Around midnight the view from our B&B window looked like this:
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| Saint Nicolai's church, Simrishamn. |
The ghostly figure on the roof is the silhouette of Carl Milles' sculpture "Angel with Trumpet" standing next to the church.
The morning in Simrishamn was calm but wet so we spent two lazy hours before we mounted the bikes at 10 a.m. and located the beginning of Sydkustleden (South Coast Trail).
The rain stopped and for two very pleasant hours we biked right along the coast ...
... enjoying the rocky landscape and shoreline as well as the many geese, swans and cormorants feeding and resting near the beach.
We shopped food in the charming fishing village of Skillinge ...
... and used the opportunity to picnic there as well.
In the afternoon we turned to an inland route and the weather changed to be windy ...
... while quite impressive Cumulus clouds built up over the rather flat south Skåne.
Churches seemed to pop up everywhere we looked ...
... some were of medieval age (i.e. unchanged from the Danish period), others were rebuilt in various ways ...
... like Hörby church, that got a double-up tower in the 19th century,
or in Borrby where the old Romanesque Santa Maria church from the 11th century was demolished 150 years ago and substituted by this one of peculiar architectural value.
Löderup church was, however, still in its original shape with two towers, the one to the far left was built detached from the church nave and its function was that of a stronghold and safe heaven for the local population whenever people in Löderup and surroundings were threatened by warfare and other evils.
The fields in this part of Skåne are on very fat and rich soil. A lot of crops are grown. This is a field with common onions that apparently were thirsty.
Because of the very windy weather we skipped visiting Sandhammaren, Sweden's most famous and extensive sand beach (in the distance on the photo).
Instead we biked to the fishing village of Kåseberga (that turned out to be a tourist trap) and the nearby Ales Stenar (that is Sweden's largest and best-preserved ship setting erected with 59 large stones about 3500 years ago.
Weather permitting, I shall try to re-visit the ship setting tomorrow at sunrise to see it in early morning light.
– – –
This then is almost the end of our enjoyable bicycle adventure in Småland, Blekinge and Skåne. Tomorrow we will bike the remaining 15 km to Ystad and get ourselves and the bicycles onboard a train to Copenhagen – and then bike home the final 10 km to Bagsværd.
By then we will have covered 445 kilometers.
: : :
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| Ales Stenar seen towards the west just before sunrise. |
The weather did cooperate and I did get up early. – Here are some of the results.
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| Ales Stenar seen towards the east at sunrise 05:34. |
