Spring Tour 2025 – Denmark, Part 2: Odense, Æroskøbing, and More Vikings

Here is the second part of my Back with Booty posts from Denmark (the first can be found here). 15 days won’t cover the country – even leaving out Copenhagen and surroundings which I visited years ago – but proved sufficient to see quite a few interesting places.

Odense, lane in the old town
Odense is another town whose origins go back way into the past. The first time the name appears is a charte in which the German Emperor Otto III granted rights (unspecified; have to research that for future posts) to Odense in 988, but archaeological finds go beyond that. Odense had been a Vking settlement – one of Harald Bluetooth’s ring fortresses was buit here – though that past is mostly hidden under the present town.

Odense, Blackfriar’s Square
Odense thrived in the Middle Ages, churches and monasteries were built, as well as handsome houses by merchants and major craftsmen. A large fire in 1247 (during the conflicts of one of the dysfunctional royal families) proved no major setback, albeit several damaged churches were rebuilt in a more 'modern' Gothic style. Prosperity continued after the Reformation – many of the fine houses date to the 16th and mid-17th century, but then an increase in taxes (result of the lost Dano-Swedish War 1657/58) led to a period of stagnation.

Street in Odense
In the late 18th century, a canal was built from Odense harbour to the fjord at the Baltic Sea to faciliate the passage of larger ships, and since the 1840ies, industrialisation brought new prosperity to the city.

But not everyone participated in that development; there were still many poor people (living, like in the towns I mentioned in the first post, in those now so pretty little houses). The parents of Hans Christian Andersen (1805-1875), the famous Danish writer, were of those poor. Andersen could only attend high school and university thanks to grants.

Odense, gardens of the new Hans Christian Andersen Museum
Odense is proud of its famous citizen and has built a new museum – Andersen’s birth house has been one for a long time – a modern site, designed by the Japanese architect Kengo Kuma, that opened in 2021. I have not visited it since it is more a virtual and interactive presentation of Andersen’s fairy tales, but the gardens with the rotunds are free for everyone. The main museum is underground.

Funen Village Museum
One of the highlights (besides the Viking Village near Ribe and the Vindelev treasure, see below) was the open air musem Den Fynske Landsby (the Funen Village) near Odense, which reminded me of a similar one in Molfsee near Kiel in Germany I mentioned at the end of this post. It was interesting to compare the styles of the houses and farms.

Funen Village, the inn
The Funen Village opened in 1946, but its establishment began in 1944 during the German occupation in WW2. Many old houses and farm buildings – most of them half timbered and with thatched roofs – from the 18th and 19th century had fallen into disuse and were replaced by modern stone buildings, which was felt to be a shame, because the past vanished. So the idea was born to dismantle such buildings and reassemble them in one place.

Funen Village, interior of a house
The village presents 25 buildings, farmsteads, crofter houses, a parsonage, a school, a watermill, a windmill, an inn (fully functional, though the food is modern, no gritty flour with chaff) and more. The oldest building dates to 1692, the youngest is from 1893. Besides the houses, there are also gardens, stables and pasture with livestock, and arable fields. In all, the village looks like something Hans Christian Andersen would have seen in his life, and it was a really nice place to explore on a sunny day.

Funen Village, a landau, with the parsonage in the background
Of course I wouldn’t miss one of Denmark’s most famous historical sites: The rune stones and burial mounds at Jelling. The older stone reads: "King Gorm made these monuments in memory of Thyra / his wife, Denmark’s bót." The meaning of bót is discussed, it can mean "Denmark’s adorment" but also "Denmark’s salvation". There are no contemporary sources outside the rune stones, but later sources present Thyra as a politically active queen who supported her husband.

The older Jelling stone, front side
The second stone was erected by their son Harald Bluethooth in honour of his parents, and to mark the Christianization of the Danes he had undertaken. Besides the text, there are a depiction of Christus and animal ornaments.

Gorm the Old (*~ 900 – † 958 or maybe 963) was a Danish king – whether he ruled all of Denmark is dubious, more likely he ruled over Jutland – with a semi-legendary ancestry. Not much is known about him except his marriage to Thyra and being the father of Harald Bluetooth and perhaps other children as well. About Thyra, even less is known.

Jelling, the church and one of the burial mounds
Gorm’s son Harald Bluetooth is connected with the Viking Treasure of Hiddensee, and more shinies can now be seen in Jelling. I was lucky, since the exhibition of the Vindelev Treasure that has been discovered a few miles outside Jelling in 2020, had just opened two days before I visited the the museum.

