This new centre provides access to the world's richest Viking gold-find site, at what was an important ritual centre a millennium ago. Of course the Viking-era wooden buildings are long gone, their outlines marked by granite slabs, but the visitor centre has a beautiful reconstruction of the 1.8kg Tissø woven-gold neck-ring found here along with 12,000 other artefact fragments. Kids can play paint-and-sacrifice or dress up as Vikings, while an English guide-text gives context to the era's religious beliefs.
The skeleton copy beneath glass in the cafe is thought to have been ceremonially executed, then cast into the river mud with his head between his legs. His crime remains a subject of conjecture. A five-minute walk from the centre, there's no charge to use the splendid one-way, glass-fronted, waterside bird-watching hide complete with bird, fish and insect guide boards. There's also an outdoor floating jetty so you can sit meditatively between the lakeside reeds.