FridayOn Friday 7 August, we made the unnecessarily difficult journey to London Stansted airport and flew to Stockholm, the beautiful capital of the Kingdom of Sweden. We arrived in one of Stockholm's airports, which all seem to be located an hour's drive or more from Stockholm, and caught a bus into the city, passing some beautiful countryside along the way. Sweden is the third largest country by area in the European Union at 450,000 square km, but has a population of only 9.2 million, meaning there is a lot of undeveloped land.
When we arrived in Stockholm we caught the metro a few stops and met up with Amy and Warwick. They have been living in Stockholm for around a year and they have an amazing apartment in Ostermalm, close to the city centre.
Saturday
We woke on Saturday morning to stunning sunshine beaming in through the windows. It was a beautiful hot sunny day - Amy and Warwick told us it was the finest weather they had had all year. Apparently summer is not that spectacular in Sweden so we struck it pretty lucky. After breakfast at Amy and Warwick's place, we all walked into the city to explore Stockholm.
It was very nice to be in a city with so much water for a change. We walked along the waterfront and eventually ended up on the small island of Gamla Stan, or the Old Town. We went past the huge Royal Palace and in to the heart of the Old Town. The town dates back to the 13th century, and consists of medieval alleyways, cobbled streets, and archaic architecture. North German architecture has had a strong influence in the Old Town's construction.
We wandered through Stortget, a beautiful large square in the centre of Gamla Stan, which is surrounded by old merchants' houses including the Stockholm Stock Exchange Building. The square was the site of the Stockholm Bloodbath, where Swedish noblemen were massacred by the Danish King Christian II in November, 1520. The following revolt and civil war led to the dissolution of the Kalmar Union and the subsequent election of King Gustav I. Just along from Stortget is a lovely little German church called Tyska Kyrkan. We popped in there briefly for a look - it is very small but beautifully decorated and serves as a reminder of the almost total influence that Germany had over Stockholm during the 18th century.
We wandered through Stortget, a beautiful large square in the centre of Gamla Stan, which is surrounded by old merchants' houses including the Stockholm Stock Exchange Building. The square was the site of the Stockholm Bloodbath, where Swedish noblemen were massacred by the Danish King Christian II in November, 1520. The following revolt and civil war led to the dissolution of the Kalmar Union and the subsequent election of King Gustav I. Just along from Stortget is a lovely little German church called Tyska Kyrkan. We popped in there briefly for a look - it is very small but beautifully decorated and serves as a reminder of the almost total influence that Germany had over Stockholm during the 18th century.
We also checked out a few craft shops in the Old Town before we found a nice little place for lunch called The Temple Bar. We were pretty hungry after all the morning's walking and we had a brilliant and relaxing lunch. After lunch we wandered the Vasterlanggatan, Stockholm's most popular shopping street, where we looked in some souvenir shops, tried on some viking helmets and other crazy hats and watched the crowds gathering around the guy staging an illegal street gambling show. We also walked up the Marten Trotzigs Grand, the city's narrowest street. The street is only 90cm wide!
Leaving Gamla Stan behind us, Warwick and Amy took us across to Sodermalm where we climbed up a steep hill to a look-out platform that has spectacular views across the city and the harbour. We also visited the huge beer garden just behind the look-out platform. It is one of Amy and Warwick's favourite watering holes and we could see why. On a nice day, like we had, it was a perfect place to sit back with a cold drink, enjoying the views down to city below.
We decided it was such a lovely evening that we should have a barbecue for dinner. We wandered back down along the waterfront and made our way back towards to Ostermalm and Amy and Warwick's place - via the supermarket for some supplies. Amy put together some awesome salads and Warwick was in charge of the barbecue. There is a little courtyard in the centre of the three sections of the building where they live and it has a few picnic tables and a barbecue for residents to use. It was such a warm and still evening and it was lovely sitting outside and having a barbecue dinner - very NZ of us!
Sunday
Leaving Gamla Stan behind us, Warwick and Amy took us across to Sodermalm where we climbed up a steep hill to a look-out platform that has spectacular views across the city and the harbour. We also visited the huge beer garden just behind the look-out platform. It is one of Amy and Warwick's favourite watering holes and we could see why. On a nice day, like we had, it was a perfect place to sit back with a cold drink, enjoying the views down to city below.
