Roskilde

We decided we would try to visit Roskilde again, since our last visit wasn't quite satisfactory.  It was a beautiful day, no rain, we checked to make sure the Cathedral was open and we were very careful not to leave our stroller on the train this time! Our first stop was the Roskilde Cathedral.

 Wow, this was such a beautiful building.

 The cathedral was built during the 12th and 13th century and has been the main burial site for the Kings and Queens of Denmark since the 1600's.

 It's also a UNESCO World Heritage Site.  The Cathedral has so much history, I won't write much here, but here's a link if you want to read more about it.

 The Cathedral was very fascinating to walk through.  Over the last 800 or so years, the Cathedral has been added to and changed to accompany new rooms and such.  It was interesting to see different parts of the Cathedral that dated back from the 1200's, but also to view rooms that were built within the last 100 years.

 
The kids were quite fascinated with the fact that we were walking over tombs in the floor and they especially enjoyed peering through the grates that led to underground tombs.

 I found Christian IV's Chapel the most interesting, due to the history behind it.  We knew very little of Denmark history before coming to Denmark, but once here, the name of King Christian IV pops up everywhere.  He had a huge influence on building here in Denmark and many of the places we've visited were either commissioned or changed or something involving him.  What I find most fascinating is that he commissioned to have a Chapel constructed to for his Coffin once he died in 1648.  It wasn't finished by the time he passed away, so his coffin was just placed in the crypt below.  Well, his successors didn't deem it financially important to work on his tomb and when a fire claimed the Sandstone monument that was suppose to be placed over his tomb, finishing his chapel was all but forgotten.  It was until the 1840's that King Christian VIII started work on it again and finally, it was finished in 1870.

Poor King, he did so much for Denmark, but his final resting place was all but forgotten for 200 years!  Anyway, it was a neat Chapel, complete with a Statue for Christian IV done by Bertel Thorvaldson, the same guy who did the Christus Statue.

We thoroughly enjoyed visiting such a beautiful place.  Quite awe-inspiring!  After leaving the Cathedral, we walked down the hill and had lunch at this beautiful park. 

The kids especially enjoyed seeing the Mommy duck with all her little babies.

Poor Mom, how does she keep track of so many babies?  We then headed over to the Roskilde Viking Museum.
 
In the 1960's, 5 Viking ships that were deliberately sunk in the Roskilde Fjord in 1020ad were discovered.  Since then, they've built up a really nice museum around them, complete with Viking Activities for the family and reconstructed replicas of the original boats.  This was a really fun place to visit and I'm sure we'll go back again.

You can even pay a little extra to go out sailing on a Viking Ship replica in the Fjord.

In was kind of late in the day, so we didn't do that this time.  The view looking out into the Fjord was beautiful.

 We got to see how they made rope, how the boats were reconstructed using replicas of the tools that were used to build the original viking ships. We got to dress up as Vikings.  In this huge room, they have the pieces of the original boats on display.
 
They were pretty neat.  It's just amazing to see something so old.  The boats were sunk on purpose in the Fjord to block a fairway to protect the village of Roskilde from attack.  I admit that Viking culture is something I know very little about, but am excited to learn more of.  After leaving the museum, we went home and watched How to Train Your Dragon, because, of course, it has vikings in it.  =)  Overall, it was one of the most fun days we've had here in Denmark.  Roskilde is such a nice little European town.  We all really liked it.