Yet another Viking settlement to visit today, the Fyrkat Viking Center, which is located near to the city of Hobro on the north-east top of Jutland. Fyrkat is a former Viking Ring Castle dating back to around 980 AD. This is an aerial view of what the ring would’ve looked like.
Fyrkat is organized like the Ribe center in that there are actual people who work there demonstrating ancient Norse crafts and explaining traditions. In the first longhouse, we found a woman who was actually mixing the dough for baking bread. This bread was cooked over the open fire pits in the middle of the structure. Here are some shots:
The unique characteristic of Fyrkat is, of course the ring circle. The site on which the castle was located was excavated and stones were placed to indicate what would have been there and where. But, the stones are lame compared to the actual reconstruction picture above.
From Fyrkat we headed south to Denmark’s second largest urban center, the port city of Aarhus. We checked into the hotel (neat exterior) and went straight to the museum of the ‘Old Town’ of Aarhus. Hans Christian Anderson, the famous Danish fairy-tale author, (think The Ugly Duckling, The Princess and the Pea, just to name two) lived in Aarhus’s Old Town for a while.
After wandering around the Old Town, we decided to explore the ‘New Town’, and ended up having dinner at our second ‘Danish’ restaurant called Frederiksgade 42. The hostess sat next to us and began by saying, “So the concept is sharing food.” The meal turned out to be a very different, but interesting and tasty experience. Everything’s absolutely fresh and the menu consists of 7 courses, which we share. We ate ingredients we’d never heard of before, like moss and wild herbs, and enjoyed every morsel. Nice way to end our day. Here are some pics of the ‘New Town’:
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