Overgade - A street with Viking roots

If I feel like walking in the footsteps of history, I take a stroll along Overgade and Vestergade. There are plenty of shops and people around, and the ghosts of the past seem to walk with you, because this street has been Odense’s main thoroughfare and backbone ever since the city began to take shape in the Viking Age.

Mikael Manøe Bjerregaard, archaeologist and museum curator at Museum Odense

A road with more than 1,000 years of history

Overgade and Vestergade follow an ancient route that became an important part of Odense’s early street plan. Archaeological investigations show that Overgade-Vestergade served as the city’s main east-west thoroughfare and was also part of the old route across Funen.

Beneath the present-day street, archaeologists have found older road surfaces dating from the late Viking Age and early Middle Ages. Layer by layer, they reveal how people moved through the city along much the same route for centuries.

Trade, everyday life and religious processions

As the city’s main street, Overgade and Vestergade naturally became a place for trade, crafts and people passing through Odense. Archaeological investigations in the area have uncovered traces of buildings, craftsmanship and early infrastructure.

After the death of Canute the Holy in 1086, the streets also became part of the city’s religious life. During the annual celebration of the saintly king, his shrine was carried in procession through Odense.

Here, several layers of the city’s history come together: trade and everyday life, royal power and faith – along a route that is still a central part of Odense today.

The old road lies beneath your feet

Most of the earliest road is now hidden beneath the modern city. But when you walk along Overgade and Vestergade, you are still following the main route that has shaped the development of Odense for more than a thousand years.

The city has changed around it, but the route itself has endured. This makes Overgade and Vestergade one of the places where the connection between early Odense and the city of today is particularly tangible.

The drama lies just beneath your feet

The old road beneath Overgade and Vestergade is only one of the traces of Viking Odense. Follow the Viking route to churches, burial sites, Harald Bluetooth’s ring fortress at Nonnebakken and other places where the early city has left its mark.

Follow the Viking route and discover more places where history still lies just beneath your feet.