The Vikings are in Berlin!

...and they anchored right across the Government Quarter at Schiffbauerdamm 19!

the "Havhingsten fra Glendalough"(sea stallion of Glendalough) in front of the trainstation Friedrichsstraße and the television tower

Still to be seen and to be visited till September 14th the "Havhingsten fra Glendalough" (Sea Stallion of Glendalough) accompanies the great viking exhibition at Martin Gropius Bau "Die Wikinger"; after the Ai Wei Wei exhibition "Evidence" and the "David Bowie in Berlin"-show to me the third great cultural highlight this year in Berlin.
Next to the largest Viking longboat  "Roskilde 6" (displayed in the ehibition) the "Sea Stallion of Glendalough" is a reconstruction of the second largest Viking boat ever found, the Skuldelev 2.
It is completely handcrafted with axes in the way the original boats were made and built out of oaken wood.
The building of the reconstruction took four years (from 2000 to 2004).
The original boat was built in 1042 close to Dublin in Glendalough.
In 2007 the longboat set out for it's longest voyage from Roskilde to Dublin via the Orkney isles and Scotland and back through the english channel.

Special thanks to Selina Ali and Katrine Volsing for their knowledgable explanation and guidance through the ship!
It was a wonderful experience to smell the tar and wood and feel the (alas..slightly) rocking planques underneath our feet, which left a yearning to learn more about the Viking culture.

The Viking Ship Museum in Roskilde offers e.G. living archaeology boat trips in originally reconstructed longboats out to the Roskilde fjord.

Here you can see a short video on Spiegel TV about the arrival of the Sea Stallion in Berlin.

Visiting details of the Sea Stallion in Berlin.