Activities all year round at the Viking Ship Museum - an experience for all the senses
You don't have to just look when you visit the Viking Ship Museum. Here you can take part in exciting activities where you use both your hands and your head.
All the activities are organized according to the changing seasons, so there is always plenty to experience at the museum - both outdoors and indoors!
Read more about what awaits you at The Viking Ship Museum.
Welcome to historically good experiences!
Build a Boat workshop
The popular public workshop Build a Boat, gives creative children and adults the opportunity to test their boat building skills.
Sailing trips
Join one of the daily sailings every day until 30 September and experience what it was like to be a Viking on board one of the Viking Ship Museum's traditional Nordic boats.
Welcome to the boatyard
Do you want to become an expert on Viking Ships? Join the tour and learn about how we recreate Viking Ships using Viking tools and techniques.
Viking crafts
Blacksmith, sailmaker, woodcarver and many more.
Children and adults can experience the ancient crafts being brought to life, when we focus on the crafts of the Viking Age.
Explore Shipwrecks at the Maritime Archaeologists' DocuLab
Go behind the scenes in the Maritime Archaeologists' DocuLab. Here you can try your hand at maritime archaeological methods and hear about exciting finds from the past.
Climb aboard
A 3D story about traveling across the open sea.
Climb aboard the merchant ship and the warship, and 'sail along' as the walls come alive and sound and light from above complete the experience.
Audio Guide
Turn on the good stories about the five Viking ships that are on display in the Viking Ship Hall.
A dramatised audio adventure takes children and adults back to the days when Viking ships sailed the seas.
Guided tour in English
The five impressive Viking ships, excavated at Skuldelev in Roskilde Fjord, are the focal point of the guided tour in the Viking Ship hall where we tell the story about the importance of ships in the Viking society.
Help Astrid to solve the MuseumMystery
The MuseumMystery is a digital game that takes you around the Viking ships and through the story of the Vikings' wild journeys.
Bring a smartphone, download the game for free via the 'Useeum' app - and find the thief!
New Nordic Viking food
Café Knarr on the Museum Island is open daily.
Enjoy delicious food and the maritime atmosphere on the Museum Island overlooking the shipyard and the Viking Ship Museum's many beautiful wooden ships.
The Hamlet
The Hamlet is a children's universe where the story of the people who stayed behind when the ships sailed to distant shores in the Viking Age is unfolded.
Here, we encourage playing, trying, and touching everything.
Activities all year round at the Viking Ship Museum
There is always plenty of exciting historical good experiences and fun activities for the whole family at the Viking Ship Museum, both indoor and outdoor - at land and at sea...
Feel the breath of history
The Viking Ship Museum is the only place in the world, where you can go directly from the experience of the original 1000-year-old Viking ships in the Viking Ship Hall and out to the Museum Harbor, where reconstructions of full-size Viking ships are moored.
Explore the reconstructions and the other Nordic boats in the harbor, feel the smell of salt water and tar. Touch ropes and oars as you move from bow to stern in the 30-meter-long Sea Stallion - the world's largest reconstructed Viking ship. You can do it calmly - or jump from seat to seat like a Viking ...
Historical guided tours
The Viking Ship Museum is built around the five original Viking ships from Skuldelev, which are exhibited in the Viking Ship Hall.
The five impressive Viking ships are the focus point of the story of the ships' importance to Viking society. It tells of war, raids, trade and travel - and life in the north 1000 years ago. Our skilled guides bring the original ships to life and put the discovery of the five Skuldelev ships into perspective in relation to the maritime culture of the Viking Age.
It is also the story of how the museum use experimental archaeology by reconstructing Viking ships at the shipyard, and then sail the reconstructions to learn more about the specialized travelling by sea in the Viking Age.
Family tours and activities during school holidays
Take the whole family on an imaginative tour at child's height, where everyone is involved in exciting stories about the mythology of the Vikings, their long journeys and life at sea 1,000 years ago.
Depending on the season and current themes, our skilled communicators vividly tell the old legends and share their knowledge about the Nordic gods. 'Viking Talks' are held on various topics and everyone can go along in a 'battle' in the lightning-fast longships. The special family tours are organized so that everyone in the family can join.
» See in the calendar what is happening on the day you plan to visit the Viking Ship Museum...
The Boatyard is the heart of the Museum Island
In the middle of the Museum Island is the boatyard. Here, boat builders reconstruct Viking ships and build other traditional wooden boats. The smell of fresh wood tar fills the air and the sound of the boatbuilder's axe against the tree echoes rhythmically across the shipyard.
Craft dissemination
During the year, the focus is alternately on the many different maritime crafts linked to boat building in the Viking Age. Depending on when you visit the museum, you can go through warrior training, meet the blacksmith, 'lay' rope or carve wood together with the museum's skilled craftsmen and mediators.
Sailing reconstructions of Viking ships
In the summer, you can board the reconstructions and the other Nordic boats that are docked in the museum harbour. Most of them have been built at the Viking Ship Museum's shipyard over the past 40 years. Smell the salt water and tar. Touch ropes and oars as you move from bow to stern in the 30-metre-long Sea Stallion - the world's largest reconstructed Viking ship. You can do it quietly - or balance from tuft to tuft like another Viking...
In the winter, you can walk all the way around the ships on land and touch the clinker-built boats. See the fantastic craftsmanship carried out by the Viking Ship Museum's boat builders, who uphold the unique Nordic clinker boat tradition, which is included in UNESCO's list of the world's intangible cultural heritage.
Sailing on the Roskilde Fjord
Every day during the summer from 01 May to 30 September you can experience what it was like to be a Viking on board one of the traditional Nordic boats, which are the direct descendants of Viking ships. Everyone on board takes part in rowing, setting the sail and other ‘sailor’s work’.
» Learn more about the sailing trips and book for 2024 here
Café Knarr at the Museum Island
Enjoy the atmosphere on the Museum Island and eat New Nordic Viking food in the Café Knarr, which is located with a view of the shipyard and the Viking Ship Museum's many beautiful Viking ships and historic wooden boats.
Read more about all the things happening at the Viking Ship Museum below
Events
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Sail out on Roskilde Fjord - daily summer sailings
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Viking Camp at 'Strandengen' - the beach meadow
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The Maritime Archaeologists' DocuLab
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11:00: Guided tour in the Viking Ship Hall (ENG)
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12:00: Guided outdoor tour at the Boatyard (ENG)