Jelling

Adventures in public transportation once again today. I was taking the train to Jelling and then going from Jelling back to Vejle to spend the night there. We went through Vejle and then a few more stops and then we got to Aarhus. At that point I realized that I had traveled too far. I got off that train and got on a train heading to Copenhagen Airport. The train was packed. I spent most of the trip back to Vejle standing up. When I got back to Velje, I found out where things had gone wrong. I had been on the right train, but not the right car. The cars going to Jelling break off at Vejle and head towards Jelling while the rest of the train goes on to Aarhus.

A few hours after I was planning on being there, I arrived at Jelling. Two rune stones stand in Jelling. The smaller one was erected about 940 by Gorm the Old in honor of his wife Tyra.

The other was erected in by Harald Bluetooth in honor of his father Gorm the Old and his mother Tyra. Some call it "Denmark's birth certificate" as Harald Bluetooth claims on the stone that he converted the Danes to Christianity. It also has the earliest preserved depiction of Jesus Christ in Denmark. Obviously after 1000 years, it has experienced some weathering and the carvings are not very distinct.

Right by these rune stones is the Jelling Church and its incredibly tidy graveyard.

It is a plain church except for these paintings in the altar area.

On either side of the church are huge Viking age burial mounds. They found a stone Viking ship grave in the big mound and thought it belonged to Gorm the Old, but there was no body. Gorm the Old had been moved by his son to a grave under the church which was discovered in the late 1970's.

The second mound is empty. Some think that Harald Bluetooth built the second mound in order to make the large Jelling runic stone look beautiful between two mounds.

I would have asked at the visitor center, but it was closed.

There was some construction going on. They are framing the site with a huge stone Viking ship.

Ladby

I realized last night that the way to get to Ladby Viking Ship Grave was by car. Thus today I took the bus into Odense and headed to Avis. Standard transmission cars are very, very popular in Denmark, so I ended up with a more expensive rental. I did get a TomTom GPS which for some reason made the car cheaper. I love TomTom. He got me to Ladby without a problem.

The only problem I had was that I got to Ladby 35 minutes before it opened. TomTom, I saw a museum in Kerteminde that looked interesting, please direct me to it. Soon I found myself in the parking lot a the Johannes Larsen Museum. He was a naturalist artist born in Kerteminde in 1867. He and his wife Alhed Warberg moved into this home in 1901.

It was actually more of a compound and also contained a windmill along with the miller's house,

They actually needed all of this room for their family, his sister's family, and other artists that came and went.

Then back to Ladby.
Ladby Vikingemuseet is Denmark's only Viking ship grave. It was excavated in 1934. The original occupant and his grave goods have been removed. What is left is the impression the ship left in the soil, they iron rivets where they were on the ship, and the skeletons of 11 horses and 3 or 4 dogs. They remain where they were placed over 1000 years ago.

The entrance to the burial mound

The ship

The skull of one of the horses

The mound is near the water. On the shore I found this small boat.

Speaking of small boats, they had these cute Ladby ships for little Vikings to ride in to the mound.

In the visitor center they set up a recreation of what the shipped may have looked like on the day of the burial. 

Complete with mourners

Near this site they have found other Viking age graves, including those of two women. One grave had a skull and the other had jewelry. They took the skull to make a reconstruction of one of the women and then put the jewelry of the other woman on her.

A crew of embroiderers are making a Ladby have gotten together to make a Ladby Tapestry. They have taken as their model the Bayeaux tapestry. They are using the same kind of wool, backing, and stitching technique. They've made some reproductions of the Bayeaux Tapestry to practice.

They are also making a reporducion of the Ladby ship using Viking techniques and Locally grown oaks.

Odense

I toured the city of Odense today. Odense is the birthplace of Hans Christian Andersen. They have a lovely museum that shows his life's highlights. He was over 6 feet tall and had size 12 feet. He did not have much luck in the romance area, but had many close friends and would tell stories to their children. For some he made picture books with elaborate paper cuttings. He was very good at doing paper cuts and was known to make them while telling a story. Then at the end of the story, he would unfold his paper cutting to reveal ballet dancers or soldiers or fairies dancing on a butterfly's wings. Many have been preserved and they are works of art.

Another famous artist from Odense is the composer Carl Neilsen. I am actually not very familiar with his work, but checked out the museum. The museum was also contained work by this wife, the sculptor Anne Marie Carl-Nielsen. Her sculptures are incredible. There was a piece of a horse and rider that I wanted to stuff in my purse (not enough room). A life-size bronze collie was also impressive.  Several busts were also on display. One of a middle-aged man didn't have him looking straight out, but looking up and to the left.

