The Viking Ship Museum

Saturday morning, after some debate, we took off for Roskilde to visit the Viking Ship Museum. Roskilde is SW of us and not terribly far away, but it took us about 1 1/2 hours to get there with public transportation. We got to ride on the bus and the IC tog (InterCity train). The public transportation is so awesome around here and really quite easy to navigate, even with a stroller.

The Viking Ship Museum has five viking ships from the 11th century on display. They were found in the 1950s in the Roskilde Harbor. According to legend, the five boats were filled with rocks and sunk at the entrance of the harbor to thwart enemies from entering. There isn't any firm evidence of what really happened, but what was left of the five boats has been brought up and is on display. They also had exhibits of Viking weaponry, which has mostly been found in streams throughout the area, and hoards of jewelry and coins. Some of it is apparently plunder from the Viking raids, while other pieces were buried by their owners to protect them from the "Northmen".

As you can see from this rather corny shot, they also had a kiddie area with Viking costumes that you could try on and a few other activities. Pretty fun I'll have to admit, even though I wasn't terribly thrilled to do the dressing up myself!





Jared's favorite part of the museum was outdoors where they have craftsmen building replicas of the Viking ships using the same methods and tools that they would have used. This finished longboat was a warship would have held over 50 men and 100s of weapons. They also had a workshop for the archeological finds, but it was closed. We decided that we'll have to go back again in warmer weather so we can take a cruise on the boats and see more of the outdoor exhibits.

Finally, here's a pic of a wooden chain. I'm not really sure if this was something that they would have used or what, but Jared thought it was pretty cool, so maybe you will too!

Nana and Bobo see Roskilde

I suppose the title is a bit off on this one, as these are actually pictures taken by or with Bob and Kay, but somehow we didn't get any of Bob and Kay in Roskilde. Anyhow, the first part of this outing was to the Viking Ship Museum, which I touched on earlier this week. We also were able to go to the Roskilde Cathedral where most of the Danish royalty has been entombed.


Interestingly enough, this is also the church where Jared's boss, Kristian, and his wife, Pernille, were married. It's a beautiful church and very BIG. I imagine they must have had a pretty spectacular wedding! The cathedral is under renovation almost constantly it seems. This time they were busy replacing all of the copper on the roof and towers.

Here's an example of one of the tombs. I have no clue who is entombed here, but I thought it was one of the more spectacular ones. Bob took a very thorough inventory of all of the tombs, so maybe he has all that information in his memory banks. Mine are just too feeble at this stage I'm afraid!

I thought that this was a pretty cute picture of Jared and Max. I think that this was one of the last times in the Baby Bjorn, now that he's topped out over 10kg, he's getting a bit too hefty for a front carrier.

Here's a funny last picture from a dinner at Wagamama back in Copenhagen. Bob commented that Ruby seems to be doing better than any of us with those chopsticks. She just kept shoveling in those noodles. Yum!

Nana and Bobo Take the Town

The second week of Bob and Kay's visit we managed to take in a few sights around Copenhagen (even though the weather was pretty terrible!). I won't bother putting up pictures of the actual sights since they were all places that we've visited before and documented pretty heavily in past blog entries!
Here's Kay and Ruby posing by the big anchor in Nyhavn. This is where we caught our boat for a tour of the canals. This time we took one that had a glass top and was heated--SO nice on a dreary day! Bob did stand outside for a lot of the trip though, catching all the sights on "film". For a few of the sights, look back here and here.

We managed to take a stroll down Strøget in search of a teapot. After stopping in at Royal Copenhagen and a few Danish-design housewares shops we gave up. Spending over $100 on a teapot wasn't going to work for us! Of course there was a stop for ice cream included in the trip. I think we probably got ice cream at least a dozen times in two weeks. I can't speak for Bob and Kay, but I haven't had a taste for ice cream since then! Jared, on the other hand, is always ready for another soft ice.

Here's Ruby eating another Danish treat, flødeboller, right at home. Flødeboller is a thin wafer topped with a huge mound of light, fluffy marshmallow, all coated in a thin layer of chocolate. It's one of the things that Jared and Ruby will miss the most I think when we leave Denmark next month!

We made it out to the Viking Ship Museum. For lots more pictures, look back here. We actually took a tour in English this time which I really enjoyed. Of course I spent some of the tour chasing Ruby around, but I still learned a lot. The icing on the cake, though, was a very precocious little British girl that was just smart as a whip. I think she had her hand up every other minute with a question. You could tell her parents were used to this and handled it really well. I have to admit, I probably would go a bit batty after while molding that little inquiring mind!

I thought that I had gotten video of Kay and Ruby in this boat, but (Murphy's Law) the camera had some technical difficulties and somehow if has become impossible to access that file. Anyhoo, they were pretending that they were Vikings and rowing the boat. Ruby was really playing along good and looked so cute "rowing" with Nana!

Ruby's imagination is really thriving these days. She's constantly pretending to eat candy (because mean old Mommy won't give it to her constantly as she wishes!), fly around like a bird, hop and croak like a frog, play mommy... the list goes on. For all the difficult parts of being two, there are even more fantastic parts. I really feel blessed to be a part of her little life. I better stop typing about it and go live it. Take care everybody!