Scan Magazine | Attraction of the Month | Denmark
Photo: Werner Karrasch. Copyright: The Viking Ship Museum, Denmark
Attraction of the Month, Denmark
Discover the history, culture and nature of Zealand’s new national park This spring sees the reinauguration of Skjoldungernes Land National Park, the fourth area to have received the status of national park in Denmark. The park, which is the first national park on Zealand, presents visitors with an intrinsically Danish combination of leafy woodland, a beautiful fjord, old manors, and thriving, local communities. The area, which has been inhabited since the Stone Age, is also known for its many historic monuments, including several cromlechs, Viking ships and castles as well as the UNESCO-listed Roskilde Cathedral. By Signe Hansen | Photos: Ole Malling
Since the glaciers of the last Ice Age retreated, the area that makes up Skjoldungernes Land National Park has comprised many advantages for its human inhabitants. It continues to do so and is today the home of a string of thriv108 | Issue 97 | February 2017
ing countryside communities. But located just half an hour west of Copenhagen, it also has, thanks to its many natural and historic sights, become a treasured national attraction. “Because of the difficulty of cultivating the landscape, which
is characterised by a lot of small hills and large glacial valleys created during the last Ice Age, large areas of land have been left in their natural state,” explains Malene Bendix, the park’s communications coordinator. “But people have been living here since the Ice Age, and within the national park we have cultural remnants from all the different stages of human development.”
Unspoilt nature Skjoldungernes Land National Park includes some of Zealand’s greatest woodlands, lakes, streams, meadows and bogs, which form the habitat for a diverse