Jelling, a piece of the Vindelev Treasure
The Vindelev Treasure is older than the finds of Hiddensee; the pieces date to the 5th/6th centuries AD and were deposited in a bog in the 6th century, during the Migration Period. It is assumed that the treasure was laid down as a sacrifice (which means that I’ll have to go back to the comment section of the Hiddensee post where I discussed the problem of safekeeping/sacrifice).

If someone thinks that the guy on the medaillon looks Roman – yes, he does; it’s Constantine the Great. Among the finds were not only 'Nordic' gold bracteates, but also Roman coins and medaillons. Trade connections and maybe even personal meetings went quite far at that time.

The Ladby ship burial
Another Viking site not far from Odense is the Ladby Ship. It is the only Danish ship burial (Norway got several), and the Danes were pretty excited when it was discovered in 1935. The conditions in the mound did not preserve wood very well, so most of what can be seen are impressions of the ship’s planks in the earth. Iron, on the other hand, preserves well, thus lots of nails and rivets have been found (in other sites, sometimes the timber is better preseverd and small iron objects rusted away). Most bones of the buried chief are missing, but those of several horses and dogs have been found, together with pieces to their tack.

Ladby is the only ship burial that has been conservated on site by encasing the ship in glass in an oblong room, and recreating the mound over it. The dim lights make it truly a burial.

Kerteminde, another pretty Danish lane
When traveling to somewhat remote places by public transport, I usually have to aim for a nearby town with a bus/train connection and then catch a local bus, or walk a few miles, ask for a ride, or take a taxi. Though that way I often had some time to explore the towns

Kerteminde is one of those cute little towns with cute little houses. And a coffe shop with yummy cakes. *grin* Settlement in the area goes back to the 11th century, but rights of town were granted Kerteminde only in 1413. Like most other historical places, the town lies directly at the Baltic Sea coast.

The double houses of Egeskov Castle
Egeskov Castle is one of the main tourist attractions on Funen. It is a handsome Late Gothic building with a spacious park, a vintage car museum and a large children’s playground. I was warned not to go there on a weekend, but under the week in pre-holiday season it wasn’t too crowded.

Egeskov Castle, the great house
Egeskov was built by the Danish nobleman Frands Mikkelsen Brockenhuus (1518-1569), military leader, diplomat, and member of the Royal Council, in 1554, though an older building on the grounds is mentioned in 1405. Since there had been a civil war just a few years prior (the Count’s War 1534-36), Brockenhuus made sure the castle was well fortified. He would die in another conflict, the Nordic Seven Years War (1563-1570), one of the many sub-conflicts in the Nordic Wars over the dominance in the Baltic Sea that lasted from 1554 to 1721.

Egeskov Park, the tulip garden
Brockenhuus bought a lot of adjacent land and added the first park. The castle itself was erected in the lake, resting on oaken pillars (it is said he used up a forest of trees, thus the name Egeskov – oak forest). Access originally was by a drawbridge.

The estate came to the Bille-Brahe family in 1784 and was inherited by the counts Ahlefeldt Laurvid-Bille who still own the castle and park.

Svendborg, the harbour
Svendborg is another town with a number of nice old houses, but I admit, I didn’t take so many photos this time. I got enough colourful little houses already. And since those houses are lived in, you sometimes get cars parking in front, or the ground floor taken up by stores and boutiques; Svendborg is a shopping town and got a main street full of those.

Ærøskøbing, pretty houses
The old character is better preserved in Ærøskøbing on the island of Ærø. One of the reasons is that its importance never went beyond the local trade and crafts, other than large towns like Aarhus or Odense. So the town was never 'modernised' the way those larger cities have been. Today, the townscape is deliberately kept since Ærøskøbing has become a tourist destination; tourism providing its major income.

Ærøskøbing, more pretty houses
The town dates to 1250, but a fire in 1629 destroyed most of it. The town recovered, though, and the old houses were rebuilt, and newer, somewhat larger ones added that show stylistic influences from Funen and northern Germany. Today, the old houses – the oldest dating to 1645 – are lovingly kept. The paint needs to be refurbished regularly; one lady was painstakingly recolouring a black stripe when I walked through the lanes.

The Baltic Sea near Svendborg
The last afternoon in Denmark ended with an ice cream at Ærøskøbing harbour and a ferry tour back to Svendborg. You know I love being on the water.