STEVNS KLINT

Today we drove south along the coast.  Denmark is still green and beautiful and farmers are in their fields plowing and harrowing. They have quite modern equipment, on a small scale.  The road we traveled was narrow and two-lane,  and you had to keep an eye out for tractors wheeling out into the road to have enough room to turn and  plow another row.  Charming little cottages lined the road with glimpses of the Baltic Sea at the end of narrow one-track roads squeezed between houses and hedges.

Stevns Klint is named for limestone cliffs towering high above the Baltic.  The main industry used to be fishing and slicing off yellow limestone from the cliff (used for bricks, mortar, and chalk.), but now the main industry is tourism thanks to a scientific discovery in the cliff layers. Hidden between the thick layers of limestone and chalk is a thin layer of dark clay called  Fish Clay.  Stevns Klint is the best place in the world to study this clay which, according to scientist, proves the theory of an asteroid hitting the earth which led to the extinction of the dinosaurs.  They are quite proud of this.

 The old church there was built in 1250 out of this limestone and perches right on the edge of the cliff.  In 1927, the whole choir loft fell off the church when a huge section of the cliff collapsed and tumbled into the sea.  The structure is tall, with the peculiar stair-step double tower of many Danish churches.

Notice the headstones.  The churchyard is a cemetery.  This is very common. The low stone wall at the back is the cliff edge.

Side view.  Cliff edge to the right.

Inside, faded murals cover the plaster walls and the pews line up ram-rod straight on wavy, uneven stone floors. A typical old Danish Church.  To the right and out of view, a little white-railed balcony sits on the cliff edge in place of the absent choir loft.  Yes, you can walk out on it!  No I did not!

How would you like to spend three hours on these seats?  

The back of the church looking up from the beach.  You can see the balcony part way up,  in place of  the choir loft.

The beach below the church showing the white cliffs.  The fish clay is the shadowing right below the overhang about half way up.  This is the BALTIC SEA!  Wow!  The waves make a peculiar sound when they suck backwards across the rocks.  Like pebbles rattling in a tube, but muffled.

The newer church in the near-by village of Hojerup snuggles in a lovely cemetery.  Tiny, elegant grave plots are sectioned off with clipped shrubbery, covered in gravel, planted with flowers and foliage and carefully tended by families. The shrubs give a maze-like feel, and larger trees and bushes punctuate the edges. You rent the grave site for 20 years, then have to renew.  If you don't, then the bones and headstone are removed, and someone else gets to use the space.

Notice the tiny, maze-like plots. 

So well-kept.

The prettiest cemeteries I have ever seen.

Unfortunately, rent wasn't paid for these.  Next to the outer fence for you!

Back of the newer church with the choir loft (round part) still attached.