Visiting knights, vikings, and saints

We decided to hit the road on Saturday to see a few more sights.  First on the agenda was a medieval castle called Glimmingehus.  It was built by a Danish knight in 1499 and is the best-preserved medieval manor in Scandanavia.

It was a really fun place.  Kids were free.  Adult admission was reasonable.  They gave you a piece of paper explaining what each of the rooms was used for (even had an English version!) and let you roam freely through the castle.  Not being group tour people, we loved this!

Death trap abouve the front door-- a great way to get rid of those pesky door-to-door salesmen.

We loved that this was a fortress-- not some fancy mansion.  All along the stair case were arrow slits to defend against intruders.  There was also a number of "death traps" where you could pour hot oil down on someone's head.  The castle even had a moat.  We loved that all the windows had window seats cut into the super thick stone walls.

They even had a medeival barn on the property.  It was interesting to see the roof made of straw.  What has been even more amazing is that we have seen a couple of straw roofs like that on houses that are being lived in!

After fully exploring all four floors of the castle, we had a yummy early lunch of chocolate crepes at the castle's cafe and then headed on to our next destination, Ales Stenar (Ale's Stones).

Ales Stenar is an iron age stone monument consisting 59 large boulders arranged in the shape of a ship.  They aren't sure what exactly it was used for, but it is alligned with the sun to be a sort of calendar and is thousands of years old.  Legend says that it was the burial place of a Viking king named Ale.

The walk out to the stones was very peacefull-- across a high prarie.  We saw both the black sheep...

and the lost sheep.

 

The stones are on a bluff overlooking the Baltic Sea.  We enjoyed looking out over the shore and then walked down to the harbor for a closer look.



We drove on to the Ystad-- in truth in search of a McDonald's.  Sometimes you just can' resist the craving for some "normal" food.  Ystad is a port city and it is very compact. Driving the narrow streets looking for parking was a little exciting.  We never did find a McDonald's and had to settle for Max Hamburgers instead.  Oh well, it was food.  Then we wandered around town.  There was a beautiful medieval church, Mariakyrkan, that we were able to see.





And an old monastery, Klostret, that we were able to see from the outside (too late in the day to get inside)