Slagelse Tourist Attractions

The central feature of the town is St Michael's Church (Skt. Mikkels Kirke), built ca. 1330 on the highest hill in Slagelse and restored in 1873-6. It has a memorial, designed by the sculptor Gunnar Slot in 1959, to the Danish resistance movement in the Second World War; next to it can be seen the sculpture "Woman", by Keld Moseholm Jørgensen.Nearby stands the former monastery barn, which was a Grammar School from 1616 to 1809. A prominent pupil was Jens Baggesen (1764-1826), who published the first modern Danish prose.

Fisketorv in the center of Stagelse - note the granite sculpture of 1977 - leads to Gammel Torv. For many years this was the town's commercial center and main meeting place. Queen Margarethe I is said to have crowned her six-year-old son Oluf here.

The oldest building in Slagelse is the Romanesque St Peter's Church (Skt. Peders Kirke), which was later enlarged and altered, partly in the Gothic style. Medieval tombs can be seen in the arms store, and in a chapel is the tomb of St Anders (d. 1205) who had been a leading figure in the town's development.

In the 12th C. there was a monastery of the Order of St John of Jerusalem in the southeast of Slagelse, near the road to Næstved. It was founded by King Valdemar the Great in 1165 and was the chief seat of the Order of St John in the Nordic countries. Hans Tausen, who became a Lutheran in Wittenberg in Germany, went to school in Antvorskov as a 12-year-old and later became a monk. In 1525 he preached the sermon in Antvorskov which opened the way for the Reformation in Denmark (memorial).In 1580 the monastery became a royal residence and was subsequently made into a palace. Today only the ruins can be seen in Antvorskov woods. Some excavated finds are on display in a small museum; these include some limestone keystones from the vaulting and fragments of tombstones. The Danish flag, originally the banner of the Order, is flown from the flagpole by the ruins every Sunday.

7 km/5 mi west of Slagelse lies the interesting reconstruction based on the finds from the excavated Viking settlement of Trelleborg, dating from the years 1000-1050. It consists of a circular rampart together with wooden stakes inserted into the ground, with four entrances. From there four streets, which divide the area into four quadrants, lead to the center; within the ramparts were 16 houses each 29.5m/97ft long with gently rounded walls, four houses being laid out in each quadrant. All the buildings were of wood with thick vertical wall-timbers which were sunk into the ground and supported the roof. There was also a row of houses arranged radially close to the ramparts, and a burial site to the east. The east side of the ramparts was protected by a moat, the other sides being flanked by marshy land and two small rivers. A Viking house has been reconstructed outside the old settlement.