Odense Kommune

For the most part, the rain stayed at bay today but the wind continued to howl, almost blowing us off the little pier at the Viking Ship Museum in Roskilde!! In fact, a little boat in the bay spent the day upturned as the waves chopped up the fjord where waves are not normally seen.
Roskilde, half an hour outside Copenhagen, was once the thriving capital of Denmark. Sitting on a perfect, and easily defendable spot on the fjord, it is home to five 1000 year old Viking ships (or bits thereof), the enormous Roskilde Cathedral plus parklands and cute streets. The Viking Ship Museum houses said original Viking ships all of which were deliberately scuttled in the defence of the nation. You see, there were three channels coming into the fjord deep enough to sail ships. One channel was ingeniously defended using a type of floating picket fence. Another was made too shallow for marauding boats by filling it with old, scuttled ships and the other was winding and required local knowledge to navigate safely. A clever defence plan. Five of the sunken vessels were retrieved and pieced together over several years and are now on display in Roskilde. The reconstruction of these lost ships gives us an insight into Viking boat design, boat building and sailing and they call this "experimental archeology". It was fascinating. We were supposed to be part of the crew in a sail on the big reconstructed war vessel but ... the weather...
We took a country drive to The Land of Legends, an outdoor museum showing Danish life during the stone age, the iron age, the Viking Age and medieval times. It was pretty cool. Like other open air museums, actors played their part in showing what life was like during each era. We had a great chat to a stone age man whose little reed hut had gained some new holes after yesterday's stormy weather. The museum also had a life sized replica of a stone ship circle, similar to the one we saw at Ales Stenar in Sweden. The actual ship circle is a few kilometres away but not always available to see. Samara was happy to feed and pat the geese, tickle goats and try to pet sheep. Did I mention she was nipped on the nose by a puppy this morning?
We drove from Zealand across the Great Belt Bridge to Odense on the island of Funen late this afternoon. This is a massive combination suspension and low level bridge connecting the islands, and is 18km long (speed limit 110). There's a hefty toll for this impressive structure of some $70 AUD but it makes the travel easy. Again, there were wind mills rising up from the water in the middle of the straight. We are exhausted…Read more