Tak, Danmark

 We had spent ten days in beautiful Portugal but now it was time to make our way toward the next destination - Denmark.  A three and a half hour flight to Hamburg, Germany, and a five hour drive (including ferry across the Fehmarn Belt) later, and we were in beautiful Stege, on the island of Møn, in Denmark.  Our stay on Møn was intended to act as a “cool down” after a very active and busy time in Portugal.  And, it fit the bill perfectly.

The primary purpose of staying on Møn was to see Møns Klint, the white chalk cliffs located at the extreme easternmost portion of the island.  The cliffs soar nearly four hundred feet above the coast and are constantly eroding, exposing a plethora of fossils dating back seventy million years.  To get to the beach from the top of the cliffs, one has to descend a grueling 498 steps.  Guess how many steps one needs to ascend to return to the top?  You guessed it.  498. Okay, so maybe this wasn't very relaxing after all.

The chalk residue leaves the shallow water looking blue/green.

Top photo: mine.  Bottom:  Same perspective in an 1850 painting by Peter Christian Skovgaard.  Much can change in 174 years.

The woodlands surrounding the cliffs were stunning.  Beeches are the predominant trees, with some over 400 years old.  On the day we visited, the forest floor was teeming with black slugs (Arion ater) and to a lesser degree, leopard slugs (Limax maximus).  In addition, a variety of terrestrial snails were seen, including some impressive Roman snails (Helix pomatia).  Lumen couldn't be bothered to continue forward without helping just about every slug off of the dirt path so that they wouldn't be stepped on.  

Black slugs are not always black.

Three flavors of black slug

Lumen with a friendly Roman snail

Opposite the cliffs are these picturesque meadows.  I could almost smell adders but an electric fence proved its effectiveness when I tried to get to the other side.  The view would have to do!

Møns Klint also features a really fun interpretive center that appeals to all ages. There is information on the flora and fauna of Møn, complete with preserved specimens.

Foreshadowing...

We then left Møns Klint to do some hiking and herping near a primeval forest near Ulvshale. On the way we stopped to see this grassy hill which is actually an intact Bronze Age (1800-500 BC) burial mound. In fact, there are ancient sites all over the island, including more mounds, stone burial chambers, and boulder walls. Simply incredible. I was falling in love with Møn.

A short drive later, we arrived at the site I had researched prior to the trip. It was a grassy area containing what appeared on Google maps to be refuse strewn about. As we walked through the site, my suspicion was confirmed. After flipping a few "meh" cover items, I spotted a staggered stack of flat concrete blocks in the dappled sunlight. They looked SO juicy. I turned the first block and bam, two adult slow worms (Anguis fragilis)! One of the most iconic of Europe's herp species in my hands. Turning the remaining blocks yielded even more slow worms but I could only grab a couple at a time. These legless lizards are steeped in folklore, which figured in to the excitement, even though I know well enough that these are simply shy, gentle creatures that like to eat among other things, garden pests such as slugs and snails. As we continued throughout the area, we found more slow worms - including a very young animal and another writhing tangle underneath an old discarded tire.

Acidic pond with what appeared to be edible frogs (Pelophylax kl. esculentus). They were too quick for photos.

On the way back to the quaint hotel, Aimee wanted to get a better look at something she saw on the way in. A "creepy teepee" is how she described it. I had no clue what she was talking about. But, soon enough we arrived at an unusual scene - a "creepy teepee" indeed, with a makeshift witch and broom, on the beach. Also in attendance were a few dozen spectators. What was going on? A man began reading to the crowd in Danish before selecting a young boy to set the "teepee" ablaze. Then, the crowd began to sing.

We were witness to Sank Hans Aften, a yearly ritual held on the summer solstice throughout parts of Denmark. This has been a tradition since the 19th century and originally took place to deter "evil forces". Allegedly, there is little to no connection to the execution of suspected witches that occurred during 16th and 17th century Denmark and Sweden. In those years, about 1000 people, mostly women, were burned alive after being convicted of witchcraft. Still, Sank Hans Aften is controversial.

While watching the bonfire burn to the sounds of the Baltic Sea waves and the singing of "Midsommervisen", I felt this incredible sense of peace and a connection to this place. I was still high on slow worms, watching the sun SLOWLY make its way to the western horizon. And with my wife and daughter at my side, I wasn't sure life got any better than that. We stayed until the final log collapsed into the red hot embers and the last of the witch was burned beyond recognition. An experience I will never forget.

As we arrived in Stege, we noticed yet another fire, this one much larger and with a bigger crowd. We watched this one too, and it was fun, although it didn't produce quite the effect that the smaller rural one did. It was nearing eleven o'clock PM, but there was plenty of sunlight left, casting an eerie orange glow upon thousands of moon jellies (Aurelia aurelia) pulsing in the shallow bay.

View from the hotel

We had to leave for Copenhagen the following morning, but not before one last stop in Møn. Located on the tiny island of Nyord is the smallest museum in Denmark and certainly one of the smallest museums in the world, Lodsmuseum. This museum focuses on the history of the island's ship pilots. It was interesting learning about the area, but the building itself seems to have been neglected long ago as indicated by the bird droppings and spider webs littering the interior.

Some highlights from Copenhagen.

                                                     

"Goose Republic" is a tiny village run by geese and chickens.

