Ronne
Ronne is the largest town on the Danish island of Bornholm with a population of about 14,000. The town began about 1000. It was established by Danish but Germans gained control in 1525. It later was returned to Denmark and then was ceded to Sweden and later returned to Denmark. The town was bombed by the Soviets in 1945. When we arrived we saw three special ships — U.S. navy, Netherlands navy, and the Danish royal yacht. We learned later that NATO was holding some sort of activity in the area. We also learned that the royal Prince was on the island to open a special school.
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- entering the port
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- U.S. Navy boat
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- Netherlands Navy boat
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- Danish royal yacht
The town has a number of timbered buildings. Our first stop in the small town was at the ceramics museum. Ronne developed because of the fishing industry but when that declined, ceramic industry grew and continues today. The old factory was the leading producer of design and stoneware of Bornholm back to 1859. (The pelicans are made for a Red Cross organization that gives them to people for donating a lot of blood.)
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- colorful homes
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- half timbered homes
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- Baptist Church (1888)
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- hollyhocks
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- ceramics museum
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- oldest building of museum
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- “cleaning” the mug
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- molding the mug
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- note the pedal power
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- waiting to be fired
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- pelicans
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- old kiln
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- product
Four of Denmark’s seven medieval round churches are located on Bornholm. Originally built around 1150, these churches were used as places of worship, storage for passing ships, and fortresses to protect against attacks. We visited Ny Kirke (New Church) in the village of Nyker. The round pillar in the centre of the church is about 3 ½ yards wide and has an interesting frieze around the top with paintings of the Passion of Christ.
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- Ny Kirke
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- frieze
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- altar
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- hourglasses to time minister!
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- cemetary
Nearby was Bente Hammer, a Danish textile artist and fashion designer, who has designed dresses for Queen Margrethe and a Danish actress, Ghita Norby She demonstrated screen printing on silk fabric and showed us her workshop. There are only three crafts people working with her. Beautiful clothing! She allowed us to visit her home which was originally an old smithy workshop.
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- Bente Hammer
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- screen printing
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- cutting cloth
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- sewing
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- thread
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- products
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- Bente (our tour leader behind)
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- old grandfather clock
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- home library
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- garden
We visited The Church of St Nicolai, the first church built in Ronne, dedicated in 1275. It was renovated after the Reformation and thoroughly restored in 1982 and again in 2012. The large ship in the center of the church is from 1873 and the altarpiece was painted in 1990. The scene is Jesus calming the storm at sea—very appropriate for an island.
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- Church of St Nicholai
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- altar
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- ship in nave
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- lighthouse (1880)
A refugee Syrian family came on board and told us their story of escape from Syria and journey to reach Bornholm. They have been here about 2 years, are learning Danish, and trying to find work.
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- Syrian family
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- children
This was our last night on the MV Clio so there were many farewell activities. We did not get pictures of the crew but did get one of our four tour leaders. (Not a great photo, though!) There were about 85 on the tour, divided into four groups each with a tour leader. The housekeeping staff had a display of their “zoo” which often appeared on our beds at night. Our cabin attendant was Jabir from Indonesia. In fact, 12 members of the ship’s crew were from Indonesia!
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- our leader is 2nd from right
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- Jabir
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- cabin attendants with zoo
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- koala
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- alligator & crab
And we needed to end our time on the ship with a sunset!
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- evening light
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- sunset
