Rønne

Until today I had never heard of Bornholm. Now I will never forget it.

There are half a dozen small towns scattered around the coast, but the largest, Rønne, (pronounced Run-nuh) has one-third of the island’s total population of forty thousand. This little piece of heaven is closer to both Sweden and Germany than to its own mother country Denmark, so, as one might expect, the dialect here is a sort of hybrid. Most of the people here are farmers. Some are fishermen. There is little else to do, so Bornholm is losing its young people to Copenhagen or Stockholm, at least for a while. Now, after going to the big cities to get an education, some students are returning here to start their families.

The scenery here is magnificent. Our tour started at a medieval castle, whose stones were “recycled” to make many of the houses in Ronne. Vistas across the flat farmlands stretch for tens of miles. A few tenth-century, round churches remain and are still in use. There are also half a dozen ancient windmills scattered across the landscape, a few actually still in service. Bornholm’s equivalent of our Super Bowl is an annual fishing tournament for Baltic Sea salmon. An annual fair brings the owners of the largest businesses and even some Danish government officials here to compete in simple games like tug-of-war or basketball. No security is needed. Bornholm has no crime.

Cars are on the streets and there is electricity here, at least in the cities. However, I saw a hundred-year-old tall ship that still sails regularly between here and Sweden. I saw many three-hundred-year old farms still in operation. I saw twelve-hundred year-old round churches where people still worship. I saw towns with picturesque little red and blue and yellow houses that look as though they were just lifted from the pages of a storybook. It doesn’t matter if a ship or a building was constructed last year, in the last century or in the last millennium. If it still works, it’s still in use. The family names on this island have been here since the Vikings. On Bornholm it is as though time doesn’t exist.

What do people do here? They grow their crops as they always have. They speak to neighbors they have know all their lives. They let their children run in the woods with the neighbors’ kids. They do what people have always done here. They live here.

Life here is simple, slow, unhurried. One of the small towns here has the name Gudhjelm, or “God’s Home.” After visiting this island, still undiscovered by the masses, I think the name they chose for their town fits it perfectly.Read more