Stevns Klimt: Where geology, architecture and storytelling meet

Travellers familiar with the towering white walls of the Seven Sisters on the Kent Coast, or with Ireland’s spectacular coastline at Moher, may find the Danish deployment of the word “cliffs” at Stevns a somewhat amusing. Though composed of sparkling white chalk like their cousins around Dover, the cliffs of Stevns … called Stevns Klint locally … are just 130 feet at their highest and much lower for most of the 11 miles they run along the Baltic. So on first glance the fact that the cliffs have been named a UNESCO World Heritage site can be perplexing.

It’s not the size that makes these cliffs important, it turns out, but a wrinkle of geology.

Stevns is the best place in the world to see a long line of fish clay, known to scientists as the K-Pg Boundary, that separates the age of the dinosaurs from the rise of the mammals. It helped scientists Luis and Walter Alvarez develop and prove their theory that the dinosaurs were wiped out by the impact of a giant asteroid on the Earth.

You wouldn’t have thought that was enough to base a museum around, much less to captivate punters for well over an hour, but this place is well worth a visit even if you think geology sounds boring.  It’s not … and this may just change your mind. You’ll also be quite the trend setter; the museum was only opened by Queen Margrethe two months ago.

The beautiful, modern building is sunk into the cliff top, entirely invisible from the road and only really seen to its full beauty if you’re on the cliff walk about half a mile away. In between is a defunct limestone quarry, the source for many of Copenhagen’s grand 19th century stone facades, now part of the site's redevelopment as a cultural centre. It’s the massive hole left by stone extraction that now allows the museum to burrow into the limestone like a Bond villain’s lair.

Inside, an open plan space runs the length of the quarry-fronting windows, its sleek, white design reminiscent of a modern concert hall. A grand piano reinforces that perception; they host concerts here and the aunt who showed us around said the acoustics are surprisingly good, despite all those hard surfaces. Under normal circumstances, however, most of the space is taken up with a shop selling local crafts (jewellery and decorative items crafted from the limestone, watercolours, wood working, local honey) and a surprisingly good cafe with gourmet sandwiches, thick soups and local beers. My husband's aunt, who lives in walking distance, says the cafe is becoming popular with neighbours who go to the museum just for the food, and for walkers who use the car park to start cliff walks from here.

The museum stretches along the length of this space, but on the side dug into the cliff. You start in a theatre with a massive block of limestone taking centre stage, K-Pg line visible along its length. Even when the lights go down, its pristine whiteness glimmers in the dark. Then comes a film designed to use the odd projection space … stone at the front, stage around and behind … to dramatic effect. The stone appears and disappears as we learn how it came to be. You can ask for it to be run in English but, to be honest, the graphics are so good you don’t need to. There’s an ocean with a vibrant ecosystem living, dying and sinking its bones into the sea bed below that will become the base of our cliffs. Continents shift and it becomes a jungle, with dinosaurs stomping through. Then comes the asteroid, and a frighteningly effective cataclysm blasting through the room with more sound and light. And then primitive mammals emerge from their hiding places to forge a new world. 

After the film, a long gallery with multiple displays fills in the details, with all signage in Danish and English. There’s more on dinosaurs and fossils, with some skeletons kids will love. An entertaining tree of life, projected with light and growing from source to today every few minutes, shows how everything on earth connects to those lucky asteroid survivors. The movie explaining how the Alavrezes came to, and proved, their theory is a case study in how to use solid storytelling principles to make the complicated simple. Honestly, you can say that about the whole place. And there’s a highly entertaining table at the far end where you can play God, sending the asteroid towards Earth time and again to see the different ill effects. Show me the tsunami! This time, obliterate sunlight!

Given the horrors of the table of doom, it’s a good thing that the curators choose this time to point out the low statistical chances of this happening again and allowing you to dig into the variety of NASA-led global plans to stop an incoming asteroid should one appear. At this point, any American or English museum would doubtless have inserted a section on asteroid cataclysms in film history from Armageddon to Don’t Look Up, with Aerosmith’s Don’t Want to Miss a Thing on the sound system and an opportunity to have your photo with a cut out of Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck saving the world.

But the Danes are too classy for that. Instead, you head out through a glass tunnel called the triumph of life, where exquisitely taxidermised examples of today’s animal kingdom flock, prance, stroll and slither around you. The swan extended to full wingspan above you is a wonder to behold, but it’s the red panda all the kids will want to bring home. Cuddly toy animals are available in the gift shop, naturally. 

There are plans afoot to develop the artificial valley of the quarry, hopefully including the rescue of a magnificent turn-of-the-20th century round barn made entirely of wood. We walked through it and it’s a spectacular space. The cliff walks are lovely and there are some pretty beaches. Book a room at Rødvig Kro (Inn) and make a weekend of it. For now, this is well off the beaten track but just an hour from Copenhagen, making it an excellent side trip from the usual urban visit.

Agrarian South Zealand is a gentle retreat for the soul

Travellers without personal connections would probably never venture into the region south of Copenhagen. It lacks the blockbuster sites that stud the landscape north of town. It is, rather, a quiet place dense with charming thatched cottages, picturesque fishing harbours, traditional farmhouses and agrarian landscapes.

It's also home to generations of the Bencard family, so I've been fortunate to explore with locals.