A one-eyed cat at Goose Republic

Lots of big, dumb carp in a pond in the King's Garden

Another resident of the King's Garden

Cool building featuring a scorpion, a squid, a lizard, and a snake

Classroom at the Medicinsk Museion (Medical Museum)

Our trip through Denmark is just about over. Next up - Germany.

Obrigado, Portugal

 The moment my family and I were whisked away from Lisbon's airport in a cramped Bolt (like a European Uber or Lyft), I knew this was going to be a different kind of trip.  Once past the snarled up traffic circles near the airport, we entered a chaotic maze of ups and downs, tight fits, and honking horns.  Our destination - my cousin's apartment tucked away down a deep metropolitan corridor. 

Roughly ten days were spent in Portugal.  Enough to earn my admiration of its Mediterranean climate, stunning natural areas, and rich cultural heritage.  But, the trip was another reminder why I tend to gravitate toward the road less traveled.  Lisbon is a beautiful city marred by inadequate waste management, resulting in overflowing trash receptacles, litter, and pet waste.  Within a few days of our arrival, I rented a car to drive south to Porches, and upon returning to Lisbon, took a crash course in city driving.  It is the most insane city I've ever driven in, a sort of organized chaos to the locals but for me it was anxiety inducing. I was quite happy to hand over the key fob to the gentleman at the airport car rental hub upon our departure.

Each day was an absolute adventure, both in Lisbon and beyond.  We saw countless historical places, ranging from the Roman era to the present, but for the sake of this blog and its theme I thought I'd stick more or less with the natural historical highlights.  

My cousin Eden is a French expatriate living in Lisbon, and we were fortunate to stay with her for the duration of our time in Lisbon.  After a stint in Amsterdam, she sought a warmer, sunnier place to live and Lisbon fit the bill.

South of Lisbon, a bit of beach dune habitat in Vila Nova de Milfontes

Along the southern coast near Porches, we were privileged to stay three nights at a location complete with a manmade stream and intermittent pools.  Here, the ubiquitous Iberian water frog, also known as Perez' frog (Pelophylax perezi) was easily spotted but not easily caught.  More wary that most other frogs I've observed, they were difficult to approach during the day and only slightly easier to catch as the temperatures cooled off after sunset.  The variation in colors and patterns within a single population was surprising; initially I thought that I may have been observing more than a single species.  These frogs create quite a racket at dusk, quacking and snoring from within the emergent vegetation and water hyacinths.  Each night, Lumen and I were out there with our headlamp/flashlight, frog-spotting and sometimes catching.

The first of several Psammodronus algirus seen.

A private speedboat tour of the Algarve coast allowed access to the region's most famous and arguably most beautiful features, the Benagil Cave.  Loads of geologic history here.

Another common sight in southern Portugal are the nesting storks, known locally as cegonha branca (Ciconia ciconia).

A spur of the moment decision to find an arbitrary trailhead led us to this amazing forest near Monchique.

This stunning reptile took me by surprise.  A beautiful Lacerta schreiberi, or Schreiber's green lizard.

I began to notice a number of trees with large portions of their bark missing.  Some had numbers spray painted on them.  The condition of these trees appeared grim.  Why would someone do this in what by all indications was a protected area?  Turns out these are cork oaks (Quercus suber).  This is where cork comes from - the bark of these trees.  Apparently, the removal of large portions of the cork bark from the trees is harmless and bark can be harvested multiple times throughout the life of a tree.  Portugal is the top supplier of cork in the world.

Another P. algirus.

Another view of the Algarve coast.

Lumen and I hunting for crabs along the ancient, fossil-encrusted cliffs.

We explored the castle and grounds of Quinta da Regaleira in Sintra.  While walking the grounds, I'd see little concrete pools, almost like ancient drinking basins, filled with water.  A few larger ponds graced the area as well.  In one of the larger ponds, I could see newts of all sizes - small larvae wiggling about and larger aquatic adults walking along the detritus-covered bottom.  All I knew of Old World newts is that there are lots of them.  Which species these were, I'd have to find out later based on my location.  

I wanted to get my hand on one of the newts for a better look, but catching them by hand out of the pond seemed impossible.  Luckily, I was able to spot and easily scoop out a couple of larger animals from one of the small concrete basins.  Based on the newts' appearance, I was a little stumped on the ID.  That evening, I reached out to Jeroen Speybroeck, Belgian herpetologist and coauthor of my regional herp guidebook, Field Guide to the Amphibians and Reptiles of Britain and Europe (2016).  Jeroen told me that my newts were Triturus rudolfi - newly described earlier this year!  Of course, this wasn't a raw discovery.  As I understand it, T. rudolfi were split from T. pygmaeus and are restricted to a small area of west-central Portugal (the paper is here).  It's kind of cool to think that I may have been the first American to catch and photograph one of these newts under its new nomenclature.

One of many newts seen in a pond

A newt I caught from a tiny rainwater-filled basin

Newt habitat

Nearby, on the grounds of Monserrate, even more impressive sights.

This is a very large Metrosideros excelsa, aka Pohutukawa, known as "New Zealand Two".  While it looks like a tree, it's actually an enormous shrub.  It is estimated to have been planted about the year 1800.

This cool Australian rubber tree (Ficus elastica) grows in and around the ruins of a structure built on the orders of Gerard de Visme in 1790.  The informational sign near the ruin states "The apparent fusion between the building and the tree depicts the supremacy of Nature over Man".

Green Iberian wall lizard (Podarcis virescens)

After our memorable stay in Portugal, it was time to embark on the next leg of the journey - Denmark.