After breakfast with the horses (or where they once lived), we traveled more “down town” to the Roskilde Cathedral, which is the official burial site of the Danish monarchs.
You can get a little bored of cathedrals when traveling in Europe. “Ho, hum – yet another giant building.” What immediately struck me was I don’t normally see old cathedrals in Europe made of brick. However, it makes sense when you think about it – Copenhagen is in the lowlands. Lots of clay, not much granite. You can see the different brick architectural styles as you walk around the building; one tower had crawling leaves changing color due to the fall season.
For about a thousand years Danish royalty have been buried here. Like the cathedral’s architecture, the style of sarcophagus has changed over time. Still, every one is stunning in its own way.
I liked the gray-blue stone used in the last two.
After visiting Danish royalty we walked about a mile to the Viking Ship Museum. We did not have time to go inside and explore, but the outside buildings each specialized in a different aspect of ship building.
During the warm months you can sign up for tours on the various sized viking ship recreations. I don’t know if they expect you to row…
After checking into the hotel we had a few hours, so walked 20-minutes to the National Museum, which had an exhibit dealing with viking sorcery (“seidr“). The first half was a bit artsy-fartsy to get you in the mood, but the second half were items from the viking age. Unfortunately, it was too dark to take pictures. To get back to the hotel I took a short cut. Turns out it was the Danish parliament building.
So, over two days we’ve covered 1000 years of history. Next time, legends of the 19th century!