Trelleborg and Møns Klint

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Trelleborg

   In the late tenth century, on the western coast of Zealand, King Harald Bluetooth built a fortress that must have looked to its neighbours like a statement written in earth. Trelleborg is a perfect circle, about a hundred and thirty metres across, ringed by a high rampart with four gates facing the compass points, and inside, sixteen long houses are arranged in four neat blocks around a central crossing, like a plan drawn with a compass and ruler. Archaeologists dated the timbers to around the 980s, and the same geometry turns up at other Danish fortresses, at Fyrkat in Jutland and Aggersborg by the Limfjord, which suggests a royal building programme under a single mind.

   Read the complete Trelleborg write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Trelleborg is where the day begins. Next is Borgring.

2. 2. Borgring

   In 2014, archaeologists using laser scanning of the landscape noticed a faint circle in a field near Køge, on the Danish island of Zealand, about forty kilometres south-west of Copenhagen. Excavations confirmed what they had hoped: it was a Viking ring fortress, one of a small group of perfectly circular fortresses built in Denmark in the late tenth century, probably under King Harald Bluetooth. It was named Borgring, and it was the first new ring fortress to be found in Denmark in over sixty years.

   Read the complete Borgring write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Borgring comes up about 67 km into the recorded legs. Next is Stevns Klint.

3. 3. Stevns Klint

   Stevns Klint is a white cliff of chalk and limestone, some fifteen kilometres long, on the east coast of Zealand, south of Copenhagen, and it holds one of the most important records of a global catastrophe. About sixty-six million years ago, an asteroid struck the Earth near what is now the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico, causing a mass extinction that wiped out the dinosaurs and much of life on Earth. In the cliff, a thin, dark layer of clay, called the fish clay, marks that moment, and it contains high levels of iridium, a metal rare on Earth but common in asteroids. This layer was a key piece of evidence for the impact theory, and the cliff was listed by UNESCO in 2014.

   Read the complete Stevns Klint write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   about 101 km into the recorded legs you reach Stevns Klint. Next is Møns Klint.

4. 4. Møns Klint

   Møns Klint is where the Baltic suddenly gets dramatic. Over a stretch of some six kilometres on the east coast of the island of Møn, chalk cliffs laid down in the late Cretaceous rise straight out of the sea, white and crumbling and streaked with grey flint, to a height of about a hundred metres and more. The highest point of the cliffs is the Dronningestolen, the Queen's Chair, reaching more than a hundred and twenty metres above the beach. Beech woods grow right to the edge, and in the green light under the trees the contrast with the chalk is a surprise.

   Read the complete Møns Klint write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Møns Klint, about halfway. Next is back through Stevns Klint.

5. 5. back through Stevns Klint

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Stevns Klint write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   back through Stevns Klint sits at 210 km, about halfway. Next is back through Borgring.

6. 6. back through Borgring

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Borgring write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   back through Borgring comes up about 337 km into the recorded legs. Next is Trelleborg.

7. 7. Trelleborg

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Trelleborg write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Trelleborg closes the day.