Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
(Dkr36, 50 minutes Monday to Saturday, 80 minutes Sunday). Services run half-hourly to
hourly on weekdays, and hourly on weekends. Trains also run between Tisvildeleje and
Hillerød (Dkr60, 30 minutes) every 30 to 60 minutes.
FJORD TOWNS
Roskilde Fjord slices its way over 30km inland. Several towns lie scattered around its
shores, the best of which is undoubtedly Roskilde itself, an unmissable tourist spot with its
fascinating Unesco-blessed cathedral, Viking artefacts and epic annual rock festival.
Roskilde
Pop 48,720
In July fans pour into town for the four-day Roskilde Festival, which vies with Glaston-
bury for the title of Europe's biggest rock festival. Anyone who's anyone on the interna-
tional scene has played here - past crowds have grunged out to Nirvana, head-banged be-
fore Metallica and busted some moves to the Arctic Monkeys.
If you're not a festival fan, pity the poor fools for their warm beer and toilet queues, and
relish the town instead. Roskilde is justly famous for its superb Viking Ship Museum and
iconic cathedral, the burial site of Danish royalty.
The town itself came to prominence in the Viking Age, when it was the capital of Den-
mark. Harald Bluetooth built Zealand's first wooden-stave Christian church here in AD
980. It was replaced by a stone building in 1026 on the instructions of a woman named
Estrid, whose husband was assassinated in the stave church after a heated chess match
(only in Scandinavia!). The foundations of the 11th-century stone church are beneath the
floor of the present-day cathedral.
Medieval Roskilde was a thriving trade centre and the powerhouse of Danish Catholi-
cism, big enough to support the country's grandest cathedral. The town began its decline
when the capital moved to Copenhagen in the early 15th century, and its population shrank
radically after the Reformation in 1536.
These days, Roskilde is a popular day trip from Copenhagen, a mere 30km away.
