DenmarkDream (part4)

The Viking Ship Museum locates in Roskilde. The indoor exhibition is quite fast seen. One hour is enough for that. The point is to go there on a beautiful day and spend time on the outdoor area where you can explore interactive boatyard.

If you are going by foot from Roskilde railway station's direction to The Viking Ship Museum don't get confused despite you don't have a map. It is signed and the walk leads through  path passing local park. The signs are not very close to each others, just keep on walking downhills until another sign is placed. When you are coming up from the museum good choice is to walk through the park.

We met Roskilde more silent and smaller than Copenhagen. Someday it would be nice to stay there longer.

Roskilde Cathedral is on the world heritage list. It locates on the way down to The Viking Ship Museum to where the road leads between the cathedral and these yellow houses.

DenmarkDream (part3)

National Museum of Denmark was interesting place but a small disappointment in Copenhagen. Its wide collection included a bit too few Viking items... In our opinion. We expected to see more of them there. Despite these swords are beautiful craft they are not Viking ones.

Thanks to a friend we were advised to visit Glyptoteket in Copenhagen. If you are interested about very old statues this is the right place for you. There were sculptures from different times.

One of touching statues was Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux's Negress. He made few similar sculptures. About The Negress they say he did it to emphasize the horrors of slavery. This Negress is pretty similar and from the same time so we can assume the aim was the same with this statue despite I didn't find any exact information abut that. This was the first old statue I have ever seen describing the slavery and creating a strong opinion about it on the time when sculptures had been made only of gods and wealth people. If I could, I had grab Negress in my armpit and carried it to home. It was so wonderful and important.

Other thing that I learnt in Glyptoteket was that at least some of ancient sculptures in Greece and Rome were actually painted with strong colors. Wow! See above the real old head statue and modernized one!

Think about all these statues standing there painted looking real and alive. Wow! That must have looked scary. Like at Madame Tussauds!!! Except these were made on the time no TV, internet or even photographing was discovered yet!

Our journey included also Christiansborg Palace's The Royal Stables. We saw no horses because they were on pasture; but still the stables were something horse lovers had to see. Christiansborg Palace gets ten points of it that you can buy also an entrance to one area or one ticket that includes it all. It is up to you, your timing, interests and budget.

The Round Tower is seen pretty fast but is very interesting because of its form. It has been built in the way you can go up by horse-drawn carriage! Up on the top is observatory which is not open daily so check up the dates if you want to go all the way up there.

Instead of seeing more abut Christiansborg Palace we went to see Rosenborg. All I can say about its shine is that all that seems ruby is ruby, all that seems topaz is topaz... it all is real. That is why there are also armed soldiers to guard the treasures.

It all really is worth of seeing. Just take your time ond don't rush on. Children under 17 years get free admission (like at many museums in Denmark) and if you are on low budget but still want to enjoy a bit of history and luxury; go to a local grocery nearby, buy some picnic lunch and go to the free garden of Rosenborg to enjoy about sunny day! The garden itself has many things to see.

The Old Citadel -Kastellet- is also free open air sightseeing in Copenhagen. It is nearby Little Mermaid so it is reasonable to mix these two sight seeings together if the weather is pretty enough. Local people seem to use the area also for jogging and other sport activities. The path that circles around the citadel creates enough challenge also for experienced runner. Why not to try out!

DenmarkDream (part2)

 

You can not experience Copenhagen without Hans Christian Andersen. He was born in Odense where he lived his first 14 years but died in Copenhagen where he lived most of his adult life and wrote his stories.

In Copenhagen Ripley's The World of Hans Christian Andersen has its good sides but is also a bit boring with listening the fairy tales we've read so many times. We liked about the part where they had put it all look like the streets and houses from his time. It was really fascinating and true feeling. It's open from 10 am to 10 pm which makes sure you can reach it easily.

The Little Mermaid statue is one of the things you must see in Copenhagen. Here are two pics of it to show you how to get a good pic of it to exclude out the city view behind.

St. Nikolaj Church is today Contemporary Art Centre Nikolaj Kunsthal. We didn't visit it because modern art doesn't fascinate us so much and our days were full booked just to get familiar with interesting building. It locates buy -again- one pretty street Nikolaj Plads.

Nyhavn is the place from where you usually see pics describing pretty old harbor in Denmark tourist pics. It do is a pretty place but pretty streets are elsewhere too. What a bit disturbed me in Nyhavn was that all the restaurants seemed to be full of smokers and alcohol so we rather seek a place to have a dinner somewhere else because of YoungLady. In Finland it is not allowed to smoke in public buildings or restaurants unless signed a special place for that. Also serving alcohol seems to be more free in Denmark. But Nyhavn really is a pretty place to walk a round a bit. Like Little Mermaid statue; Nyhavn itself is a free place to see around a bit of the Danish world.

DenmarkDream (part1)

TaijaSTravelAgency started to work before last Xmas. This time it was easier job than last year's ScotlandStory. It was not going to be a round trip. It was going to be easy self guided holiday in Denmark...

...around Copenhagen... one of those places I have wanted to see since my early teens...

Planning the journey was easy. If you have never made a self guided trip, Denmark is excellent way to start it. Including children.

In Copenhagen everyone seem to speak English, public transport system is easy to use and very good, all the instructions are available in English...

If you are a budget traveler, shopping is something you should not expect to do in Copenhagen. The shops seem out to be at least as expensive as in Finland. Quality is good too, but if you are on a low budget; go shopping somewhere else. Eating in restaurants is quite expensive too; but on the other hand the portions are good size.

We didn't buy much from Copenhagen because we can get the same products in Finland too. They even sold Moomin and Marimekko designs there. What I brought as souvenir was actually packs of Danish chocolate toppings for breads. Very interesting and fascinating way to have a bread! Yummy! (You can not find them from souvenir shops but at few local food markets by breads and biscuits.)

More than shopping we wanted to see some places and experience a bit of Denmark.

We visited very beautiful Rungsted harbour  (Rungsted Havn). We had a good lunch at The Captain on the harbor area. After the lunch YoungLady had soft ice cream at a kiosk on the harbor.

But why we actually ended up to Rungsted was Karen Blixen Museum. Have you heard abut her? No? Really? How about Out of Africa? Oooh! There, you got it! SHE is Karen Blixen! But she is actually more than just a heroine of a romantic film out in Africa. She was very advanced woman at her time also what comes to reducing discrimination and her employees at the African farm. She even put up a school for her workers' children.

There is large area of Garden and Grove with Bird Sanctuary. You can find Karen Blixen's grave there under a huge beech tree by a beautiful Ewald Hill.

You can find there also cherry trees and roses...

In the museum was also so activity for children (and creative adults). YoungLady colored two pixies (above) and I one (on the right). We placed them in the fairy land.

What a beautiful scene inspired by her work. Take a closer look the table and image it into your Home&Garden. What a fabulous idea