Jelling – Vikings, Food and Monuments

This is a combined historical circular tour on foot around the hills and the Church of Jelling including a visit to Café Sejd. Here you can hear the host tell interesting stories while eating and drinking. We start with a guided tour around the hills and the important Runic Stones, where the Wiking king Harald Bluetooth around 965 a.d. wrote on the large stone that he christened the Danes. They are now registered as UNESCO world heritage. If the church, which goes back to ca. 1100, is open, we’ll go in to see it.

After that we walk to Café Sejd close by and – according to your choice – will get a meal or coffee. The Café is renowned because the owner tells cock-and-bull stories as extras to food or coffee. It’s a unique experience one must not miss.

Nørup Church and Engelsholm Castle

The church in Nørup from the 13th century and Engelsholm Castle from 1592 lie side by side. The castle was erected by Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe’s brother, Knud Brahe. In the 18th century both buildings got onion type cupolas, which are very rare in Danish church and castle architecture and were added by the owner Gerhard de Lichtenberg (1697-1764). Onion cupolas are especially known from Russian Churches and Cloisters, but de Lichtenberg was never further away than Flensburg, Northern Germany. Nobody has so far solved the mystery. But they are very special.

We start the tour near Nørup Church, where the guide explains the church’s history and the background for the tower and the onion cupola. If the church is open, we also go inside. After that we move to the extraordinary Engelsholm Castle, which today houses a folk high school, where the park is open for visitors and where we hear about the castle’s history and its onion cupolas, which possibly are the only ones on a Danish castle.

Ravning Viking Bridge and the old trainstation

Ravningbroen [Viking bridge] was created about 980 a.d. during the Viking age which was between 750-1000 a.d. It was 760 meters long and crossed the Vejle river valley at its broadest place, not far from Jelling. The bridge’s foundation consists of 1.800 pillars of up to six meters of hight and 30×30 centimeters in diameter. It was King Harald Bluetooth, who also set the great Jelling stone, who built the bridge, but it is uncertain what it was supposed to be used for. Ravning bridge was actually the longest bridge in the history of Denmark until the opening of the old Lillebæltsbro, a bridge connecting Jutland and Fuenen, in 1935. Close to the place where Ravningebroen stood one can today see a reconstruction of it, visualizing the dimensions of this imposing structure.

Just across from the reconstructed bridge from the Viking period we find the earlier train station of the Vejle track. There you can see an interesting exhibition about the bridge and what archeologists have found and their excavations. Here you can also read about the old rail track and the station.

Legoland – a tour for all ages

In 1932 Ole Kirk Kristiansen extended his carpenter- and furniture shop with the production of wooden playthings. Those soon became the firm’s primary product, and in 1934 the owner invented the name LEGO, a combination of LEG [play] and Godt [good]. That has been the name for it since and is now a worldwide success.

Legoland in Billund opened in 1968 as the first of a number of entertainment parks with LEGO as a theme. The Vejle Guides offer a guided tour to the park, where the guide on the bus tour there informs about LEGO’s interesting history from the 1930s until today. On the way there we pass LEGO House, LEGO’s main office and their factories in the town of Billund.

Upon arrival in Legoland children of all ages are welcome to play on their own. There are also restaurants, a museum and shops in Legoland.