Bornholm

Bornholm is an island rich in natural beauty with dramatic cliffs and sandy beaches. It’s a popular holiday spot, not only with Danes, but also the Swedes and Norwegians.

Bornholm is so far from Copenhagen and the rest of ‘mainland’ Denmark that it doesn’t fit on the weather maps (although perhaps that would be too demoralising for the rest of Denmark). Bornholm is a special place for the Danes, most of whom have spent at least one holiday there (it’s popular with school trips) basking on its 30km of glorious sandy beaches, cycling (the classic method for touring the island) through its gently undulating corn fields, or pottering around its idyllic fishing harbours. It is claimed that seven out of 10 visitors to the island return.

Bornholm is a Danish island in the Baltic Sea located to the east of the rest of Denmark, south of Sweden, and north of Poland. The main industries on the island include fishing, arts and crafts such as glass making and pottery using locally worked clay, and dairy farming. Tourism is important during the summer. The topography of the island consists of dramatic rock formations in the north (unlike the rest of Denmark which is very flat with few hills and no mountains), sloping down towards “pine and deciduous forests” (greatly damaged by storms in the 1950s) and farmland in the middle and sandy beaches in the south.

Strategically located in the Baltic Sea, Bornholm has been a bone of contention usually ruled by Denmark, but also by Lübeck and Sweden. The castle ruin Hammershus, on the northwestern tip of the island, is the largest medieval fortress in northern Europe, testament to the importance of its location.