After what seems to have become a weather report blog rather that a cycling holiday blog, today was the sort of hot, blue sky day we had hoped the entire trip would be. This evening we have all sorts of new suntan marks.
Today was to be the longest cycling day of the entire 11-day trip, with three options available to us. The first two included opting out at particular points to jump on a train to the end of day destination of Koge. The third was a cycling only / no train option, which was our plan. Our route guide, now less than the thickness of a phonebook after its latest drying out with a hair dryer and the fact that Mike ripped out and threw away about 60% of its soggy papier mâché bulk, informed us that this option would be 107km / 66m long to which we needed to add about 4km for our hotel being the opposite side of town from the start. By the time we reached the first rail bailout stop we had done 16km / 10m more than our book showed, meaning we ended our day riding that much more than we set out to do.
The surprise of the day was this enormous chalk quarry blinding white in the sunshine. Trucks and equipment were sitting idle but I assume that was due to the time of day as it looked to be still in operation.
The extremely friendly reception lady at our Stege departure hotel, probably similar age to us, gave Mike instructions on how to pronounce our destination for the day - Koge - which has a diagonal line through the O which I haven't yet found on this iPad. With much laughter and repetition, the desired sound was something like a very condensed single syllable version of Cur-w-yuh. She pinched her own cheeks in, said it was a sound something like 'oeuf', the French for egg, but was still highly amused at my attempts.
Stops en route today were the Droning-Alexandrines Bro, a reasonably high and modern suspension bridge by comparison with yesterday's small ferry and man-made causeway between islands; Stevns Klint in Hojerup, what survives of a church on a 40 meter high limestone cliff after the choir of the church (part of the architecture, not the choristers) cascaded into the sea; and the lighthouse at Stevns Fyr.
Because of the sun and temperature today, we made many more stops looking for food and liquid to replenish our systems. Surprisingly, few of the little villages have any sort of bakery, cafe or bar selling such items. Even in the two bailout option towns big enough to have railway stations, the search was just as difficult. It seemed strange to reflect that it was difficult to find a Danish anywhere in the bits of Denmark we were travelling through!
Started around 8am and arrived at 6pm after stops and two episodes of where in hell are we and where did we go wrong. Episode one: the defining clue after our uncertainty was the appearance of a young Swiss couple we knew riding in the opposite direction. We all stopped, poured over maps and Mike's compass and found our way to the next village.
Mike relaxing beside the Baltic Sea
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