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Message in a bottle in the fjord
Don't ask: It's art. |
I woke up at 8:30 this morning because I set my alarm.
After about 12 1/2 hours of sleep, it was
time :o)
I was ready to face the
day.
Gill fed me a sumptuous
breakfast:
oatmeal, boiled egg, coffee,
juice, and fresh bread with preserves. Oh my!
I told them John has a lot to live up to, haha!!
We left home and started our day by going to Roskild
Domkirke. It is the cathedral where almost all of the kings and queens of
Denmark are buried. They have kept
things quite tidy by naming virtually all their kings either Christian or
Frederik! There are 10 Christians and 9
Frederiks buried there along with various and sundry bishops. The cathedral isn’t huge, but it is very
stately.
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| Sarcophagus |
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Side aisle in the church
Bishops are buried in the floor |
The church has been in that spot in some shape or form since
985, but the present stone building was begun around the 1170s.
Since 1995, it has been on the UNESCO’s World
Heritage list.
The guide book (which
came with admission and is excellent) says that it is one of the earliest
examples of French-inspired Gothic brick architecture.
We’d all notice that when we visited, I’m
sure :o)
Had I known this beforehand I
would have hummed and nodded at the appropriate junctures while walking, haha!
In 1143, there was a huge fire that burned most of the town
and parts of the cathedral. From reading
the guide book, it seems that so much has been done to the church in modern
times (read: 1700s forward). I’m sure that it was a magnificent structure
in its time, but it is just gorgeous now!
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| Sarcophagus |
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| Sarcophagus on the altar |
The thing that struck me most about this church was that the
kings and queens were buried in rather ostentatious sarcophagi around the outer
walls of the main church where one might normally find chapels.
While I suppose you could pray while in
there, they didn’t really lend themselves to prayer.
The altar doesn’t have a cross but, in its place is a
golden, beautifully ornate polyptych which has a cross in it. This is a multi-paneled piece of art work
that folds in on itself. Addi can
correct me, but I think it folds because it made it easier to transport from
place to place. There is no other cross
to be seen. At first I thought there was
a high altar and a low altar, but it appears there was only one. The crypts behind the altar and on the same
flooring as the altar, are quite large and have numerous ornate carvings on
them.
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| Polyptych as the altar |
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| Sarcophagi on the altar |
Now we’ll take a quick trip around the outer area of the
cathedral (still inside) where all the crypts are.
The first was Christian I.
I think that perhaps something like this for
me and John would be adequate when we pass.
So much nicer than being buried in the ground.
I’ll have Eric and Katie get on the designing
of them now.
The next room housed numerous crypts and some of them are
covered in fabric, which apparently was the style in the 1700s. I don’t know if they’ve been recovered….I
imagine they must have been. They looked
too good otherwise. Clever, but not that
sturdy.
As we walked around to the top of the church there were also
dozens of crypts on the floor. Two of
the most interesting were of a canon who is depicted with a padlock on his
mouth, the other is of the Ghost Horse.
The canon has a padlock on his mouth because in 1534-36 there was a huge
civil war brought on by the Reformation.
Hans Henricksen refused to tell the plunderers where the chalice and
other precious items were. The Ghost
Horse is buried under a narrow, black stone.
The Ghost Horse is allegedly a 3-legged horse with eyes like red-hot
coals. If you were to meet this horse,
you would be doomed (insert ominous music here). People used to spit on the grave as they
walked by in the olden days. As Ronnie
and I couldn’t see any spittle there, Gill persuaded us not to do so :o)
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| Christian 4 room |
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| Picture of Christian 4th |
One of the most ornate (read dreadfully gaudy) areas was
that of Christian 4
th.
He was
the one who gave up over ½ the land that Denmark owned.
Apparently he liked to spend money and wasn’t
a very clever king in terms of war.
He
died in 1648 with a much smaller country that when her took over.
Despite this, he seems to be one of the most beloved
Kings of Denmark. I looked up a little history about C4 and this is what I
found:
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56,000 pieces of glass
make up this mosaic |
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| Gate to a family chapel |
He was one of the most popular and ambitious kings of
Denmark.
He fought in a lot of wars for
land, for religion (keeping Catholicism out), and brought into the region a lot
of culture.
He was also instrumental in
Norway, ruling there on and off for a few summers.
He supported silver mines there and named
four cities.
He was also
prodigious:
he had no fewer than 19
legitimate children and several more with his mistresses.
Naughty boy :o)
From there, we finished up our tour.
We saw the excavation of St. Birgitta’s
chapels which is where the current queen, Margrethe II, and her husband will be
buried.
They are going to be buried in
glass coffins.
We saw the examples of
them and I think they look a
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| Future sarcophagus |
little creepy.
