Roskilde and the Viking Museum

Our summer holiday in 2013 was to Copehagen, we spent a week there with my parents. During our stay we had 3 day trips and one was to Rosklide, to visit the Viking Museum. Not that far from Copenhagen we went by train, to get to the museum there is a walk through the town down to the sea, around 20mins.

The museum is outdoors and indoors, it is a very much on hands, you are able to help and make stuff. At the boatyard you can the craftsmen working, which was quite interesting to see and all the tools they need to make boats.

The museum holds a large collection of traditional nordic wooden boats and the reconstructed viking ships, which gives an idea of how the original ships looked 1,000 years ago.

On some boats you can board them and look around and see what they look like, Alessio quite enjoyed himself. Inside the museum there is the history of Nordic maritime adventure during the Viking Age and the five Skuldelev ships and its history too.

The kids can also dress up like Vikings, write their name in runic letters and there are also boat trips to take. Plenty to keep the kids busy, not mention yourselves too!

The town itself is very pleasant, an amazing cathedral, some lovely colourful buildings and shops to browse which should keep you even busier after the museum.

Definitely worth a visit and it is free for kids up to 18yrs old which is a bonus too.

Photo of the Week - Three Huge Roman Vases!

This was taken back in August 2013 when we visited the town of Roskilde in Denmark, we walked through the town and saw these beauties. The aim of visiting this town was to see the Viking Museum and of course see the town. I will post soon what we saw at the museum and the town, Alessio had a good time here.

Danish Open Air Farm

One of the many different things we did while we were in Denmark, was to visit the open air museum in Copenhagen. The first thing we did was go on a horse drawn carridge which give us an overall view of the whole farm.

We then walked around visiting the different houses and buildings, Alessio really liked to explore all the rooms in each building. The buildings in the farm are from all over Scandinavia during the time period from 1650 -1950. The buildings are all originals which were moved piece by piece to this museum. We did not see all the buildings as were are so many, we picked the ones that sounded interesting to us. There were buildings from the Faroe Islands which I wanted to see, and there were a few buildings with grass growing from the roofs!

It was really very interesting to see and we had a great morning there, this is not the first open air museum we have visited. There is one in Switzerland called Ballenberg, which I went to years and years ago. definitely worth another visit. These places are usually open only from April to October so, just under a month to go to visit, if you fancy a visit.

A Museum and a Castle

One of our day trips from Copenhagen was going north to visit a museum and then afterwards to a castle in Helsingør. It was the only day of the whole week that is rained and I mean it really rained.

First we visited the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art which is situated in Humlebæk around 35km from Copenhagen. The main exhibition was by Yoko Ono Half- A-Show, I do not know so much about her and it was interesting to see what was on show, but it was still somewhat strange.

For kids they have all whole section for them which is great, Alessio really liked the lego and stayed for at least 30mins building things. On offer as well was painting, playdough and making lots of craft, there were people to help the children if necessary.

We then headed off to Kronborg Castle which is the setting for Shakespeare`s Hamlet known as Elsinore Castle throughout the world. The castle was transformed into an important Renassiance Castle in Northern Europe by King Frederick II from 1577 to 1585. It is on the UNESCO World Heritage List since 2000, it looks absolutely magnificent and we only saw from outside, the courtyards and the underground area.

Once we had seen enough we wandered into the town of Helsingør, since it was raining pretty hard we went for coffee and cake. Then we had a look at the shops, it is a nice enough town to visit,  then decided it was time to head back to Copenhagen.

Photo of the Week - Bright Orange

This was taken in Copenhagen on our first evening in the city, we had been walking around exploring, had eaten dinner and decided to continue to the port area Nyhavn. It is a 17th century waterfront, canal and entertainment district in Copenhagen, and it is famous for the buildings along the waterfront. We were crossing a bridge and I saw this beautiful orange in the sky. It just looked wonderful and hopefully the photo looks good.

Copenhagen, Osterbro

For our week in Copenhagen we decided to rent an apartment from the website Air b&b, on this site people let you stay in there places. It took us a while to get the right one and finally we chose an apartment in the area of Osterbro. Not that far from the city centre and very near to some nice parks, there were lots of lovely small houses and apartments to look at. We ate in a restaurant on the last evening, had a drink in one of the bars in the neighbour and get our shopping in a small supermarket.

The actual apartment we stayed was lovely, I guess normal sort of Danish design and it made me want to change my apartment or get some new things. There was a communal courtyard which we did not use but it did look lovely.