We decided it was such a lovely evening that we should have a barbecue for dinner. We wandered back down along the waterfront and made our way back towards to Ostermalm and Amy and Warwick's place - via the supermarket for some supplies. Amy put together some awesome salads and Warwick was in charge of the barbecue. There is a little courtyard in the centre of the three sections of the building where they live and it has a few picnic tables and a barbecue for residents to use. It was such a warm and still evening and it was lovely sitting outside and having a barbecue dinner - very NZ of us!
Sunday
On Sunday morning the two of us got up and headed out to explore some of Stockholm's museums. It was another glorious sunny day and the city was so quiet and peaceful as we wandered through. Our first stop was the Vasa Museum, on the island of Djurgarden.
The Vasa was a Swedish warship that was built between 1626 to 1628. After a maiden voyage of just 1300 metres in calm weather, the Vasa tipped over and sank in Stockholm's harbour on 10 August 1628. About 50 people went down with what was supposed to be the pride of the navy. Guns were all that was salvaged from the vessel in the 17th century and it was not until 1956 that a marine archaeologist's persistent search led to the rediscovery of the Vasa. A complex operation ensued and the Vasa was hauled up from the bottom of the harbour 333 years after it had sunk. There followed a 17 year conservation programme. The city's most popular museum open in 1990, less than a mile from the scene of the disaster.
The Vasa sank because it was too top-heavy. It was poorly designed, being too narrow and too high with insufficient ballast in the hull to weigh the ship down. Despite an obvious lack of stability in port, it was allowed to set sail, as the Swedish king at the time, Gustavus Adolphus, wanted the ship to set sail as soon as possible to join the Baltic fleet in the Thirty Years' War. During the 1961 recovery, thousands of artifacts and the remains of at least 15 people were found in and around the hull of the Vasa. Among the many items found were clothing, weapons, cannons, tools, coins, cutlery, food, drink and six of the ten sails. The artifacts and the ship itself have provided historians with invaluable insight into details of naval warfare, shipbuilding techniques and everyday life in early 17th-century Sweden.
The museum was very well organised - we began our visit by watching a short film on the history of the Vasa and then we joined a guided tour where our guide, Harold, took us around the outside of the ship and into a full-size replica of the upper gun deck, providing fascinating information as we went. The ship is one of Sweden's most popular tourist attractions and, by 2007, had attracted more than 25 million visitors.
From the Vasa Museum, we walked across the island of Djurgarden, stopping for a hot dog on the way, to Skansen. Skansen was the world's first open-air museum. It was opened in 1891 to show an increasingly industrialised society the way of life in different parts of Sweden before the industrial era. It comprises around 150 houses and farm buildings from all over Sweden, as well a Town Quarter, complete with 19th-century wooden town houses and shops, showing how goods were made and sold in those days. It attracts over 1.3 million visitors a year.
We started our tour of Skansen in the Town Quarter and enjoyed checking out the stores, including the ironmongers, the printers and bookbinders, the grocers and the pottery store, all of which were staffed by craftsmen in traditional dress demonstrating their skills in period surroundings. We especially liked watching the glass-blower, who was making Christmas decorations when we stopped in.
Skansen is set on around 300,000 square metres, so there was no way we were going to see everything in the limited time we had. In fact, you could spend an entire day there and still not see it all. We walked from the Town Quarter through the middle of Skansen, past a number of small farmhouses and a collection of farm animals, a flock of rather scary-looking geese, a choir performing on an outdoor stage, a horse and cart offering rides, a few ice-cream stalls, a very impressive tower and a number of other things before reaching the zoo.
The zoo has a collection of Nordic animals, such as elk, wolves and bears, as well as some water enclosures with seals and otters. We watched the brown bears for a while. There was a mother bear, who was eating apples out of a little stream and three cubs, one of which was trying to climb a tree without much success and two who were play-fighting. They were all very cute. Further around from the zoo, we saw a traditional Sami camp. The Sami people are one of the indigenous peoples of northern Europe, inhabiting parts of northern Sweden, Norway and Finland. There was a traditional hut, which looked a lot like an American Indian tipi and we saw a Sami man in traditional dress giving a demonstration on reindeer herding.
