All Summer School participants will be housed at the historical Hotel Prindsen, located at the very heart of Roskilde – one of Denmark’s oldest cities and its capital from the 11th century until 1443.
Rock music, Viking heritage and royal cathedral – one or all of these is what visitors typically associate with the city of Roskilde. But in addition to these and other tourist highlights, Roskilde is a vibrant city, which daily attracts thousands of commuters from the greater Copenhagen area, many of them arriving to study at the wide range of educational institutions the city hosts, from high schools and vocational training schools to institutions of higher education: the Absalon University College and Roskilde University. Especially at weekends, the bars, restaurants, and discotheques in central Roskilde are hosts to a boisterous nightlife.
Since 1971 Roskilde Festival has been an annual eight days of music, art, activism, and camps – it is the largest music and arts festival in Northern Europe. Attracting 120.000 visitors, the festival is a community event run by 30.000 local volunteers, who provide camping security, build stages, staff the festival stalls, etc.
In 2016, the celebration of rock music and youth culture manifested itself further in the opening of the Ragnarock museum, with interactive exhibitions on rock and pop music. The museum is located in the emerging Musicon area; formerly a concrete factory and gravel pit, the making of this new neighbourhood is based on a people-centric approach to urban development, shaped by skaters, artists, and small creative businesses setting the course for the future city development.
The Viking heritage presents itself first and foremost through the Viking Ship Museum, built around five original Viking ships, excavated from the sea bottom of Roskilde Fjord. The museum includes a boatyard – an experimental archaeology research centre that explores maritime cultural heritage and maintains maritime crafts by building full-scale reconstructions of Viking ships using the original crafts and tools, most famously the warship Sea Stallion of Glendalough.
Finally, Roskilde Cathedral, built from red bricks in Gothic style, dates from the 12th century and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, with the sepulchres of all Danish kings and queens from the 13th century onwards in its burial chapels.
The Summer School venue is located just outside the city centre and can be reached by train (3 min.), bus (10 min.), bike (15 min.), and car (9 min.).