We slept well and got ourselves up early to check out of our hotel and figure out what train to take to Roskilde, a town straight west of Copenhagen that was originally the more important port city, inside a sound/bay area called the Roskilde Fjord. (And by “originally,” I mean the 8th and 9th century; Copenhagen became the main port in the 11th century, I believe). Once we had our tickets and a departure time, we found ourselves some breakfast to go and traveled the 20 minutes to Roskilde, then had to haul our suitcase and two backpacks all the way to the other end of town, where the Viking Ship Museum was built right on the bay. It was a lovely 20-minute-walk through town, by the ancient Roskilde Cathedral (dating back to the 11th century) and through a park–but it was quite a haul with all our travel gear for the whole week; we were glad the suitcase has wheels! The museum was really interesting–it displays the remains of five different types of viking ships that were excavated here, since they were used–after they’d been sailed as ships in the 10th century–by the vikings to form an underwater barricade in their ship channel, and so got preserved in the water for a thousand years. We watched a film that showed how they were excavated and then painstakingly reconstructed, starting in the 1950s, and then displayed in this museum. Some of them really didn’t have much left than a few boards, but the documentation and the replicas outside in the harbor really made clear what amazing ship builders the vikings were, and the exhibits made clear how far they traveled–not just to Greenland and then Newfoundland, but also to the Mediterranean and on to the Persian Gulf. The outdoor exhibits featured the shipyard, where we could see how the vikings built their boats (very complicated), and how they made ropes and nails etc. There were lots of hands-on activities and even a boat tour, but we didn’t have time for that, unfortunately. Kai was a little disappointed that we couldn’t ride a boat, but he really liked the viking ships. At around 11:30, we took off again and walked back to the train station. On the way, I went into a supermarket and bought us stuff for lunch from our very last 100 or so kroner ($20), which of course went a long way in a supermarket vs. a restaurant, so we had a pretty substantial meal of bread with cheese and cold cuts, yoghurt drinks, fruit, and a huge bottle of bubbly water once we got to the train station. We then caught the very train that we were booked on for the way home to Germany, at 1:20, and were en route back to Osnabrueck for the next 8 hours! We had to change trains twice, but the trip was uneventful and we saw a few interesting sights on the way — especially the view of the Kiel Canal from the high railway bridge in Rendsburg, where my mother grew up and where my grandparents lived, so I knew this was coming and told Mark to take some pictures. We also had enough time in Hamburg to grab some hot lunch (Asian noodles) and take them on the train with us. We were pretty tired when we finally reached Osnabrueck, and delighted that Imke came to pick us up, so we didn’t have to wait for the bus to come and lug our luggage anymore! We were home by 10 and in bed by 11, and glad to be back–although the trip was really lovely!