VIKINGS!

So here's a much-promised post about my trip to Roskilde in January. We took about an hour-long bus ride to Roskilde, which is West of Copenhagen. It's a really old town in Denmark and is famous as a Viking town, with one of the first cathedrals here too, Roskile Domkirke. We went through DIS, but unfortunately the cathedral was in use for a service so we couldn't go in! We walked around the outside of the cathedral and listened to our guide talk a lot, especially about her interactions with Queen Margrethe. Some pictures from the facade (I hear it's more impressive inside; our Copenhagen history teacher says it's a must-see before you leave).

Front of the Church--impressive spires.

Contained grave built for the more recent monarchs--real estate in the church is full.

Another face of the church. More decorated than the first.

Here you can see the different levels of the church--I want to see how that plays out inside. A few of the girls I went with also wanted to go back, so hopefully we'll do that in the springtime.

Gothic style uses a lot of glazed bricks, like the green ones in this picture.

Again, I thought the different levels and areas of the church were interesting, but I want to see the inside to get the full effect.

We also got to see part of the city museum, which showcases the archeological work they're doing on an old church.

Floor and grave of the old church

We want to go back in the spring to walk around the town a little, because we didn't have time to do that this trip. Here are some pictures from around town:

Our next stop was: (drumroll, please) the VIKING museum! This museum was really cool, I thought. They pulled a bunch of old Viking ships out of the water, and the wood was well-preserved in the mud. They think the Vikings purposely sank a few ships to create a defensive barricade against other peoples. One of the ships was built in Dublin and sailed here--it was one of the longest ships they've found from this period!

Model of a Viking ship, with the real deal in the background.

They had refitted the old wooden parts onto metal frames, that show a sort of skeleton of the boat for the pieces of the boat that they didn't recover.

You can see both the wooden and metal parts here.

Some of the views from the museum were really great too--in the summer, you can take a trip on a Viking ship, because they're located right on the water!

One of the new, operating "Viking Ships," with the Domkirke in the background

More of the ships that you can go out to sea on

So hopefully in the springtime I will have more on Roskilde. To get there from where I live, we take a 10-minute bus to the station and pick up another bus, for about an hour and 20 minutes, so it's quite a trip. I think it's worth it, though--it'll be a nice Saturday activity after brunch.