Roskilde
Posted in Travel on 07/28/2010 07:59 am by enjanerdWe spent a day in Roskilde, a city dating back to the Viking Age. The Roskilde Festival was in town this weekend, but was sold out, and, kinda wasn’t where my interests were.
We visited the Roskilde Cathedral, built in the 12th and 13th centuries. Royal tombs spanning over a millennium are buried here. The architecture here is very interesting because royalty was buried here over many centuries, so as additional wings were needed, they were built and decorated in the style of the time, incorporating Gothic and Romanesque features.
The Viking Ship Museum, Vikingeskibsmuseet, was one of my favorite museums to visit. We started in the reconstruction exhibit, where they show how they resurrected the ships that were deliberately sunk in the waterway to prevent enemy attack by sea. These ships were later replicated and on display in the harbor.
In the outdoor area, they had displays about Viking ship design and construction, explaining the Nordic clinker-building method. They also had a row of trees, representing each type that might have been used for shipbuilding. The harbor had about a dozen replicas on display on the water. And they also had some tours available where you actually go out on a viking ship that the participants have to row.
Inside the main museum building, they had the original ships that were resurrected from the fjord and exhibits on the history of war at sea. They also had an exhibit on Havingsten fra Glendalough (Sea Stallion), a 30-m warship found in the fjord. The ship was replicated and set out on a 45-day journey from Roskilde to Dublin, documented by Timewatch. The purpose was to “test and document the seaworthiness, speed and manoeuvrability of the ship on the rough open sea and in coastal waters with treacherous currents.”
We got back pretty late in the afternoon, so had some down time before heading to Nyhavn (New Harbor) in downtown Copenhagen to see some of the nightlife.