Epic Summer Part III: Mega Trip--Denmark

We began the Danish part of our trip in Roskilde. Roskilde was actually the capital of Denmark at one time and it is famous for being home to the burial place of the Danish monarchs as well as its incredible Viking ship museum. We spent the morning in the Viking Ship Museum. The museum exists because in the 1960s they discovered an ancient Viking ship buried in one of the shallow fjords near the town. After digging deeper they discovered 5 buried ships. Apparently the ships had been purposely sunk as a defensive maneuver to block passage through the fjord to the town. The museum describes the painstaking process that the archaeologists went through to reassemble what remained of the ships and the wealth of information that was learned from the discovery. The Vikings were amazing engineers. Their ships were massive, but could sail extremely fast in difficult conditions. It was amazing reading about how these ships were used and what they could do.

Making their own Viking ships. 

Two of the restored ships. 

Viking Warrior!

Outside they have a couple modern copies of the ships that you can explore. They also have an open-air museum area that has demonstrations on topics such as rope making and basket weaving. This is a neat museum that is very informative, but doesn’t take hours of your time. We also appreciated that it was something very different from what we had seen/learned about thus far on our trip.

Recreation of one of the ships we saw inside. 

We also took some time in Roskilde to visit the Cathedral. Nearly all of the Danish Royal Monarchs are buried here, and it’s worth the visit just to see their tombs. The church itself if beautiful, but the tombs were most interesting to me. There is a range of styles, as many monarchs designed their own tombs, I’m guessing in the style of the day. It’s hard to decide which is most impressive. I wonder if any were trying to upstage their predecessors. This may be the case as the one that the current queen has planned for herself is a massive, ornate design that takes up an entire chapel and is currently under construction.

Roskilde Cathedral

The Nave

We spent the afternoon visiting Copenhagen. We started at the city hall square, called Rådhuspladsen. I love how the feel of the main squares of great big cities like this one isn’t that different from the feel you get in a smaller town square. It’s bigger, with more people, and some traffic, but you still feel like you are in the community family room. Copenhagen only has one skyscraper, which is near here. It seems that many European cities have chosen not to build tall buildings. Maybe this is some of what keeps the small town feel in these big metropolitan places. The square is decorated with a huge stature of Hans Christian Andersen, who is probably Copenhagen’s most famous citizen.

 

Who better to read you a story than Hans Christian Andersen?

Next we walked down the Strøget. One of my favorite things about European cities is their pedestrian shopping streets. This one has been around since the 60s, when the idea was fairly new. I imagine deciding to open a shop at that time on a street without auto access must have been a gamble. Obviously it was hugely successful, because the people traffic is thick. I do remember it being slightly more picturesque when A and I were here in 1998, but that was probably because there were less tourists in the winter. I really wish American cities would consider putting in pedestrian only areas in their historic downtowns, but I suppose our culture would never support the idea of slowing down and using your feet. We continued along the Strøget through the old town center called Gammeltorv, where people met to chat and enjoy each other’s company, and Nytorv, where justice was dealt.

Church of Our Lady, just off the Strøget. I love the Greek style of this church.

At Nytorv. The inscription reads, "Here stood the town's whipping post until 1780."

Christiansborg Palace--Home to the Danish Prime Minister,
Parliament, and Supreme Court.

We left the end of the Strøget to find ourselves at what is, in my opinion, the prettiest part of the city. Nyhavn, which means “new harbor,” is a street of colorful buildings lining a canal filled with boats. We had some really excellent ice cream here in homemade waffle cones. Then we walked along the harbor toward Amalienborg Palace and Square. The queen lives here, but the absence of a flag meant she must be on a holiday of her own right now.

The colorful canal at Nyhavn. 

This was Hans Christian Andersen's home.

Finally we walked through Kastellet Park to see the famous statue of the Little Mermaid that has come to symbolize Copenhagen. This was a fun memory from our first trip to Copenhagen and I was able to tell the kids the original version of the fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen.

