Island statistics: It’s 22 by 6 miles, with 7,000 residents, 350 deer, seven pastors, no crosswalks, three police officers, and a pervasive passion for the environment.
Biking the back lanes of the island of Ærø, I come to a lonely little church. Wandering through its graveyard, I notice the name on every tombstone ended in “sen.” The inscriptions, such as “Here lies Christian Hansen at anchor with his wife. He’ll not weigh until he stands before God” seem to fit the salty charm of this tiny island on the southern edge of Denmark.
My 18-mile trip laces together the best of Ærø's charms. Leaving my home base, the ship-in-a-bottle town of Ærøskøbing, I see the first of many U-shaped farms, so typical of Denmark. The three sides block the wind and store cows, hay, and people. I bike along a dike built in the 19th century to make swampland farmable. While the weak soil is good for hay and little else, they get the most out of it.
A lane leads downhill, dead-ending at a rugged bluff called Vodrup Klint. If I were a pagan, I’d worship here — the sea, the wind, and the chilling view. The land steps in sloppy slabs down to the sea. The giant terraces are a clear reminder that when saturated with water, the slabs of clay that make up the land here get slick, and entire chunks can slip and slide.
As they do all over Europe, churches mark pre-Christian holy sites. In a field adjacent to the next church, stands the Langdysse Tingstedet — a 6,000-year-old dolmen. This was an early Neolithic burial place. While Ærø once had more than 200 of these prehistoric tombs, only 13 survive.
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