Among Viking edifices, their circular strongholds are some of the most impressive. Trelleborg in West Zealand and Fyrkat near Hobro in Jutland are the most clearly visible. Alongside the strongholds, Viking museums have been established to exhibit the excavated finds, reconstructions of stronghold dwellings have been erected, and in summer these sites host Viking combat re-enactments and Viking markets.

Without its ships the Viking Age would never have been the great era celebrated today. The Vikings struck fear and terror into the hearts of men wherever they went, but their ships compelled boundless admiration. Visitors to the maritime history museum containing The Viking Ship Museum have the chance to sense the awe for themselves. This museum is built up around a find of 5 shipwrecks from Viking times, which testify to the legendary ship-building skills of the Vikings.

The Vikings erected their monuments on many sites in Denmark. In the Ladby ship on Funen a Viking noble was once buried, while Lindholm Mound near Aalborg is Denmark’s largest Viking burial site, and Glavendrup on Funen has an impressive ship tumulus.

The runic stones are singular testaments to the written language of the Danes, as well as their social conditions and personal circumstances. By far the majority are installed at the Prehistoric Museum, Moesgård, but the two most imposing stones stand where they have stood for a millennium.

Indeed, Jelling Church contains one of the most remarkable monuments of the Viking Age, consisting of two huge mounds, between which are two runic stones. On the largest of these King Harold Bluetooth had inscribed that the stone was erected as a monument to his parents, and that he had united Denmark as a single kingdom and converted the Danes to Christianity. The stone, which is decorated both with the image of Christ and the distinctive ornamentation of the Viking Age, is referred to as “Denmark’s Birth Certificate”.

The recently-built visitors’ centre, Royal Jelling, takes you through the history of the monuments from their erection just under 1000 years ago and up to the present day.

Yet there were people in Denmark long before the Vikings. Ertebølle near Limfjord has a telling testament to the Stone Age Dane, in the shape of a well-preserved kitchen midden! Iron Age finds can be viewed at Lejre near Roskilde and Hjemsted in southern Jutland. The regional and local museums throughout the country hold excellent finds from prehistoric Denmark.

At the National Museum (Nationalmuseet) in Copenhagen and at Moesgård near Århus, prehistoric Denmark is presented right from the Paleolithic Age. Here visitors can view abundant of finds made by archaeologists in the Danish soil over the centuries. The Danish countryside too is full of burial mounds, passage graves and other ancient monuments.