The Lands Of Bluetooth

King Harald, known as "Bluetooth", united and brought Christianity to what is now Denmark a little more than a thousand years ago. He also ruled Norway for some time.

Scandinavia today seems to be the world's ultimate in peace, prosperity and, quality of life. But that was not always the case. There has been conflicts in the past between Sweden, Norway and, Denmark, and Finland was for a long time part of Sweden.

There has also been unity between Sweden, Norway and, Denmark. The so-called Kalmar Union, in the Fifteenth Century, lasted over a hundred years. There has also been personal unions between the three, meaning that more than one country was ruled by the same king. Although this does not mean that the countries were completely united. Other personal unions in Europe have been the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

During childhood, I spent quite a bit of time with Lego building blocks which originated in Denmark. Haagen-Dasz Ice Cream is meant to evoke Denmark, although it isn't actually Danish.

Copenhagen is the capital of Denmark today, but the story of the country actually begins in Aarhus. Denmark's geography consists of a peninsula, Jutland, and a number of islands. Aarhus is on Jutland and Copenhagen is on the island of Zealand.

Aarhus is a medieval city of Viking origin that is built around a natural harbor. Some of the hills in the city are actually earthwork fortifications left by the Vikings. Aarhus Cathedral is from the Fourteenth Century. The following look at Aarhus begins outside the cathedral.

There are multiple scenes following. To see the scenes, after the first one, you must first click the up arrow ^, before you can move on to the next scene by clicking the right or forward arrow, >. After clicking the up arrow, you can then hide the previews of successive scenes, if you wish.

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Like Aarhus, the capital city of Copenhagen is of Viking origin. The oldest part of the city is known as Gammel Strand. Christiansborg Palace, from the Eighteenth Century, is where all three branches of the government reside. Frederik's Church has a dome like St. Peter's Basilica.

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One of the things that Copenhagen is best-known for is the colorful waterfront entertainment district of Nyhavn, which dates from the Seventeenth Century.

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This is a more everyday part of Copenhagen.

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Have you ever thought about moving to Greenland? The capital of the colony of Denmark and then autonomous region is Nuuk, which is a native name, formerly known as Godthab. Of course, the environment of Greenland is very challenging but Nuuk is not just a set of prefab huts, assembled in the Arctic, it is a real city with an art museum and a golf course.

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Like neighboring Denmark, Norway really began in a city other than the one that is the present capital. Trondheim was founded in the year 997 and was the capital of Norway until 1217. It was known as Nidaros and the cathedral is still called Nidaros Cathedral. The following scenes of Trondheim begin in it's central square.

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Bergen is a city in Norway that is about a thousand years old. These views of Bergen begin at the Twelfth-Century cathedral.

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The capital city of Norway today is Oslo. It was formerly known as Christiania, but that was a Danish name from the time of union between the two countries. The famous Hippie community in Copenhagen is called Christiania. Oslo is about a thousand years old. The following scenes begin at the Thirteenth-Century Akershus Fortress.

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You may notice here that the Scandinavian countries are not fond of skyscrapers. They are not in on the mad race to boast the tallest building in the world. But what they do have is a towering quality of life among the world's nations. But here are the modern "barcode" buildings of Oslo.

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This is Norway's Royal Palace. The Scandinavian countries are actually monarchies but with royal families that are of much lower key than that of Britain. The building with the cylindrical front is the foreign ministry.

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Here is a residential area of Oslo away from the central city.

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Could King Harald, known as Bluetooth, have imagined that, while he was uniting the islands of Denmark to the mainland peninsula and also ruling Norway, a thousand years in the future there would be devices called computers? The computer would have various peripheral devices and a convenient wireless way would be developed to link the peripherals to the main computer that would be named for him in the same way that he had united Denmark.