 

Fountain in Kastellet Park featuring the goddess
that carved this island for Denmark from Sweden.

The Little Mermaid

My favorite little mermaid

Our last stop for the day was at Tivoli Gardens, which I realized A and I hadn’t visited on our last trip. This is one of the world’s original amusement parks, opened in 1843. The marching band was playing as we entered the park. The kids took us on the flying swings that give you a bird’s eye view of the city, and we road a few roller coasters. Then we walked a bit around the gardens and the kids enjoyed some amusement park treats. This far north the sun doesn’t set until pretty late, so the park’s lights were just coming on when we decided it was time to head out.

We saw a lot of people in the park who were just there to enjoy the flowers.

Our kids were bigger fans of the rides. 

What's an amusement park without the treats? 

When we were planning Mega Trip we talked with the kids about where they’d like to go. E immediately responded with, “Legoland!” There are several of the parks in Europe, but we couldn’t go to just any Legoland. E was adamant that he wanted to go to the one in the country where Lego were invented. (Interesting fact—I recently learned that only American’s say, “Legos.” Apparently everyone else knows that Lego is both singular and plural.) So if you were wondering why we did all that driving for just a few days in Denmark, now you know!

E could barely sleep the night before. It reminded me of how I always felt at bedtime on Christmas Eve. We arrived at Billund just before the gates were to open. E had already planned out our day using the Legoland app, so he knew right where to take us. He thought it would be a good idea to start with the Lego Top so we could get a bird’s eye view of the park. Next we had to check out Star Wars Miniland.

These guys were in the parking lot and E asked for this photo.

Waiting for the gates to open. 

In Star Wars Miniland with the Millennium Falcon. 

Finally it was time for some rides. E wanted a few warm up rides, so we started with a smaller roller coaster and these spinning pirate ships (think Disney teacups).

Pirate Carousel

Big Smiles!

Then we moved onto the two bigger coasters. The kids loved both. One had us in racecars with one big drop and lots of level, but jerky, corners. The other was polar themed and had a great corkscrew and a dead drop. This is where our poor camera met its demise. We loved that camera. Word to the wise: Don’t carry cameras in your pockets while riding roller coasters. Since we were late in learning this lesson I must apologize that we don’t have many pictures of E’s special day. We did ride the coaster several more times and A was able to spot the camera below. The staff was kind enough to let us come back at closing to retrieve it. The camera was toast, but the memory card was okay, so we counted ourselves fortunate to have pics from our days in Denmark.

E chose burgers for lunch and then we walked around Miniland. It is pretty neat to see the landscapes they create using Lego bricks. We saw a replica of Amsterdam and Dutch windmills. A lot of motors are used in the displays so there are dozens of moving parts. We saw windmills, flowing rivers boats with working locks (E’s favorite), and buses and trains running through towns. Some of the displays are interactive, and the kids enjoyed that. We also saw a replica of the Danish royal residence, which we had seen in Copenhagen the day before.

Amalienborg--the Danish Royal Residence 

I think we've been here before? 

We ended the day shopping at the Legoland Store. E had his heart set on buying a Lego set in the country where they originated, and he had been saving up all year in anticipation of this day. He had done his research online and went straight to the Star Wars section, grabbed his Jek-14s Stealth Starfighter and was ready to check out. I told him I was impressed and he said the best way to shop is to know what you’re going in for. He said, “Get in, get what you want, get out.” Obviously he gets this decisiveness from his father since I could be in the running for World’s Slowest Shopper.

In case you’re wondering, S also had a marvelous day. She was concerned at the lack of “Lego Friends” in the park. She has become a huge fan of these new “girl” Lego sets and their characters. She did buy herself a small set as well, however, as S is an avid shopper, she finds it much more difficult to save up. She did spot several things to put on her already growing Christmas list. Don’t you love how kids are so different?

We spent the night not far down the road and headed out in the morning toward a new country for us all—The Netherlands!