Vikings (without my cow-horn helmet)
there on the day I visited, all in costume, learning to make flour and even fashioning Hammer of Thor necklaces from molten metal in the forge – there were no prissy health-and-safety rules for Vikings.
Soon I was learning all about the brave and hunky warriors who once terrorised swathes of Europe, North America, Central Asia and North Africa. For a start, the aforementioned pillaging and associated anti-social activities were not compulsory. The Vikings were as much traders and explorers as raiders and invaders.
Secondly, men displayed how well they’d done for themselves by dressing in the most expensive cloth they could afford. I was offered a costume that seemed to have belonged to the Donald Trump of Vikings, with a peculiar hairpiece and voluminous breeches that were impossible to walk in.
Undaunted, I still had some pillage-style fun waving a sword around and wearing a rather splendid full-face helmet.
It’s fascinating, with displays of intricate jewellery, iron axe heads, delicate glass beads, coins, heavy swords, huge picture stones and, of course, ships. The surviving timbers of a 110ft-long Viking warship, the longest ever found, form the centrepiece of the exhibition. It’s blood-stirring stuff.
At the Viking Ship Museum in Roskilde, which was the capital of Denmark during the Viking Age between the late 8th and 11th Centuries, you can see five restored ships from the 11th Century. After a look around, you get to the chance to row a ship out into the fjord using massive and very heavy oars.
Roskilde also has a splendid cathedral and market square that are worth a peek. At the Restaurant Snekken you can even tuck into an authentic, Viking-style meal, featuring lots of cabbage, apples, pears, berries, hazelnuts, roast pig, bone marrow and beer. Very tasty it was too.
That night, I stayed at the 34room Dragsholm Castle, not Viking but one of the oldest castles in Denmark, and very atmospheric.
Trelleborg, near Slagelse, is a royal Viking fortress built by King Harold Bluetooth (did you know Vikings indulged in decorative tooth-filing? Nice) in 980AD, where more than 1,500 Viking relics have been excavated, including a unique Danish Viking shield.
An hour’s drive from Copenhagen is the Gerlev Games Park, where you can try out more than 140 games from the past. One of them is called Giving Birth To A Bear, and involves two strapping Viking types locking legs, and sandwiching a third player – the ‘bear’ – between them, who then has to try to escape.
Makes a change from pillaging, I suppose . . .