Her parents are buried outside.
The only king and queen to be so.
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| Cute town of Dragor |
From there we walked back to the car and we went to a Viking
Museum in Dragør.
It was a wonderful
place!
There are five ships that were
found in the fjord. They were, of course, in pieces after hundreds of
years.
In the 1960s, they were removed
from the muck and were restored as much as possible so scientists and
boat-makers could rebuild them.
In
Viking times, these boats were used to prevent enemies coming into the area by
leaving them in the fjord as a blockade.
Over time, of course, they sank.
There were five boats and each one of them was rebuilt for sailing in
current day.
When we arrived, the largest war ship was filled with paying
tourists who were on their way out of the area to sail up the fjord. We had to look this up, but the difference
between a fjord and, say, a bay or an estuary, is that a fjord is the result of
glacial carving. Usually they are carved
through mountains and leave high walls.
But, as Gill noted, there aren’t any walls in Denmark. It’s too flat :o) But, it’s also a narrow area, that’s like a
river, except there is no exit, like a bay.
So, it’s a fjord. Chesapeake
Bay? A Bay. No glacial carving. It’s not terribly narrow either. And, we’re in Scandinavia….it’s a fjord.
Back to the boats that sailed on the fjords: The smaller boats were probably used for
commerce and trade. The middle sized
boats were used for smaller battles.
There was also the one larger war ship.
In the museum they keep the remains of the ones found in the fjord. The rebuilt ones can be found in the water
and can be sailed. If you go to the
website (below) you’ll be able to see what I’m describing.
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The ship Klaus worked on:
the Viking longboat |
The coolest thing about the boat is that Ronnie’s friend,
Klaus, had worked on the boat helping to rebuild it.
A few years ago, after they finished the work
on the large warship, they took it on an ocean voyage to Dublin, Ireland, which
is where they believe it was originally built.
We were able to stand on ½ a replica in the museum and watch a movie
about the trip. Definitely not for me!
One of the interesting things about the ships is that they
were open to the elements. It’s like a
100 foot long row boat, except it had a sail.
One, it is an imposing ship.
Huge, impressive, and swift.
However, (two), it is open to the elements. I cannot imagine sailing from Norway to North
America!
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| One of the restored boats |
An interesting fact that I did not know is that there were
actually three kinds of Vikings:
Norwegian, Swedish, and Danish.
The Danish plundered and explored south around England and France and
into Spain.
Swedish Vikings plundered
and explored south into Turkey and the eastern Med.
Norwegian Vikings were the ones who went west
toward Greenland and into Canada.
I
didn’t realize there were three different factions (as it were) who sought to
overtake different parts of the world!
Carroll will appreciate that, in fact, Norwegians do not seem to be the
center of the universe and all things human (long back story there).
In fact, the Vikings who went into France,
England and Spain were Danish.
So….I
suppose we are all a little bit Danish at heart!
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Gill, Maggie, & Cathy
dressed up as Vikings! |
I tried on some typical Viking clothing and Gill put on a
gown to have our picture taken with Maggie Moo….just the three girls. The boats from which we watched the movies
were pretty interesting. I told you the
one was ½ of the war ship. The other one
was a smaller one that was probably used for trade. They had examples of things that they would
have traded like wool, sheep pelts, bones, grains and jewelry. They also had examples of the sails. They figure they were made with linen, hemp,
or wool and then slathered with some sort of oils to make them wind resistant.
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| House built in the early 1600s |
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| Another 1600s home |
After we’d exhausted that museum, we drove to a lovely little
city called Køge.
They took me here so I
could see a “typical” Danish village.
There were buildings as old as 1611 and they looked distinctly
Shakespearean.
We sat in the town square
and watched them take down the market and drank a glass of wine.
The fun thing was that they had fleece
blankets so we could stay warm.
Imagine
going out for a quick drink and having to use a blanket to stay warm?!
Hahahaha….it was silly, but very clever that
we could stay warm.
We then came home and Ronnie grilled a pork tenderloin and
we had a lovely dinner.
I showed them
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| Ronnie & Gill! |
quite a few photos of the entire family, which they enjoyed.
Gill was especially interested in the
pictures of my mom since they were childhood friends.
At first, she said she didn’t recognize her,
but then in another photo, she said she looked just the same!
It was fun!!
The World Cup is going on, so Ronnie begged off chatting and went to
watch the game.
I completely
understand…it’s a huge deal! Gill and I chatted for a little while more and now
I’m in bed, getting ready to sleep.
Another wonderful day….the weather has been blissfully cool,
sunny, and windy. I am pleased with it
and wish it would be like this in Italy!
Ugh, not looking forward to the heat and humidity! Tomorrow we are going to look at castles and
see the Little Mermaid. Cannot wait!
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