22 American pilgrims with two Norse men running the tour at the rest stop. This made sense of a comment made when I was asking about accommodation at Munkeby Herberge, and was told that a big group had booked it out.

It was a bit strange. One woman came up to me holding a can of soft drink and said something like,'Did I hear you say you would like one of our soft drinks?' and when I replied 'No, you didn't', she asked something equally unenticing about joining them, got a similar response. I guess she was trying to be welcoming, and that was nice, just her manner was completely unappreciated.

Getting to the ruins involved a dilemma. Use a much longer cycling path or see if the hiking path was navigable with the trailer. I chose the latter. The trail followed the high side of a recently mown field for a while, then headed down to the river at the far end. And it then became obvious why there was a separate cycling route. At first, the forest path was lovely and soft underfoot, just getting steeper and steeper. Even the less steep alternative as it approached the river was difficult to negotiate. Then the track narrowed until it was just a footpad between the waist high grass at the edge of some more fields, and then criss-crossed with exposed roots and scattered with rocks as it re-entered a patch of forest.

I mismanaged one spot and toppled the trailer on its side. I was quick enough this time to recognize this as it happened, so I remained relatively upright, released myself from the harness, and got things back on the road relatively quickly.

It was a relief shortly after that to reach the ruins and use one of the several picnic tables there to have a very late afternoon snack.Read more