Viking Ships at Roskilde, Denmark

Zagan the motorhome is doing something he never thought he would do, parking for the night at a motorway services. This is a big no-no in our books across most of Europe, but here in Denmark as in Sweden, it seems to be safe. I suspect it would be safe in Norway too if they had enough motorway for there to be any services. He has chosen to break his motorway services cherry in Knudshoven (N55.29759, E10.84374) at the base of the Storebaelts Forbindlesen (Great Belt’s Bridge) which connects the island of Zealand, where we’ve been, to the island of Funen – the middle one. Next to us is an Austrian motorhome and elsewhere in the car park a couple of caravans and a huge Concorde motorhome, and as it is now getting dark I suspect we may be joined by others.

Rewind a couple of days and the low leisure battery and howling wind prompted us to move on from our lovely parking spot by the beach in Hornbaek. If the weather had been good our solar would have sorted the batteries and we would have chilled out up there for a few days working our way along the coast and the fishing villages there, but we’ll have to save that for another time. There are few problems in life that can’t be solved by throwing money at them, so we decided to head for a campsite, get some hook-up and recharge our batteries. Sadly when we arrived at the campsite in Hillerød, walking distance from Frederiksborg castle, the gates were locked and a blown over sign told us it was shut. The only other campsite in the area that we knew would be open was back at Helsingør where we had been a couple of days earlier seeing Hamlet’s castle, so instead we decided to drive south and use Zagan’s engine to charge up the batteries.

I believe Denmark leads the way in wind turbine technology. Could these be the next generation of turbines?

We’d found an entry in our Park4Night database which said it was an area provided by the Roskilde community for wild camping, so we headed there. Pulling in we realised that it was actually wild camping, and not motorhome free camping, when we spotted a cub troop all sat around a campfire in front of a small shelter. On the other side of the area a group of men, one with his small daughter, and several dogs sat with cans of Carlsberg around a similar set up. We sought shelter from the wind and parked up by some trees, glad that Zagan finally stopped rocking.

After a spot of lunch we went for a walk around. The camping area is next to a fjord, with a small bridge taking you over a stream. Walking paths led off in various directions, but as the rain started we opted to retreat. The wild campers stayed out in the rain around the fire, the group of men lit by fairy lights. As we headed for bed they were all still there, even the cubs – these Danes are obviously made of stern stuff.

Man and dog love at Roskilde Fjord

This morning the cub group had gone but the chaps had re-lit their fire and were back around it. We can only think they all slept in the small shelter. It got us wandering why this doesn’t happen in the UK, but I guess either an inevitable hut burning down it or other such damage would befall it, which is really quite sad. I’m sure it’s much better for you to be outside talking around a campfire than sitting on the sofa mindlessly watching TV.

With the rain still trickling down we made tracks and drove the ten minutes to the Viking Boat Museum in Roskilde. Paying our 120 DKK each we left Charlie in the van and headed over onto ‘Museum Island’. The museum was build to house five Viking-era boats which were discovered in the Roskilde Fjord in the 1960’s. Carefully preserved and reassembled, what remains of the boats was held in metal skeleton frames in the main building of the museum. The boats themselves had been scuttled further up the fjord to block a route from the sea to Roskilde, protecting what was at that time the capital of Denmark.

I’ll be honest, I wasn’t particularly over-whelmed by the boats. I know just the other day I started going on about Trigger’s Broom, but here there was very little to them. Next to each one was a small replica showing what they would have looked like, and an information panel about what type of boat it was, how many would sail it, if it was a warship or a fishing ship etc. But still they didn’t really, dare I say it, float my boat. Maybe its because we are a bit travelled out, maybe its because we have been wowed by the Vasa and the Fram boats recently (which Jay kept reminding me are much newer) and have learned loads about the Vikings in the Museum in the Lofoten Islands. Whatever it was, the boats weren’t the star of the show today.

The setting for the museum is perfect, with one huge glass wall overlooking the fjord

What I was impressed with is what the finding of the boats has meant to the area. Firstly the museum was built, and while building it they uncovered nine more boats in the fjord – it seems they are finding them all the time, another two were discovered recently at the works to build a bridge between Zealand and Germany. From the original five, and the new nine boats, archaeologists learned how they were constructed, made cardboard, then wooden models of them. Then a small boat yard was started at the museum. The five ship builders spend their days making replica Viking ships and working boats from all over Scandinavia, these include fishing boats, eel fishing drift boats and boats used to take people to church. All the ships are made using traditional methods, but there isn’t a saw in sight. The oak tree trunks are cleaved in half longways along the grain, then in half again, and again until you have a thin but super strong plank.

Replicas of the boats discovered in the fjord made using traditional methods

We chatted to one of the ship builders and asked what happens to the boats they make. Most of them are used by the museum, they offer trips around the fjord in the summer. They have also made full-sized working replicas of the five boats which are in the museum, and to test how well they worked they sailed them. Not just around the fjord, but to Greenland and Dublin, which is where they would have gone in their day. He also confided that some of the replica boats are sold, however only two Viking boats had been bought by individuals, while it was left unsaid I got the feeling those individuals had more money than sense.

The most important Viking tool – the axe, in its many different shapes and sizes

The Ship Builder at work

Of course we had a go at the obligatory dress up as a viking, and baked viking cakes over a fire, if only to warm up, but it’s the ship building that will be my memory of the museum.

Errr, what?

After some lunch in Zagan, we took Charlie for a walk into Roskilde. Being a rainy Sunday, everything was shut and the place pretty much deserted except for the odd group around the cathedral. Roskilde’s cathedral is UNESCO listed and is said, in our guidebook, to be the crème de la crème of Danish cathedrals. It was started in 1170, a few decades after the boats in the museum, and has been rebuilt and tweaked so many times it’s now a mishmash of 800 years’ of Danish architecture. As Charlie was with us, and you had to pay, we didn’t venture inside to the crypt which houses 37 Danish Kings and Queens – how Charlie would have loved to get his teeth into some royal bones.

No royal bones for Charlie, but he did manage to snaffle some wedding rice from outside the church

And, as it’s UNESCO listed the cathedral is allowed two doors of the day…

After that it was time to say goodbye to the island of Zealand and head across the bridge to Funen. As we rolled away from the toll booth, having paid our 240 DKK to cross, we were surprised how quickly we reached the arches in the middle of the bridge.  Below us a huge container ship chugged its way past.

Then as we started down the other side we realised we were heading for an island, and heading away from that island was another massive long bridge. In all we crossed 17 kilometres of water on the bridges, and we think that might be our last toll bridge of this trip. But it’s not the end of our Scandinavian adventure, Odense calls tomorrow, if not to see the birthplace of Hans Christian Andersen, then to stock up on LPG as we’re running low.

Ju x

Bonus photo – if you are heading to Denmark, be careful on the roundabouts as bicycles have their own lane!