I found out from the guy at the desk that the Fyns Kunstmuseum was having an exhibition of her work to celebrate her 150th birthday. (She passed away in 1945) It contained a lot of smaller works and plaster models of larger works like her statue of King Christian IX. There were whole cases of various animals she sculpted - cows, sheep, horses, cats, barnyard fowl. The detail is wonderful. Her centaur is stretching his back legs in the exact same fashion as I've seen my own horses do. She had a sculpture of a woman weeding. It reminded me of stuff my uncle, Jim Daniels, used to carve in wood.

Trelleborg

Thursday was a rainy day in Copenhagen. That made it very hard to get myself out of my hotel room. I finally put on my raincoat and ventured out. First stop was the Nationalmuseet. My main interest in this museum were the artifacts from the Viking Age. Some of the displays were incomplete because they are going into the special exhibit opening on June 22nd.  One of those missing was the newly discovered golden Valkyrie. Bummer. I am truly hoping she will be in the special exhibit. Was very good in the gift store and only bought two books.

The next stop was the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek. I was interested in their large college of Gauguin paintings. Alas they were all put away for the special Degas exhibit.

Off to Marimekko! Oh what wonderful things were they going to have that weren't in the US? Walked out with a case of sticker shock and 4 pairs of socks.

Today started my adventures in public transportation. The easy part was taking the train from Copenhagen to Slagese. Then had to wait 45 minutes for the bus to Trelleborg. Asked the bus driver the fare to Trelleborg and he just waved me on. Joy!

Trelleborg is a Viking age fort constructed around 980 AD. It was part of a larger military system consisting of other ring fortresses. About 500 people lived there, but it had lost its importance by 990 and was abandoned shortly thereafter.

The site was excavated and restored by the National Museum between 1934 and 1942.  Although the wooden buildings have disappeared with time, the earthen walls of the fort have not. Cement marks where wooden posts of houses once were.

                                  Two outbuildings in forefront and entrance in the background.

                             Here are a couple of overviews of the site from the top of the walls.

       There were two roads that ran perpendicular to each other through the fort (those are not the original planks)

                                    With this photo I tried to capture where the two roads met.

Along with the fort are some reconstructions of Viking age buildings. The longhouse was first and was built in 1941.  Then they constructed the village of Slaglose.

I checked the fence and didn't see any nails.

Spending the night in Korsor. Heading to Odense tomorrow.

Viking Ship Museum in Roskilde

This morning I took the train out to Roskilde to visit the Vikingeskibsmuseet (Viking Ship Museum). On the way to the museum I stopped at the Domkirke. It is a beautiful cathedral where many of Denmark's kings and queens are buried. The current king and queen will be buried in the St. Bridget chapel which is currently being excavated for its future use. A model of their sarcophagi is on display. Rather morbid.

Strolled down through the park to the harbor to see the Viking ships. These ships were dredged from the mud at the bottom of the Roskilde Fjord in 1962. The theory is that they were intentionally sunk to block the entrance to the fjord from invading Norwegians. (Back then Roskilde was the capital, not  Copenhagen). The archeologists then labeled all the pieces and put them together.

From these ships, archeologists have learned a lot about how Vikings made their ships, what kind of wood was used, and even from what part of the tree certain parts of the ship were made from. From these ships, they have been able to make reproductions including the Sea Stallion which has sailed from Roskilde to Dublin and back.

They have also set up a boat building area where they make longships with traditional tools. I got to test my Viking heritage by going on a cruise in a reconstructed longship out in Roskilde Fjord. I was pretty good at rowing, but was glad others were handling the sail once I helped pull it up. The trickiest part was putting the oars into place and then putting them back along the inside sides of the boat. One guy got poked in the eye with an oar.

Wish I could post some pictures, but my camera won't talk to my tablet and I lost my iPhone on the train :(

When I first planned this trip I was going to bike around Denmark going from Viking site to Viking site. Life threw a wrench into those plans.

The day before I was supposed to leave I got the news that Cassie, my beloved Argentinian Dogo had cancer. She seems ok for now, and my friend Christine is watching her. I am so lucky to have a vet student as a dog sitter.

Anyways, I knew that I was in no mental condition to do my first solo bike tour in a non-English speaking country (I got lost on a Denver bike trail just last week)  The bike and all the gear are sitting at home and I'll be traveling via train and bus instead. I'll probably be renting a bike for local excursions.

It's been a day of late take-offs. It took 3 tries to get the plane engines started in Denver which made take-off an hour late. My comfortable layover at Washington -Dulles turned into a power walk from one end of the terminal to the other. Then that plane got to sit on the runway for over an hour due to bad weather. My comfortable layover in Amsterdam turned into another mad dash through the airport and passport stamping.

Finally here in Copenhagen, but my luggage has decided to spend more time in Amsterdam. I am comfortably settled in the Ascot Apartments. The Central Station and Tivoli Gardens are nearby. I've been to the grocery store for provisions including havarti cheese and my favorite Wasa bread (unavailable in the US). My plan is a quiet night in.