Cloudy and damp – high temp 50ºF
On our second full day in Denmark, we decided to take the train out to Roskilde to see the Viking Museum. The day started early for me… I was awake at 3:45. After having a lot of alone time with my coffee, I got dressed and went on a walk to explore the area. The apartment we were staying in was surrounded by other apartments, and that’s all. I had seen on a map that there was some local shops, so I decided to look for them.
After a short walk down the street, I came to the end of all the buildings. I turned back and towards the waterfront, and came across the row of businesses. It was rather early still (7:30am) so I was surprised to see someone getting a haircut already. I also found a real estate offie that listed multiple apartments in the area for between 4.5 – 5.5 million krone ($675k – $850k). There was also a little bakery/coffee shop. I went in and grabbed a few pastries and a cup of coffee, and went back to the apartment, When I showed Karen what I had got, I didn’t the math in my head and that is when I realized how expensive Denmark was…
The rest of the morning consisted of Karen going on her own little walk an rousing the boys and feeding them. Same as the day before, we got a late start around noon. We took the bus to the train station, we were directed to the correct ticket purchase (a 24 hour pass good for trains & busses), and headed to our train.
The train was pleasant; smooth and quiet. It was also not too crowded so we were able to sit together. When we arrived, food monsters were beginning to show, so we started to think about food. I was fine to eat when we got to the museum, but true to form, Dylan saw something he wanted, in this case a croissant, and asked for it. Now a little here about Dylan. He has been a food poo-pooer at home for a great many weeks at this point, and that certainly followed him on the trip. He has no problem eating carbs… pasta, bread, rolls, pretzel, donut, croissant… but he is, in my opinion, thin on protein which I believe is a direct contributor to is obstinance. He is also in the “see it want it” stage. EVERYWHERE he goes, “Can I get…? Can I have…? I want a…” All of this, and a short appearance by my hungry monster led me to ask Karen in a somewhat exacerbated tone, “Are we ever going to say no?” Well that set her off too. Dylan got his croissant, and we quietly walked to the museum about 20 minutes away.
The decision to walk came after not easily figuring out which bus to take, but I am glad we did. It gave us a chance to see Roskilde. It was a really cute little town, and I wished we had been able to stay longer. After the hustle and bustle of København, Roskilde was totally my speed. There was even a little shopping street similar to the crazy one we had walked in København the day before, but it was totally mellow. We walked across that street and intended to check it out on our way back.
The walk took us through tiny little streets and a park. I couldn’t help but take a picture of one of the street signs:
We finally arrived at the museum after what was a chilly and damp walk. There were lots of activities which was great because the actual wrecks inside the museum were really only worth about 20 minutes of time. We did that last, first we cooked a Viking biscuit over an open flame. I ate mine covered with strawberry marmalade… it was yummy. Next we talked to a man dressed as a viking (no horned helmut, a much less caricaturized and probably much more authentic look). He was demonstrating Viking weapons, helmets, swords, and shields. The boys tried those on.
Karen and the boys picked wooden swords and shields and dueled.
The boys made a viking necklace and bracelet. I looked a viking ship replica being restored, and at viking ship replicas then had in the harbor.
We finally made our way the museum to see the wrecks that had been dug out of the harbor. The wrecks dated from the mid-11th to the mid-14th centuries.
After the museum, it was getting late, so we tried to grab a bite at the cafe only to be told the kitchen closed 5 minutes ago. Karen had bought food to cook spaghetti back at the apartment, but I was worried we couldn’t last that long; none of us had a proper lunch. We spotted a little food place nearby and went in… there was nothing small to eat, and honestly what they did have wasn’t very appetizing. However, true-to-form, Dylan saw something he wanted. When we told him we weren’t eating there, a smaller replay of the previous day ensued, except this time he refused to move, physically. We were in the park going to town when we realized we weren’t going to have time to explore Roskilde, the walk to the station was uphill, and we were tired. So we turned to go to the went to the bus stop and had to just leave Dylan in the park and not feed his negative energy. WE paused outside the park and few minutes later he emerged. We walked to the bus stop where we waited 20 minutes for a bus.
The rest of the trip was uneventful. We got back to the apartment, had our spaghetti, dinner, and with it I had a very good beer… whose picture I can’t find right now.