22.08.2011 – 22.08.2011  16 °C

Deliberately started late today as I needed to organise the next phase of my Teutonic trip to Poland. Therefore it was after lunch before I moved out of the hostel and into Copenhagen.

First stop was the National Museum of Denmark. It is situated inside one of the old palaces. The museum has a great collection of peat bog bodies. There are skeletons that have been dated to about 1300 BC that still have hair and clothes attached! The level of preservation that the peat bogs give to a skeleton is really incredible.. here are people who were buried over 300 years ago and you can still see what they were wearing!

The museum also has an incredible collection of Viking jewellery and artefacts (again thanks to the peat bogs of Denmark)—amazing array of Viking weapons.. some of the axes and swords they used in battle are pretty fierce looking.. I can imagine they would have struck fear into their enemies! Probably one of the most amazing finds is a full iron carriage from around the 1200s.. I was surprised by how many artefacts they have actually found in Denmark.

The museum also has a number of runic stones. Runes were used as the first type of alphabet in Scandinavia and were used by the Vikings to record their acts of conquest. The earliest runic stone comes from Kong Harold Blue-Tooth- as an aside, Blue Tooth (the mobile technology) was named after this Viking King!- and this granite slab is on display in this museum (although many of the runes are difficult to read)

After spending many hours wandering the corridors of the Danish museum I decided to go and discover more of the city. By now the rain had abated somewhat so I started the long trek out to the Little Mermaid via Nyhaven. Nyhaven is a waterfront street here in Copenhagen that is lined by outdoor restaurants. I stopped at a local ice-cream parlour and treated myself before continuing out to the Mermaid. Mary was in her castle today so of course I dropped by her house for a cup of coffee and cake (only kidding, I did stop for a photo though). Finally, I made it out to HCA’s Mermaid. She is very underwhelming (and the guides had warned me) but one of those things you just have to do..

Unfortunately the weather again closed in so I decided to call it a day and return to the hostel to upload more of my blogs that are outstanding from the Arctic Explorer.

Early night tonight, as I have to move to a hotel tomorrow (what a shame to have my own space again) before heading out to Helsingor to see Hamlet’s castle, Kronborg.