We began our day with a relaxed yogurt breakfast, followed by a detailed planning session for Saturday’s pickup. We need to coordinate the timings carefully as we will be cycling from Rostock to a suitable location where we can transfer our luggage into the car and mount our bicycles onto the bike rack, which Pieterjan and Henrieke will be bringing.
Our plan isn’t final, still some work ahead! When planning a bike trip, travel and arrival times are pretty predictable. But for a 735 km car journey, the margin of deviation is much wider!
Around noon, we went to fetch some bread and a Danish pastry for dinner later that day.
The sun was shining brightly, so we went for a walk to the city center and harbor.
The city itself conveyed a somewhat melancholic atmosphere to us. Many shops on the main street were closed indefinitely.
Vordingborg has large medieval fortifications that were once part of the largest royal castle complex in Denmark, built and expanded primarily under King Valdemar Atterdag in the 14th century.
The city walls originally stretched roughly 750–770 meters around the royal stronghold, rising to about 8 meters in height and reinforced with multiple towers. Today, only low, grass-covered remains survive, but they still outline the scale of the fortress that once controlled the region’s trade routes and protected the king’s seat of power. Walking along these remnants gives a vivid sense of how imposing the defensive system must have been in its prime.
At the heart of the ruins stands Gåsetårnet (the Goose Tower), the only fully preserved tower from the original castle and one of Denmark’s best-known medieval landmarks. Built around 1362, the 26-meter brick tower is crowned by a golden goose, traditionally said to have been placed there by Valdemar Atterdag as a symbolic jab at the Hanseatic League after receiving 77 declarations of war.
Gåsetårnet became Denmark’s first officially protected historic monument in 1808 and is still the iconic centerpiece of Vordingborg’s castle grounds, which is now home to the modern museum complex of Danmarks Borgcenter.
After we completed the tour in and around the castle, we stopped at a bakery in the city center to taste some of their fine offerings.
For starters a panini for me and a cheese sandwich for Leen.
And for the second round we ate two super delicious pastries: dubai kage and studenterbrød.
On our way home, we stopped by a shop to restock our supplies (yes, this is a daily task!), and then headed home for the evening ceremony. We also had to make a lot of calls to friends and family to prepare for our return.
A quiet evening with some bread as pastries, reading and music listening.
Tomorrow, we plan to cycle further south to Gedser, which is the southernmost point of Denmark. You may have noticed our inclination towards reaching extreme locations. We have a distance of 68 kilometers to cover, and we anticipate facing a headwind and rain before noon. We shall observe how the journey unfolds.
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