Domkirken & Roskilde


Domkirken - Roskilde Cathedral


Located in Roskilde is the Domkirken, which is a Cathedral. This isn't your run of the mill church, though. Why? Many of the Danish monarchs are buried right here INSIDE the cathedral. Most of them have elaborate stone & marble caskets. These are mostly located in rooms off of the main church, but several are buried right behind the alter. There are also many bishops and other important folks buried beneath the floors and such (they don't get their own rooms).

On one hand, it's kind of neat, but on the other hand, kind of morbid to think that you're inside a church surrounded by dead people. Granted, the dead folks are all Kings & Queens, but it's still kind of weird. Anyway, construction on this building began in 1170, but it wasn't completed until 1280 (they're more interested in drinking beer than constructing churches [who can blame them: certainly not me]). It was a catholic church until 1536, but it is Lutheran now (which is the main Danish religion these days). The first monarch buried in the structure was Queen Margrete I way back in 1412. She's just behind the alter.

There's a neat clock at the back of the church. On every hour, the dragon roars as the knight charges him, and then girl pounds out the hour with a hammer on the little bell. Then, the guy strikes out the hour on the big bell with his sword. Ok, this seems a little silly now that it's in print, but it was neat (and it's really old and still works). Remember, you're reading the writings of a man who was giddy-impressed by a Darth Vader made out of LEGOs.

Roskilde is also the home of the Danish Viking Museum. They have lots of replica Viking ships outside, and they are always constructing more in demonstrations (I think they're stocking up for another invasion of Sweden). Years ago, they found five ancient ships that were sunken in the deep part of the fjord so that enemy vessels could not enter the fjord without suffering heavy damage, thus defending the town. Anyway, they went through an arduous process of bringing the remnants of these up and preserving them. They are on display in the museum. There are some other relics there as well, but watching them make the ships is free, and to me, that's the more impressive thing. They also don't talk much about the adventures & battles of the Vikings. It's mostly about how smart they were to preserve so much of the scuttled ships. Big Deal! Where's the old clock or something made out of LEGOs?

Here are the other pictures from our trip (the Kings are in order of their reign):


Christian V - check out the skull wearing the crown!


Go Back to The Safko Copenhagen Page
Go Back to The Safko Main Page

© 2000 Savington Enterprises
EMAIL
US!
mssafko@yahoo.com lsafko@yahoo.com