Denmark - Roskilde's Viking Ship Museum

This morning we traveled by taxi to Hellerup, the ritzy northern suburb of Copenhagen, where Steven's employer is headquartered, and where we could get a Covid-19 test. A negative test is required for us to board a plan back to the U.S. While we weren't expecting otherwise, we gave a sigh of relief when our tests both came back negative. And then it was off to more sightseeing.

I had a hankering for some Viking history, so we boarded the train to Roskilde, about 19 miles west of Copenhagen. It's said Roskilde was founded in 600 A.D. by Viking King Roar, and was the center of the Viking world before Copenhagen got popular. We visited the Viking Ship Museum (or, as they say in Danish, Vikingeskibsmuseet). This museum is a modern concrete structure that practically floats over the Roskilde Fjord. Within are the remains of thousand year old Viking boats. They had been deliberately scuttled to protect the inlet in the 11th century. They were salvaged in 1962 and over several decades were preserved and pieced back together.

The collection includes a long boat that would have held 60 soldiers or more for days at a time. Each man had space in which to sit on a narrow plank, and that was it. Think being on a unpadded plane seat for several days, but with no flush toilet, no shelter, and freezing salt spray constantly hitting you in the face. Meanwhile, you had to do some hard physically exhausting rowing, while trying not to get seasick. After all that, then you engage in battle. If you made it through all that, you might get to do some pillaging.

The museum has built a replica of the 11th century longboat (pictured above) and I scrambled on board and got a small taste of why the life of a Viking was no amusement park ride. They had to comfort themselves with visions of Valhalla, a sort of heaven for slain warriors.