By the time you've put 40 miles between yourself and Copenhagen, the island best known for Denmark's capital becomes resolutely rural.  Wide, open roads follow the lines of broad, arable fields bordered by wildflowers or thin lines of woodland.  Everything about the landscape is gentle, from the roll of the hills to the sleepy cows to the nodding hollyhocks that seem to dance above every garden wall. In late August, towering hay scarecrows advertised the harvest festival while combine harvesters brought in the crops. (It had been an unusually wet summer; they were fighting to harvest during a short outbreak of clement weather.) The landscape was green, gold, blue, white and grey: Foliage at its high summer peak; wheat fields bright as burnished metal; waters of the Øresund shimmering from so many views ... all stretching beneath the kind of big skies filled with towering grey and white clouds you only get over islands and peninsulae.

Even the cliffs look gentle. You can meander along 11 miles of Stevns Klint, where brilliant white chalk walls hold back the sea. At their highest, they stand 130 feet, but they never seem particularly menacing. Even though their crumbling swallowed the 13th century Højerup Old Church. Visit the reconstruction, complete with medieval wall paintings, then enjoy a leisurely traditional meal at
Traktørstedet Højeruplund next door. The thatch, low ceilings, beams and long-serving regular staff mirror a traditional menu of classics like hearty soups, fried fish and schnitzel.

Down at the nearby Rødvig harbour, small fishing boats and pleasure craft are temporarily dwarfed by industrial vessels currently in port to help lay power cables to offshore windmills. There's no question this is a working port; your wander around the harbour skirts lobster cages and piles of nets in for repair. Local fishmongers there to clear the day's catch made me wish I had time to take over one of the family kitchens. Instead, we savoured ice cream from the harbour's snack shop (liquorice ice cream is a must for any visit to this country) and watched cormorants air their wings on the breakwater in the golden rays of the late afternoon sun.

This was a region of vast aristocratic estates; many of the farmhouses you see were once tenant properties linked to great houses. One of these that's partially open for tourism is Gisselfeld Kloster. The romantic moated manor house's greatest claim to fame is a link to Hans Christian Andersen. He was a frequent guest, mentions the place in his autobiography and they claim it's where he came up with the idea for The Ugly Duckling. It's also Denmark's fifth-largest estate. Gardeners will be intrigued by the grounds and greenhouses. Indeed, this is what's open to the public regularly to explore. Mostly a landscape park, people in search of flowers should head to the greenhouses. If they look familiar, it's no surprise: the 19th century owner had them shipped over from England. The house is rarely open, but the exterior .... Renaissance, red brick step gables rising from a reflective moat ... is a scene worthy of contemplation.

Taking the slow route along the coast on the 265 will provide an effortless wander through one picturesque scene after another. Civilisation rarely intrudes on the picture with anything bigger than a cluster of thatched cottages or the proud, white, step-gabled tower of a traditional church. The most regular nod to modernity is the profusion of high tech windmills, but they slide easily into the landscape as their calmly-spinning blades mirror the sails of their oft-spotted 19th century predecessors. The Øresund isn't a constant companion. Rather, the island-dotted seascape swims in and out of view as you skirt forest and field. You might get caught behind some lumbering farm equipment, providing an excuse to slow down even further to better enjoy the view. (If you're in a hurry, you could zip down the E47 motorway in a fraction of the time.)

Eventually, the road leads to Kalvehave and the short bridge to the island of Møn. This 84 square-mile island is even sleepier than South Zealand, with just one main town, Stege, and boom times that were last seen when it was a top herring fishery in the early 18th century. It never really recovered its cosmopolitan prosperity after being a casualty of wars between Denmark and Sweden. The consequence for modern tourists is lots of historic buildings and few chain stores or restaurants. Locals are making the most out of their island's independent, old-style spirit: stop for lunch at the local butcher (slager) Stig, where they run a restaurant quite literally on the side, lifting meats out of their counter to prep for your plate.

Of course, you don't even need to get out of your car to take in the mix of historic architecture on Stege's high street, the jaunty gate tower at the town's eastern end, or the venerable Elmelunde Church, oldest on the island. You'll probably be driving by them to get to the most famous place on Møn, Møns Klint. If you lingered in Rødvig Harbour, you might have seen these cliffs gleaming across the water. They form the island's eastern edge, glistening white and towering at three times the height of Stevns Klint at their tallest ... making them visible for miles. They're very similar to England's Beachy Head, with one significant difference: The landscape leading up to the cliff edge is heavily forested. The whole area is now a park, criss-crossed with hiking and biking trails. At the end of the road (literally) you'll find a car park in front of a modern geological museum. 

From here you can stroll along wooden boardwalks that lift you above the forest floor. While the feeling is magical, it wasn't done for your benefit: there are several rare varieties of orchid native to this chalky soil that nobody wants your feet to disturb. The energetic can follow a long chain of steps all the way down to the beach, while the more leisurely can skim the cliff tops to reach a lofty observation point. Even though most of it is forested, the drop is still impressive as the eastern side of the boardwalk holds you in the highest branches of the whispering beech trees. The forest here is spectacularly beautiful. Experts claim that the pale chalk below reflects upwards, giving the whole place a spring-like glow even in the fully-grown depths of summer. At the viewpoint, we paused to watch scores of butterflies feed from clusters of wildflowers. The water below took on almost Caribbean hue as it mirrored the bright white cliffs above.

I wished I had my mother's skill at water colours. Møns Klint, like so much of this part of Denmark, inspires quiet contemplation. The whole region a great place to restore your soul.