July 11, 2007 day 3 DENMARK AARHUS

The sunshine yesterday was too good to be true. We awoke to major traffic noises, voices at breakfast at resaurants along the canal right outside of our window, and a steady downpour of rain, rain, rain! Apparently, Sweden and Denmark have had 10 times as much rain this month as is normal.

So, after breakfast and stowing our baggage in the the luggage room at the Cab Inn, we set off with raingear to find the bus to take us 25 minutes outside of town to the amazing Moesgard Museum. Once we got off the bus, we had a hike through a wooded area.
Not only are there two huge buildings which house the exhibitions, but the grounds are equally impressive with Viking houses reconstructed as well as a Stave Church. Here is a link to paste into your browser if you want to find out more about the museum itself: http://moesgaard.hum.au.dk/my.php?top=2&language=1 Moesgard Museum is a museum I had wanted to see ever since our first trip to Europe together in 2002. I have studied and read a book and watched a movie about the Mosefolk or Bog People as they are known. The kids were equally fascinated and read just about everything in English on display.

This is a museum of ethnographical artifacts, the most amazing being the Grauballe Man, a body discovered in the peat bogs of Denmark in 1952 and which is dated as the oldest body found ever. Research has placed his death at around 270 B.C.--from the Iron Age. The body is incredibly preserved due to the properties of the bog, which have also darkened his skin and turned his original hair color to red. Here are some links with more information on this incredible body if you would like to read more. My pictures didn't turn out so well since he is covered in a glass case with very low lighting. Check these out: http://nematode.unl.edu/fensgrauballe.htm AND another (also about some other findings of these bodies, called "The Bog People" first made known to the wide-spread public in P.V. Glob's book THE BOG PEOPLE: http://www.tollundman.dk/grauballemanden.asp And here is a LINK to read/hear Seamus Heaney's poem called "The Grauballe Man" http://www.bbc.co.uk/northernireland/schools/11_16/poetry/war2.shtml




The undigested food was still in the Grauballe Man (called so because he was found in a peat moss in the village of Grauballe, just outisde of the town of Silkeborg, on Jutland, not far from Aarhus), who they believed was 34 years old, somewhat well-off, and who could just about be finger-printed today with the likelihood that his fingerprints would come out about as well as a living person! We were so fascinated and stayed at the museum for several hours.


Another room that really intrigued us was the one dedicated to rune stones. Several rune stones in the exhibit had been found surrounding Aarhus. There was a lot of information on the letters themselves as well as on the rare stones--about 200 found in Scandinavia but only about 20 as old as some of these!

The kids liked hiding behind them and exchanging echoes, too.















We finally hopped on the bus back to the charming city of Aarhus and set out exploring after another delicious meal at Mackie's.





































We sought out Mollestein, a tiny street beside the well-known Cathedral of Our Lady,



said to be the oldest church in Denmark.
Mollestein was a place I had read about because of its charming houses, hollyhocks and roses, and "back to the past" feeling. We were not disappointed!




Here's Carina by the first few houses on Mollestein:




On the way to Mollestein, Inoticed quite a resemblance to old English houses here, too.




We left Aarhus, again feeling that another day would be nice. Because of the incessant rain, we decided not to brave Den Gamle By--an open air, back to the sights, sounds, and smells of the past, museum, but I'd like to return some day to see it. Our 3 1/2 hour train ride back to Copenhagen began at 5:30. We were pretty weary when we finally got to our hotel, Best Western Hotel Hebron, where we stayed last year for a couple of days. We got so comfortable in our room that we decided not to go out to eat but instead to snack on leftovers from breakfast this morning, play cards, read, and just hang out.