Old town of Stege

Møn is a small island just to the south of the main island Danish island of Zealand. The main town on the island is Stege – it may be the main town but it is a quiet town. I guess this town really hasn’t grown much during the last several centuries since the town has been a fairly important town in this southern part of Denmark.

The importance of the city is seen by the large cathedral in the center which dates back to the 13^th century when many of the great cathedrals were built around Denmark to replace the original wooden churches which were built just after Denmark became a Christian country.

The city was located at the edge of Denmark which made it prone to raids from the Venders Coast which is located in what is now north East Germany or western Poland. The people from down there was a group who liked to go on pirate raids around the Baltic sea and the southern part of Denmark was an easy target since they could go here on a surprise attack and quickly go back to their safe ports.

To prevent the raids on the city of Stege was fortified more than six hundred years ago – at this time a major fortification could only be done in the most important towns in Denmark. And Stege was a very important commercial center thanks to the good location at the sea with a protected harbor from where it was easy to trade with the area around the Baltic Sea. The city didn’t grow quickly and it remained inside the original walls until the 19^th century.

Finally the town started to grow outside the old walls. But thanks to this late development some of the original fortifications have actually survived until today and you can see a bit of the old mound around the town just outside the city gate.

The city gate is actually an important historical monument as well. Many towns around Denmark had city gates in the old days. Unfortunately almost all the old city gates has been torn down during the later development of the cities which. All of the old city gates have been torn down except two city gates – the one in Stege and one in the small town of Faaborg on the south western part of the island of Fyn.