I visited two of five inscribed Viking Ring Fortresses, the unknown Borgring and the famous Trelleborg on my short trip to Denmark. On the way from Copenhagen to Stevn Klint, just outside the city of Koge, I made a brief stop to see Borgring which was just next to the highway exit. After parked my car on the empty carpark, I found out that I was the only soul, no staff, no entry restriction, so I just entered to see something equally empty! Borgring was like a big playground for kids with big circle ring sandbox. There was nothing to see, no hill, no turf, only some metal or wooden frames and columns doting the whole place. My thought at that moment was “Is this a joke?” before walked back to my car.

Few days later when I drove back from Odense, I made a detour to Trelleborg. At first, I want to skip it after seeing Borgring, but after searching some photo in internet, at least Trelleborg should be more interesting. When I reached Trelleborg, the museum was closed on that day, but thanked to one comment in google review, the fortress could be visited every day via small passage next to museum building. The first thing I saw was the long wooden house, I assumed that this building should be a reconstruction of Viking houses that once located inside and surround the fortress. The boat shaped building and roof line were really interesting. Then I walked to see the fortress ring, along the way there were stones to mark the trace of many Viking houses. The earth mound fortress structure was still in good shape, so I climbed to the top to see the view. Honestly there was nothing much to see, apart from earthen ring fortress. Anyway, Trelleborg was far better than Borgring.

Too bad that all the Viking sites I saw in Scandinavia and Germany were all disappointing in some way. Anyway, the outstanding universal value was truly understandable even from the short visit in Trelleborg. The back stories of all these sites were interesting and promising but the visiting experience was totally different.