St. Paul's Within the Walls Episcopal Church (17 June 2012)

This is a Wikipedia Commons photo of the church, since I didn't get one,
but I love the stripes on it and the little blue dots and rose windows.

When I was in Rome, my plan was to go to an Anglican church on the Sunday morning.  (Anglican Churches turned out to be my go-to churches while I was traveling because they always have services in English and because they seem to often be located near big tourist centers.)  

However, and I cannot emphasize this enough, the Italians take a more relaxed approach to schedules than do the Dutch.  This lackadaisical approach extended to train, bus, and metro schedules and was quite a shock to the system.  For comparison, the Dutch Minister of Transportation got fired after heavy snowfalls disrupted train schedules in the Netherlands for too long.  In Italy, you would probably get fired for sticking to the schedule to closely--or you would run your train into the back of the train in front of you.  

In any case, after the late start from Milan, we made up some time overnight and only arrived in Rome about an hour after schedule.  It meant that I was running a bit late for church.  When you add in some confusion about the streets and things, I ended up missing church altogether.

My plan had been to go to St. Paul's Within the Walls Anglican Church, which has been having services since 1859.  It got its name, apparently, because it was the first non-Catholic church allowed to be organized in Rome, which is pretty impressive, actually.  You can see the official website here.  But if you go here you can see the facebook page (which I think you can see even without a facebook account) and if you click on the photo link, you can see a lot of pictures of the very pretty interior.

I was looking for  pictures of the church and came across this website.  It is a photography and tourism website that deals specifically with Italian churches and cathedrals.  The entry on St. Paul's Within the Walls is toward the bottom of the page but you may enjoy looking through all of the entries.  There are interior and exterior photos, as well as information about the history of the church.

More entertaining, I found a website with "Mystery Worshiper" reviews of various churches.  If you click here you can see a pretty detailed account of what it would have been like to go to church at St. Paul's Within the Walls if the trains had been a bit more prompt.

Just as interesting, I looked through the archives and found reviews of the other Anglican churches I went to while I was in Europe.  

There were loads of reviews on St. Alban's Anglican Church in Copenhagen, Denmark, where Jael and I visited (I posted about that here).  There were reviews from February 1999, November 11, 2004, August 16, 2009, and December 25, 2009.  It seemed like there were some wide variations in the quality of snacks. 

This review of St. Clement's Anglican Church in Prague, Czech Republic is from January 1, 2006, so it was almost exactly six years before I went to the church (I posted about my visit here).  I noticed that the reviewer also noticed how cold it was, except for your feet.

One of the very oddest things I noticed was that the sermons only lasted from 5-10 minutes each, with the average being about 8 minutes.  I just have to wonder what those folks would say if they accidentally wandered into one of Pastor Bradley's sermons!

We're flying!!!

When Jael and I were hanging out in the Copenhagen Airport, we were pretty impressed.  Besides the weird goblin-face art display, they had a science area for kids, although there were a bunch of adults who were checking things out as well.  They had displays on how the length of a pendulum affects its swing and other things.  They had a display on sound waves, too.  There was long tube of water with speakers pointing at it.  You could fiddle with dials to increase or decrease the volume and frequency, which made ripples in the water and, one time when Jael turned one of the knobs, made it almost boil.  That also made a really loud and startling noise so Jael and I quickly zipped away to a quieter display.  They had a mirror display where you could get pictures of yourself "jumping".  It was difficult to photograph effectively.  Also, Jael had trouble trying to smile and stand on one leg at the same time.  It was entertaining.

There were also Lego shops, the most massive duty-free shop complexes I have ever seen, and loads and loads of Danish-themed souvenirs.  They had, for some reason, loads and loads of wooden shoes and "wooden" shoe fuzzy slippers.  I don't know why they were trying to take over the Dutch distinctives but they are, apparently.  It was a pretty good airport, though.

(I do have a few more things to say about what we did in Copenhagen but those are longer and more complicated posts to write that, what with my thesis, I haven't had time to finish like I would like.  So, I've decided to skip ahead a bit and will post some of the other fun stuff we did back in the Netherlands (and hopefully we will get some nifty food posts too (*eyebrow wiggle at Jael*)) and I will get back to the historical stuff when I get some more time.)

Jael and I were right there!

Just coincidentally I found this video of a flash mob in Copenhagen (where groups of people do artsy stuff, in public places, with no warning, just for fun).  Jael and I rode the Copenhagen Metro.  We rode on that line and the metro platform at the beginning looks pretty familiar (although it is entirely possible that other metro platforms look similar).  The point is, we sat on that metro (maybe even that same car!) with whinny babies and people who didn't understand the sanctity of the Stillezone (cars where you are supposed to be quite).  Why didn't we get to see something like this?  It is pretty nifty.  I wouldn't even have minded if they did it in the Stillezone.  Although, to be fair, if the ride was a little jerky, they could put someone's eye out with those bows. . .

The Viking Ship Museum

The Viking Ship Museum was pretty good.  However, they declined to give us our Copenhagen Card discount and we ended up spending more money than we intended which kind of colored our experience.  I think we both liked it but were not entirely sure that it was worth the $10 price tag.  It was a good day to go.  The sky was very blue and the clouds were very fluffy and the sun was very shiny.

