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| 2000year old rock carvings near Allinge. Not as convincing as those near the Crinan canal in Scotland. These were so worn they had to be painted to make them visible. They were mostly lots of ships (so the information boards said) |
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| One of many pretty streets in Ronne. |
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| The old WW2 bomb shelter in Ronne. The curtain gives a bit of privacy but not much. |
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| One of several displays of the gold votive offerings, mostly of men in all their finery. |
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| One of the round Bornholm churches with its more conventional bell tower on the left. We visited two but, sadly both were locked. |
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| This tall ship (Pat says its a briganteen) berthed in Allinge. Note the help of the shore party in the rib needed to achieve the sharp turn to starboard to get in. Iposwich pilots would have pulled the stern rather than pushed the bow. |
With another W F5 increasing to F6 forecast we decided to enjoy further exploring here rather than suffering a washing machine sail again. Very glad we did as we've had a really good day, taking the bus upwind to Ronne (biggest town on the island) and cycling back downwind. (So good to have a downwind trip..... A rare event in 2016.) We followed the suggested tourist trail round the town, through pretty winding old cobbled streets, past the Swedish houses donated after WW2 and ending in the excellent museum. The gold sheet figurines from about 500BC were pretty special , and it was interesting to see how history repeats ..... The island struggled to cope with the massive immigration of Poles fleeing the Russian advance at the end of WW2 plus the strategic importance of the island for both Allies, then NATO and the Russians led to a great deal of uncertainty and paranoia on the island (probably ongoing?). Island became centre for clockmaking after Dutch ship with cargo of British clocks was wrecked. Island craftsmen decided they'd have a go at clockmaking after repairing the clocks and they soon were exporting them. Picked a bag of cherry plums on the cycle back.
