Exploring North Zealand

First stop today was about 20 miles west of Copenhagen at the city of Roskilde. This place has royal tombs and old viking ships - plus a neat town. We first visited Vikingeskibsmusett - the Viking Ship Museum. In the 1950's divers found the remains of 5 viking ships in the Roskilde fjord here.They are from over 1,000 years ago. They had been sunk there to blog the passage of enemy ships. We ended up spending several hours there exploring everything. It is really an excellent museum with several short films.

When leaving the viking ships I asked a guide where there was a laundromat and we headed there next. We figured that we saved over $100 doing that instead of having it done at the hotel. That was a good chore done!

Next we headed to the Roskilde Cathedral in the city center. This is a 12th century twin-spired cathedral where the Danish monarchs are buried. The old organ is magnificent! We had lunch by the cathedral and then headed north.

Our next stop was in Hillerod to see Frederiksborg Slot (castle) which is a beautiful royal residence. It truly is magnificent! It is surrounded by a moat and constructed on 3 islands in a lake. They (guide books) call it the "Danish Versailles." We just walked around part of it - it was getting kind of late and we wanted to head further north.

So off to Helsingor and Kronborg Slot. This is the castle made famous by Shakespeare's Hamlet. There is no evidence that Shakespeare ever saw this castle, but he made it famous. So "To be or not to be....." It is also quite impressive, but not magnificent like the previous castle. From the moat here you look just a few miles across the water to Sweden.

By the time we finished all of the above sightseeing it was time to head back to Copenhagen. We did stop at the "Golden Arches"- good old MacDonalds. It is not even cheap here - our meal was around $20.