Bel and Phil's Adventures

Copenhagen – Roskilde, Denmark

By belandphilsadventures on July 12, 2018

Thursday 5th July 2018

Today we had planned to go to Roskilde, a suburb about 20 minutes out of Copenhagen to go to the Viking Museum. We had discussed this plan with our cab driver who had picked us up from the ship in Copenhagen. He had suggested we also check out the Church there as it is an important church for the royal family. Kim had done some research yesterday and determined that she definitely wanted to go to the church as well. Possibly even Helsinger too, depending upon how we went for time.

We decided to catch the train there and went over the train station, which was only about a 10 minute walk from our hotel. We found a staff member who showed us which tickets we needed and how to get them. She also told us which platform to go to. It was so easy – once we knew how. The train came and we got on and went upstairs. It was first class. We didn’t know if we had first class seats or not, so we sat in there. The ticket collector man came along, checked our tickets and continued on his way. We were rather chuffed and felt quite special.

We got off at Roskilde and managed to make our way towards the Viking Museum. Luckily for us there were plenty of signs around directing the way. Unfortunately for us the weather was grey and gloomy, with a chance of rain. We walked down the main street of Roskilde and came upon this gorgeous square, which even in the grey gloomy morning looked beautiful.

We had agreed to go to the Viking Museum first, as we had tickets for a boat sail at 11:00 am and a query with a problem with payments. We walked there through a park that had a beautiful green tunnel to arrive at the Viking Museum. It was a working museum where you can see how the items were made in the time of the Vikings or in traditional Nordic times. There were shipwrights there creating boats in the same way that the Vikings would have over 1000 years ago. It was fascinating. It started raining and we felt a little guilty wishing it would stop as they haven’t had very much rain lately at all.

We had tickets to the 11:00 am sailing, so just wandered around the working museum component. There was a lady there preparing to weave baskets, using traditional methods. She was splitting the reeds in preparation for weaving. Next we wandered into the shipyards, where the shipwrights were preparing a new boat. It was interesting to see how they were bending the wood and the problems that they were fixing as they went.

We headed over to prepare to go into our boat. It was a traditional Nordic boat like they used over 1000 years ago – so there was no motor. We were the motor! We had to row the boat out into the Fjord area. From there we could raise the sail and let the wind do the work. It was exhilarating and much quicker than we had anticipated. We loved being out on the water and had a great time. All too soon, we headed back for shore, again letting the wind do the work. We sailed back into the harbour and collected our belongings.

We then went over to the museum as they had an English tour starting in a couple of minutes. We just made it, although the tour guide was very difficult to understand. These boats were discovered out in the water between Roskilde and the sea. They have pretty much been left in the condition where they were found, with steel frames to place the wood into. The information from these boats meant that the current boats in the harbour and the scale models are actual replicas of these original boats. After the tour, we saw the same boat that we had been on sail into the harbour.

After a little longer looking around the museum we decided to head back up into Roskilde to check out the church. We are so glad that we did this. We were so pleased that the taxi driver had given us this advice. This church is where Danish royalty have their crypts over many years. There were some amazing areas. There is also a mechanical clock where St George kills the dragon (some imagination is required) on the hour. It is really pretty.

After we had finished in the church, time for a quick stop at a cafe to have some cinnamon scrolls, that they are apparently quite famous for, before catching the train back to Copenhagen. It was after 4:00 pm by the time we got back to Copenhagen and so decided to call it a day and head back to the hotel. Helsinge will be on the list for the next time that we visit Copenhagen.

We headed up to the lounge so that I could update the blog, Kim could work on her phonebook and Phil could get up to date with Twitter and other world news. We then ‘helped’ Kim pack her bag (with the stuff that she was taking back for us which we were /  are VERY appreciative about). We went out for dinner and went to an Irish pub! It was called Rose McGee’s and was very close to our hotel. It was lovely food. We did get a surprise when we received the bill and found there was a charge of 25%. One of the waiters was an Australian, from Sydney even and we asked him and he explained it was a Goods and Services Tax. Wow! He said it was on every restaurant. This is something to be aware of.

We went back to the hotel and crashed. Kim is going back home tomorrow and we are off exploring Copenhagen again.