Day Trips from Lund, Sweden: Ale Stenar
Getting to Ale Stenar isn’t easy, or if there is an easier way, we definitely didn’t take it. I set off with a group of international students I barely knew from Lund. We took a train to Svarte, took a bus to Ystad, spent an hour in Ystad waiting for the next bus, took that bus to Löderup, walked along a farm road for about five kilometers to Kåseberga, and then hiked up to the monument from there. Needless to say, it was quite the bonding experience and I definitely made a few friends thanks to that long trek.
If you’re looking for Viking rune stones, this isn’t it. Ale Stenar (Ale’s Stones) is a set of stones erected in the Nordic Iron Age (about 1400 years ago) formed in the shape of a ship. Mystery surrounds what exactly the stones were used for, but most think it was a sort of calendar. There are two large stones at each end of the ‘ship’ that line up with the setting sun on the summer solstice and the rising sun on the winter solstice. It brought back memories of StoneHenge for me, but unlike StoneHenge, Ale Stenar was smaller than I expected. A lot of the stones were shorter than I am, which if you know how short I am, is not very tall.
It wasn’t a super touristy spot (maybe due to accessibility). There were no ropes or lines of tourists like there were at StoneHenge. You could walk right up and touch the rocks if you wanted.
The setting was pretty spectacular. It stands above the little fishing village of Kåseberga on a seaside cliff overlooking the Baltic Sea. We hiked/slid down what was probably not a path to the beach. It was rocky with tons of seaweed, but we found a good spot to sit and enjoy the scenery. Then we walked along the beach back to Kåseberga.
Ale Stenar is a beautiful sight and a nice trip, as long as you’re okay with walking. The trip home was rough since those five kilometers of walking was all slightly uphill on the way back. By the time I got home, my health app said that I’d walked about 10 miles. I was eager to shower and sleep.
