During my recent visit to Denmark, my friend and I planned to spend a weekend in the province of Jutland (the region in the west of the country). I have never been to Jutland yet and I could not wait to see a more rural part of Denmark. Unfortunately, torrential rains ruined our plans. Bad weather was forecast all weekend in this area. Not ideal for the walk by the sea we had planned.
Fortunately, my friend’s grandmother saved our weekend. She offered us to come and spend some time in her summer house on Bogø Island in southern Denmark, where the weather was supposed to be less wet. And to satisfy my desire to explore Danish nature a little more, she suggested visiting the Møns Klint park at the eastern end of Møns Island.
I had never heard of Møns Klint. Which is amazing, since the place is frankly impressive. Møns Klint are chalk cliffs stretching for almost 6 kilometres along the Baltic Sea. In some places they have a height of almost 100 metres!
Møns Klint is composed of the remains of seashells of microscopic creatures that settled on the seabed 70 million years ago. The cliffs emerged of the sea at the end of the Ice Age. The sea has been eroding them ever since, revealing all kinds of fossils beneath the layers of chalk.
The particular soil of the place also allows several varieties of rare plants to grow, orchids among other. The tortuous beech trees that grow on the cliff top also give the place a mysterious air. The white cliffs, the almost turquoise sea and the thick leafy cover almost gave the illusion of being in the Caribbean… It is a surprising landscape for a Nordic country!
There are many trails in the park, some to admire the cliffs from the top, others to get to their base (however, be prepared to go down – and go back up – more than 400 steps) . There is also a geological centre in the park that explains the formation of the cliffs in an interactive way (I did not visit it). Like many places in Denmark, I know it’s possible to use public transport to get there (by taking the train to Vordinborg, then a bus to the island), but It’s probably a good idea to go there by car, to have more time to visit the site (and perhaps to enjoy the pretty villages of Møns Island).
It was not Jutland, but it was a beautiful place to explore, which reminded me that Denmark is much more than Hamlet Castle and the Little Mermaid of Copenhagen…