Nature and Climbing on Bornholm

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The cherry on top of my Schnappsidee was to spend a week on Bornholm and climb there. After nearly two weeks of biking, I was more than ready to give my bottom a rest and spend some time hanging on the ropes in Bornholm. We were nearly all the way to Copenhagen on the Berlin Copenhagen bike trail, stopping just 40 km south of the capital in Køge to take an overnight ferry to Rønne, Bornholm.

If you caught us in our final days of cycling, then you’ll know that we (sleepily) waited for the half past midnight boat to Bornholm. Although Bornholm is part of Denmark, it’s actually quicker to get there from Ystad in Sweden or Sassnitz in Germany. The journey from Køge takes about 5 hours. The most exciting part is we got to sleep in room full of bunkbeds on the boat!

There is a ton to see and do on Bornholm, so I’ve divided our time there into nature, climbing, cities, and attractions – everything for a perfect week. Cities and attractions can be seen in this post here (soon!).

Nature

For such a tiny island, there is a surprising amount of noteworthy nature to visit. Like the rest of Denmark, Bornholm is fairly flat, but interspersed with valleys, cliffs, beaches, meadows, and forests rife for day hiking excursions.

Ekkodalen

We managed two fantastic hikes in one day! First we went to Ekkodalen and followed a hiking route suggested by our climbing book (I think it was the yellow route at the park). This allowed us to walk through the valley and check out the cool cliff walls. There were supposed to be a few well-rated trad climbing routes here, and we looked for them but couldn’t manage to find the right wall. Then we couldn’t seem to find the correct way out of the valley. despite the confusion, we hiked along the upper ridge and eventually turned away from the valley to hike towards Rytterknægten, Bornholm’s highest point and the highest fixed point in Denmark. We did find Rytterknægten and climbed the tower, Kongeminde, for a view of most of the island. On the day we visited, we could see water on 3 of the 4 sides of the parallelogram-shaped island.

From there, I insisted that we hike to Gamleborg, which means “old castle” in Danish. Expecting to see another ruined castle, I was a bit disappointed to barely see remains of the old walls of the castle, completely overgrown with grass. Not much is known about the site, but it is presumed to have been built in the 9^th century. We spent a half day at Ekkodalen, but you could easily make it a whole day trip, exploring more of the park and picnicking.

Paradisbakkerne

Having spent the morning at Ekkodalen, we only had time for a short 6.5 km hike through Paradisbakkerne, also recommended by our hiking guide (and now also recommended by me). The round trip hike hit many of the park’s highlights, including the most famous Rokkesten rocking stone. The Rokkesten is a several ton stone which, due to its shape, can be rocked slightly if given a few jolts in the correct place. We also hiked by the Midterpilt, which was a random pile of rocks, and then through a beautiful, purple flower-filled meadow. The trail finished along a few peaceful ponds before returning to our starting point.

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Dueodde

Try to say “Dueodde” with confidence. We never figured out how to pronounce it properly and were amazed when our AirBnB host said it. There’s some kind of sound in there we couldn’t quite mimic. Anyways, if you’re looking to spend time in the sun and sand, then head to the south of Bornholm. Dueodde has a windy, white sand beach. We only had time to spend an hour taking a nap near the dunes, but it is definitely a happening place. Of course, there’s ice cream here so, naturally, we had some 🙂

Vang

On our final day on Bornholm, we did a hike from the Vang harbor heading northwards. The hike went by the ruins of an old church and to a lighthouse. The weather was perfect for this hike and we weren’t the only ones out enjoying this coastal trail. The coolest part was right near the end. We went by an old quarry which had been filled in with blue green water. There were some climbers coming up over the side of the cliff (trad only here) and saw people zip-lining down into the water from the top of the quarry. It looked really exciting and fun!

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Climbing

We had intended to go to Bornholm specifically for climbing. The island is supposedly well stocked in trad routes (which we don’t have equipment/knowledge to do), but offers little in the way of sport climbing. I wouldn’t recommend Bornholm as a climbing vacation destination, but it’s a nice place to climb if you happen to be on vacation there.

Moseløkken Stenbrud

Despite that, we still had an excellent time climbing in the quarry in Moseløkken. This quarry is still active, so you have to call or find out in advance if climbing is allowed on the day you intend to visit. Lucky for us that July and August is summer holiday time, so the quarry was closed and available for climbers. And the week we showed up on Bornholm was when the climbing festival there was happening! While we were climbing, the festival team was setting up slack lines for the event. Some of the routes in the quarry are short, but there are a few long ones (for one route we even needed my 80m rope!). On the way home from climbing we tried to find Bornholm’s largest waterfall, but it was a bit disappointing.

Vang Granitbrud

Another quarry you can climb on in Bornholm can also be found in the northern region of the island. The quarry in Vang overlooks the sea, and you can have a great view of it from certain routes. The quarry here is divided into three tiers and contains trad as well as some bolted routes. There’s one wall with a few short easy ones and a longer 30m route up a great wall. Even though there was a trickle of water running down it, the climbing was still fantastic. Plus the light of the setting summer sun on the rocks is incredible!

Bornholm has so many natural sites to see. We loved getting off our bikes to do something different on the way to Copenhagen. Bornholm is so varied there is plenty of different things to do each day. We were never bored! There were always more things we wanted to visit. Check out the cities and other attractions on Bornholm here (coming soon!).

Photo Credits: C.O. and myself