Day 102 -- Frederikssund and Viking Settlements

Yesterday I went out to Frederikssund to help a colleague get her sail boat ready for the summer.  Frederikssund is normally about an hour commute from here.

They live down the block from the Roskilde Fjord.

Photo courtesy of the wiki page linked above.

A fjord in Denmark has a different meaning than what we think of in America when we think of "fjords".  In Denmark it just refers to any inlet of water.  It is typically made from glaciers just as the more thought-of Norwegian fjords are but the movement of the glaciers are different (from sea onto land, not mountains into sea as in Norway) and lack the dramatic cliffs on each side.  It was still really pretty and great being by the sea.  I saw lots of swans in the water.

I arrived around noon and we had a delicious Danish lunch, lots of bread, pickled and smoked fishes, cheeses, hard boiled eggs and cherry tomatoes.  After a coffee in their greenhouse (and some rosemary/lemon shortbread cookies I brought) we headed down to the boat.  Our task was to remove the wooded scaffolding on top of the boat which the boat cover rests on.  It is very large and requires one person to hold the beams of wood while the other person unscrews every piece.  We managed to do it without me falling over the side of the boat, without Marianne falling off the ladder, and without me dropping a single beam on either her or the boat.  I'd say it was a success!  The boat is still on it's foundation scaffolding on dry land so it is very good I am not really scared of heights because it was pretty high up there.  Next step is to polish the boat and apply some anti-fungal paint but someone else will be helping with that.  I did offer Collin and my services for any future work, and in return they promised to take us out on the boat this summer.  I'm looking forward to it.

After returning from the boat we shared some beers in their greenhouse again...5 degrees (Celsius) outside but 17 degrees in the greenhouse.  And then went for a long walk along the fjord.  Frederikssund also has a Viking reconstruction site.  These houses are all based on houses that were excavated nearby in Denmark in the 90s.  All the small ones (5 in total, I think) are sunken houses about 50 cm to 1 m below sea level and used as temporary houses or workshops.

There is also a long house which would have been used as lodging, both for people and animals.  The door was really pretty.  We couldn't go inside the long house though.

And there was also a communal eating/lounging area for dining al fresco

Behind the settlement there is a stage (which I did not take pictures of) where in the summer they put on Viking shows including the blowing of Viking horns.

Photo courtesy of Mary Brett from the vikingespil.dk website

After our walk and tour of the settlement we headed back to their house for a delicious dinner of roasted chicken thighs in lemon and thyme with rice, cabbage, salad, and scorzonera (a root vegetable I had never had before).  It was all very tasty.

(photos courtesy of google, and not my actual dinner last night)

The trip back home was easy enough.  It was really nice to get out of the house for the day, do some manual labor, and have some excellent meals with good company.