Rows of model ships in front of the museums. 

These are the workshops.  They have a few displays here but mostly it is where they build life-size replica ships.  Some of them are for the museum and historical type places but, apparently, they have quite a business building viking ships for private individuals who want sail like their ancestors. 

A church boat--how you get to church if you live in
The Middle of Nowhere, Denmark

The Museum is set up around a huge collection of old sunken viking ships that were found twenty or thirty years ago.  They have all the bits of the ships that they found set up on forms so you can see kind of what they looked like.

The museum also had a series of little dioramas that depicted different things.  This set shows what typical Danish life was like in the viking era.

A large section of the museum was devoted to attacks on the Danes by the Norwegians.  Apparently they didn't get along.  This is the picture that introduced the exhibit.  They don't sugar coat history.  Below is a map of the attack..

There were, according to the exhibit, 108 war ships and 13 cargo ships that took part in the particular attack they were highlighting.  This shows the kinds of weapons that were probably on board the ship.  It looks like they were loaded for bear.  (Or for VIKINGS!  Ha!)

On the left is a diorama of the Danes lighting the signal fires to warn of the incoming Norwegians.

On the left they are skuttling a ship in the harbor to make it more difficult for the Norwegians to get in.  Below you can see the advancing Norwegian hordes.

They had a loom set up with information about the special way they wove woolen sails so that they stood up well to the weather and did not warp.
They also wove clothing.  And the museum had clothes available to try on so that you could look like an authentic Viking.  And, while Jael could have probably fit in the children's sizes, they had some cloaks and things which looked like they were sized for adult men.

Jael checking out the possibilities.  

Jael preparing to deal with some Norwegians. 

Jael beside a replica warship.  The room was set up with a video screen, which was showing a film about some guys who had lived on a replica ship for a couple of months.  There were two ships in the room that you could climb around on and which served as displays and as seating for people watching the film.  

You can see people watching the movie on the left.  I liked the picture because the still of the movie shows the Danish flag flying prettily.

On the right you can see some of the stuff that would have been brought with on a voyage.  The manikin is wearing the outfit of a monk and, if you look closely, you can see the head of a polar bear rug!

They had a display on burial rituals.  It wasn't the prettiest thing.  Abive is a picture of an actual grave.  The guy on the left was the dead Dane.  The skeleton on the right was a decapitated woman, probably a slave, who was killed specifically to be buried with him.  The other picture is an artists rendition of the burial preparations.  The horse looks unamused.

The Viking Museum Port area

The outside work-area where they work on building new replica old ships.

They even had specimens of all of the old varieties of trees that would have been used in old-fashioned ship-building, along with information about what they were used for and why.  There were at least a dozen different trees here, valued for different properties: growing tall and straight quickly, for masts, being flexible but strong and durable in water for the ships sides, etc. 

Roskilde and Inconsiderate People

The second day trip that Jael and I did was to Roskilde.  Once we finally got there, (and once we figured out what direction to go) it was a really pretty town.  They had a trio of giant vases outside the train station.

The train state is a from 1947 but the train line from
Copenhagen to Roskilde has been running since 1847.

The Roskilde train station

Ha!  Jael is short and looking up at stuff again!

This is the city map.  They had them all over the place because the touristy part of the city is pretty spread out.

Convent garden gates

Some detailed medieval murals

The Roskilde Tourist Bureau.  Isn't it old and fancy looking

Roskilde Cathedral

The thing that we really, really wanted to see was the Roskilde Cathedral.  This is the place where almost all of the Danish monarchs are buried, including Margaret I.  It is a really famous cathedral, and very beautiful.  Unfortunately, when we arrived in the city, some guy had died and was having a funeral in the cathedral, which meant that it was closed to visitors.  I mean, it was probably unfortunate for that fellow as well, but it was really unfortunate for us.  I think they could have let us in: we would have been really quite and wouldn't have bothered people or talked loudly.  Fortunately for you, though, I found a video tour of the cathedral and you can see all of the really cool, really beautiful stuff that we missed.  If you click here, you can see the video.

A fancy hammered metal door on the cathedral.  

Since we couldn't go through the cathedral, we strolled through town on the way to the Viking Ship Museum and check out the town.  It was mighty pretty.

There was a really nice park.  They had some cute bouncy animals to ride on and Jael was going to get a picture on one of them on the way back but there were actual kids playing on them when we went back through, so that seemed a little too awkward.  It was really sunshiny and pretty (though still cold) and, with the pretty little canals running through were  awfully picturesque.  

Looking down the hill, over the Viking Ship Museum, and out to the Sound. 

Crocuses.  Did I mention that it was sunny and beautiful out?
This was in the "Byparken" or city park.

I just thought that the house looked cute and like it has eyebrows. The word means "everything desired" or something like that (according to Google Translate).  It makes one curious.  And suspicious.  On the right, is St. Josef's Catholic Church.  Below is the Roskilde Museum and a pretty yellow building.

We walked by a bakery called "Sophisticakes"!

They had a theme going in Roskilde

I took this picture just for Ben.  I do not know why an argyle ice cream cone in a kilt is advertising in-store member-card discounts but I thought that Ben would appreciate the apparent, if inexplicable,  Scottish influence