DAY 127 - Biking to The White Cliffs of Møn & Liselund

July 24 - Romantic Tales for the Perfect Day

Møn is an island in south-eastern Denmark. The island has an area of 84 square miles (218 square km) and lies in the Baltic Sea. Møn is one of Denmark's most popular destinations for tourists with its towering white chalk cliffs, beautiful countryside, sandy beaches and the inviting old market town of Stege.

 

 It is primarily flat except on the east coast, where white chalk cliffs covered with beech forests rise above 450 feet (137 metres) in places.  Of ancient settlement (there are several Stone Age burial chambers), Møn has many old churches (the oldest dating from about 1100) with the most amazing frescoes.

Before we rented our bikes to get to the cliffs, we cooked "Puffy Pancakes" for our hosts with the raspberries that we picked last night.

Bananas, yogurt, and raspberries go on top.

Juergen & Hilary are our new hosts on the Island of Møn

  They have a beautiful old home with a new thatched roof that he replaced himself a couple of years ago.  LOTS of work.  Can you even imagine?

Juergen drove us to the nearest village (about 6 miles away) to rent our bikes.  The weather was perfect so we took off across the one-laned paved roads.

OK - I've got my bike and I'm ready to roll

 We passed by fields of wheat, hay, and grass.  It's so beautiful here in Denmark and we love to ride bikes. Not very many hills until we got closer to the Cliffs.

 This hay is ready to be harvested for all the cattle, sheep, and goats which will provide food for the long, cold winter.

 These spectacular chalk cliffs were supposedly created from the time when Norway pushed Denmark up from the ice age seas creating this island nation.

I LOVE the different hues of blue in the sea.

Looks like a giant tooth

This dinosaur - "Mosasaur" - was found by the white Cliffs... nope I didn't find him.

   We made the climb down to the Møns Klint ("The White Cliffs of Møn") in good time - about 15 minutes, but going up all those stairs is going to be tiring.

Such a good view from here.

What a romantic get away - now can we get rid of the tourists?

This side of the beach is very chalky and the little pebbles melt away in your hand.

This side of the beach is a little more rocky.

What a gorgeous day to be sailing.

I like to collect little rocks from each sea, so here I am.

It's lots easier to go down than to come up.

How many more steps are there?

Back on the road again

 It was such a lovely day with hardly any traffic on the road after we left the museum area where the walk down to the Cliffs was.  I wish I could have take pictures while on the bike, but I'll never forget the gentle rolling hills on the Island of  Møn.

Such an interesting & gnarly old tree

 This area has MANY MANY slugs.  They are different colors, but the ones we saw today were orange.  They are big pests for the garden.  Everyone kills them when they see them.

 "Hi - my name is Suzie Slug.  I am very slimy. sticky, and sick-looking. If you put me next to your new squash plants, I will sneak around and eat them in just one slurp because I am always starving.  Garden plants are simply scrumptious!

 No, Rich isn't eating slugs - he found some wild raspberries.  Just can't get enough of them.  I wonder how my girls at home in Idaho are doing picking all of our raspberries.  A little birdie told me that he got most of them and even had a party and invited his friends to join in on the feast.







 Another attraction close to the cliffs is Liselund, the romantic summer residence erected in the 1790s by French nobleman Antoine de Bosc de la Calmette for his wife, Lise. The miniature thatched palace and grounds was one of the most amazing landscapes of the times. A larger house was constructed in the park in 1887 by Baron Fritz Rosenkrantz, which is now a hotel. 

The Swiss cottage is being used today probably for one of the keepers of the grounds.

 This was used as an ice house originally.

Back side of the cottage

 Liselund was intended as a retreat where the family could spend a few days or weeks at a time, often with invited guests, away from the hardships of their working lives at Marienborg on the other side of the island.

Rich caught the sunlight just right for a mirror image in the pond of the original thatched manor house.

 I wasn't able to go inside because it had just barely closed when I got there, but I took pictures through the windows.

The  Dining Hall

Family Room with Portraits

Another look at the spacious Dining Hall

The Calmette Parlour

Lise's Boudoir

This was the outhouse - nothing like the one my grandparents had us use when I was younger.

Outside is an original sun dial

The Old Manor House overlooks the biggest gardens area

  Liselund (Lise's grove) is said to be one of the finest examples in Scandinavia of Romantic English gardening.

Another very romantic place to be wandering where Lise and Antoine would have gone together.

Endroit chéri de Lise or Lise's favorite spot.

Sure wish we had our fishing poles for these big ones.

We laid under a tree and had our picnic and a short nap - so beautiful

Another pond with a lily pad

Rich captured a fun photo from the glass door on one of the buildings.

  Antoine and Lisa were not able to enjoy the park for very long. He died in 1803 and his wife in 1805. Their son, Charles, then took over Liselund but, after his death in 1821, it was sold to a friend.  Antoine's daughter-in-law, lived there as a widow for 57 years until her death in 1877.  It was said that she wore white and would roam the house and the grounds clothed in white the rest of her life.

Sunflowers - one of my favorite flowers.  I didn't realize til after this picture that there were bees everywhere and I am deathly afraid of bees.  auugghhh!

The moth and the bumble bee - sounds like it might make a good story

The Chinese Summerhouse or Det kinesiske lysthus stands on top of the western hill and looks down over the lakes towards the sea.

Another view of the Chinese Tea House with its Weeping Ash tree in front

 There was also a Norwegian Log Cabin built close to the cliffs in a rugged, hilly area.

There was quite a lot of wildlife around the 6 hectares (15 acres) of land

 Liselund Ny Slot, literally Liselund New Palace, was built in 1887 by Baron Fritz Rosenkrantz whose father, Gottlob, had inherited the estate in 1843. It stands majestically at the top of the western slope, overlooking the largest of the park's lakes and the sea beyond.

It is being used today as a hotel.

There are fancy rest rooms inside.

 WHAT is a Dolmen?

It remains unclear when, why, and by whom the earliest dolmens were made. The oldest known dolmens are in Western Europe, where they were set in place around 7,000 years ago - like Stonhenge.  Archaeologists still do not know who erected these dolmens, which makes it difficult to know why they did it. They are regarded as tombs or burial chambers.  Human remains, sometimes accompanied by artifacts, have been found in or close
to them.

 




 As we rode on our bikes, we came across this sign and these cool rocks up on a hill (the only hill in sight.)

Our host had told us we might find some on our travels today.  How cool is this!  How did they get the rocks here?  Where did they get them from?  Why are they here?

 Dolmen  usually consists of three or more upright stones supporting a large flat horizontal capstone (table),



Most date from the early Neolithic period (4000 to 3000 BC). They are most likely an ancient burial site.

 Dolmens were usually covered with earth or smaller stones to form a barrow, though in many cases that covering has weathered away, leaving only the stone "skeleton" of the burial mound intact.

There is evidence that people lived in Denmark more than 100,000 years ago, but the area became covered with ice during the last ice age. People returned to Møn about 10,000 years ago during the Upper Paleolithic era. At that time the island was part of mainland Europe.

Note the big crack on this side.

Rich is trying to see if he can lift it - NO WAY

The circle indentations have something to do with fertility

 What a full day we had on the island of  Møn.   Can these days get any better?











There is evidence that people lived in Denmark more than 100,000 years ago, but the area became covered with ice during the last ice age. People returned to Møn about 10,000 years ago during the Upper Paleolithic era. At that time the island was part of mainland Europe.