Stavehøl in the spring and summer is a special place. Alive with blossom and woodland flowers between April and June while nightingales and warblers fill our hollow with birdsong. Enclosed by the fresh green of ash, oak, hornbeam and cherry trees our meadow basks in the sun while it thrums with busy bees and butterflies. The river laps gently by the bell tents on its way to the waterfall.
This is the Stavehøl which most of our guests experience. But while our tents and yurt may be in winter storage from September to June, Stavehøl is open in all seasons. Lucky autumn guests experience a riot of colour for a few glorious weeks as summer warmth happily lingers till October. Then our leafy enclosure is removed and suddenly our place in the landscape is revealed along with views of the sea and the other side of the valley. Our little river is transformed into a raging torrent that fills the hollow with the roar of water. The wind can howl and the fog can linger but some days the winter sun shines brightly giving us the most amazing morning and evening light. In the deepest of winter only our little studio apartment is available for guests but the wood burner keeps even the coldest nights at bay.
Bornholm’s natural landscapes are always open but most of the summer attractions are of course closed from October to Easter. But the buses still run, the supermarkets are open, the history and art museums are open at the weekend and some lovely cafes open for us in the weekend evenings. And now it is easier to visit us in the winter too as our new ferry company (Bornholmslinjen) now sail from Sassnitz to Bornholm 3 times a week and there is an extra sailing on the Ystad to Rønne route. If the thought of using the ferry in winter makes you queasy (and to be honest it often does to me and there may be a good reason that Bornholm’s pharmacies sold out of sea sickness medicine this winter!) you can fly quite cheaply and very quickly to us from Copenhagen several times a day.
The winter of 2019 hasn’t brought much snow yet and temperatures have been pretty mild, but our longings are still for the Spring and for the hope of another fantastic Bornholm summer.
