Wanderung 30

(Monika) Today's tour led us south from Nykobing along the straits between the islands of Lolland and Falster. We were going against the wind, so we stopped at a pretty bay for a breather, before turning East across the island to the town of Marylist. It was a pretty little seaside town with a nice boardwalk in the middle. Lucky for us, it had a cash machine. Since B&B operators like cash, I was glad to get more out for the next few nights.

From there we went north along the east coast of Falster, first through small villages of summer cottages. Some of them were pretty thatched roof houses, some more modern. The paved road turned to a dirt road and the houses gradually became more scattered.

Finally we came to a wooded section where the bicycle route became a gravelled path through the trees and meadows.

When our path came back the the shore of the Baltic Sea, there amongst the trees overlooking the sea was a picnic bench, just made for lunch! In the morning we had made sandwiches with the remaing rolls and luncheon meat and cheese. What a great lunch!

We went on and came to a small house, which had been a summer cottage of a general. The inside looked more interesting than the outside, but unfortunately it was locked. There were also signs for a small palace nearby, but it was 2 km inland off our route and we were already too tired to add in another 4 km of riding.

A little ways on, we turned inland off the main Bike Route # 8 and stopped at "Halskov Vaenge" a site of burial grounds from the 5th and 3rd millenia BC. We learned in the small museum that 2000 years elapsed between the Stone Age graves and the Bronze Age graves. Although it was just one room, the museum showed what the inside would be like for the Stone Age graves, which were large stone barrows with a body and possessions interred underneath it all, and the Bronze Age graves, which were basically small mounds of earth heaped over cremated remains.

Outside, we walked a zig-zag path through the forest to visit both types of graves. One of the Stone Age graves had been reconstructed a few years back, so it probably looked about like it did 5,000 years ago. Some of the later Bronze Age graves were just big old dirt mounds, now overgrown by large trees and hard to distinguish from the normal undulations of the forest floor. It was humbling to think that the 2,000 years between the Stone Age and Bronze Age graves is precisely the same amount of time that has elapsed from the nirth of Christ to the present. The astonishing changes in the last two millenia made me wonder what all happened, both religiously and politically, in this corner of the world between the times the two sets of graves were constructed.

In the woods alongside the path we found some interesting examples modern wood art, apparently carved and erected by some local Dane with a sense of humor!

From the mounds it was only another 10 km to our lodging for the night, a cabin out in the woods. Luckily, the slighly larger town on our route had a grocery store, so we bought provisions for the night and then followed the esoteric directions of our host to a cute cabin isolated in the woods. No Wifi, but it did have indoor plumbing and electricity so that we could recharge all our electronics and, most importantly, the bicycle batteries--we are using the helper motors quite heavily!

When we finally located our cabin, it reminded me of the 1-room vacation cabins we had rented on our trip to Alaska (Wanderung 29), except this one was furnished in the Danish Modern rather than the Frontier Rustic style! After we settled in, I cut a slot in the saddlebags for Monika's bike so that she could shift it back about 3 inches on her luggage rack, and that way not kick it occassionally with her feet. While doing that task, I found that one of the luggage rack mounting bolts had vibrated completely out! But by sheer luck I was carrying a couple spare mounting bolts with the correct diameter and thread, so I could immediately replace it. After that I took a wrench to all the other bolts on both bicycles to tighten them up, something I should have thought to do before we left Hamburg.