We decided to spend Tuesday hitting some sites outside of Copenhagen including Odense on the island of Fyn (or Funen) about an hour and a half away and Roskilde on the way back. Our breakfast consisted of pastries and warm drinks from one of the many bakeries inside the train station. We got our tickets, found our train, and were on our way by 10am.
Odense is known as the birthplace and childhood home of local hero Hans Christian Andersen. It's also quite a charming town in spite of a large chunk of it being currently torn up. Apparently they recently discovered Viking age ruins and artifacts buried in the town center and are in the process of excavating it. Some of those artifacts were on display in the Montergarden Urban History Museum which was our first stop. It was actually quite engrossing with displays that mixed artifacts from all time periods so you could see modern tools right next to their ancient counterparts. Some of the interactive displays were fun to play with as well. We spent way too much time there and had to hustle through the rest of our visit to Odense.
We wandered through the little medievalesque streets and courtyards and found the replica corner cottage which claims to be the birthplace of Hans Christian Andersen. Kat was amused that everything in the tiny and cozy cottage was scaled down to her size while I had to duck through every doorway. It had a few informational displays spread throughout a handful of rooms and I thought that was the extent of it, but Kat insisted there was an actual Hans Christian Andersen museum we could get into as well. We went in search of it, skirting construction zones along the way, and found a series of closed and empty buildings where it apparently used to be housed at the time our guidebook was written. It took us a little while longer to find the museum's new home and had to circumnavigate the construction zone once again.
We were still in a bit of a hurry to get on to the next stop of the day so we breezed through the H. C. museum, although it was interesting in its own right. The best part was probably the virtual reality headset that let you experience and explore H. C.'s writing room. We then hustled back to the train station and tried to grab a couple pita sandwiches to go, but ended up missing the next train because the sandwich guy took too long. The next train was in half an hour so we waited it out in one of the ubiquitous Joe & the Juice bars that seem to be everywhere we go. Even though we've seen several in every city in Iceland, Netherlands, and Denmark we hadn't gone in one yet. It turned out to be pretty good juice.
Our train left the station by 2:50pm and our next stop was Roskilde an hour away on the way back to Copenhagen. We were concerned because we had learned that one of the two major sites in Roskilde, the cathedral, would be closed by the time we got there and the other one. the Viking ship building museum, would close soon after we arrived. When we got there we hoofed it double-time down the pedestrian mall, past the closed cathedral which we wouldn't get inside this time around, and all the way to the inlet bay which housed the ship building museum and still had 30 minutes to spare. We got our tickets and quickly took in the exhibits.
It was really cool and worth the trouble getting there. They had 6 partially completed reconstructions of ships that had been intentionally scuttled in the inlet as a defensive measure a long time ago. They also had a really neat replica you could climb in and play around on surrounded by animated projections of a roiling moonlit sea all around you complete with sound effects and lightning flashes. There were even costume pieces hanging on hooks nearby if you wanted to go for the full effect. In the basement they had even more cool stuff about how they found and recovered parts of the wreckage complete with a wraparound screen with underwater footage of scuba divers in action. Too bad we only had 5 minutes left to look around by that time, but all-in-all it was a worthwhile visit.
We set a leisurely pace on our walk back and spent some time checking out the cathedral from all sides and then found a place along the shopping boulevard for some warm caffeinated drinks to keep us going a bit longer. We decided to head back to Copenhagen for dinner and grabbed the next train out of town and we were back by 6:30pm.
I convinced Kat to walk all the way out to the Nyhavn district for dinner, because I wanted to see it and all the sites along the way lit up at night. Kat bundled up in all her coats with a scarf, hat, and hood up to stay warm long enough to make it to dinner. We stopped at a place simply known as Holberg no. 19, which turned out to have great menu with lots of tempting choices. Kat got a veggie quesadilla and I had an excellent tapas spread with olives, nuts, cheeses, meats, salad, and toasted bread. We washed it all down with a couple large beers and we were both delightfully satiated. The cafe staff were very friendly and helpful too, even recommending a few other dinner options that we might enjoy on our remaining nights.
After dinner we took some shortcuts along some streets we hadn't explored yet back to our hotel. At the room we made some plans for the next day and then turned in.
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