Once we were finished at Skansen, we met Amy and Warwick outside. We got some ice creams and meandered back along the waterfront to the city, checking out a few shops as we went. Back at Amy and Warwick's apartment we sat on the deck in the sunshine and had a drink before it was time to pack up and head off to the airport. We had a fantastic weekend in the Swedish capital. It is such a beautiful city and it was a nice change to be in city without huge crowds and noise everywhere we went. We would like to say a big 'thank you' to Amy and Warwick for having us to stay - you guys were brilliant hosts and great tour guides.
Country tally:
The Vasa was a Swedish warship that was built between 1626 to 1628. After a maiden voyage of just 1300 metres in calm weather, the Vasa tipped over and sank in Stockholm's harbour on 10 August 1628. About 50 people went down with what was supposed to be the pride of the navy. Guns were all that was salvaged from the vessel in the 17th century and it was not until 1956 that a marine archaeologist's persistent search led to the rediscovery of the Vasa. A complex operation ensued and the Vasa was hauled up from the bottom of the harbour 333 years after it had sunk. There followed a 17 year conservation programme. The city's most popular museum open in 1990, less than a mile from the scene of the disaster.
The Vasa sank because it was too top-heavy. It was poorly designed, being too narrow and too high with insufficient ballast in the hull to weigh the ship down. Despite an obvious lack of stability in port, it was allowed to set sail, as the Swedish king at the time, Gustavus Adolphus, wanted the ship to set sail as soon as possible to join the Baltic fleet in the Thirty Years' War. During the 1961 recovery, thousands of artifacts and the remains of at least 15 people were found in and around the hull of the Vasa. Among the many items found were clothing, weapons, cannons, tools, coins, cutlery, food, drink and six of the ten sails. The artifacts and the ship itself have provided historians with invaluable insight into details of naval warfare, shipbuilding techniques and everyday life in early 17th-century Sweden.
The museum was very well organised - we began our visit by watching a short film on the history of the Vasa and then we joined a guided tour where our guide, Harold, took us around the outside of the ship and into a full-size replica of the upper gun deck, providing fascinating information as we went. The ship is one of Sweden's most popular tourist attractions and, by 2007, had attracted more than 25 million visitors.
From the Vasa Museum, we walked across the island of Djurgarden, stopping for a hot dog on the way, to Skansen. Skansen was the world's first open-air museum. It was opened in 1891 to show an increasingly industrialised society the way of life in different parts of Sweden before the industrial era. It comprises around 150 houses and farm buildings from all over Sweden, as well a Town Quarter, complete with 19th-century wooden town houses and shops, showing how goods were made and sold in those days. It attracts over 1.3 million visitors a year.
We started our tour of Skansen in the Town Quarter and enjoyed checking out the stores, including the ironmongers, the printers and bookbinders, the grocers and the pottery store, all of which were staffed by craftsmen in traditional dress demonstrating their skills in period surroundings. We especially liked watching the glass-blower, who was making Christmas decorations when we stopped in.
Skansen is set on around 300,000 square metres, so there was no way we were going to see everything in the limited time we had. In fact, you could spend an entire day there and still not see it all. We walked from the Town Quarter through the middle of Skansen, past a number of small farmhouses and a collection of farm animals, a flock of rather scary-looking geese, a choir performing on an outdoor stage, a horse and cart offering rides, a few ice-cream stalls, a very impressive tower and a number of other things before reaching the zoo.
The zoo has a collection of Nordic animals, such as elk, wolves and bears, as well as some water enclosures with seals and otters. We watched the brown bears for a while. There was a mother bear, who was eating apples out of a little stream and three cubs, one of which was trying to climb a tree without much success and two who were play-fighting. They were all very cute. Further around from the zoo, we saw a traditional Sami camp. The Sami people are one of the indigenous peoples of northern Europe, inhabiting parts of northern Sweden, Norway and Finland. There was a traditional hut, which looked a lot like an American Indian tipi and we saw a Sami man in traditional dress giving a demonstration on reindeer herding.
Once we were finished at Skansen, we met Amy and Warwick outside. We got some ice creams and meandered back along the waterfront to the city, checking out a few shops as we went. Back at Amy and Warwick's apartment we sat on the deck in the sunshine and had a drink before it was time to pack up and head off to the airport. We had a fantastic weekend in the Swedish capital. It is such a beautiful city and it was a nice change to be in city without huge crowds and noise everywhere we went. We would like to say a big 'thank you' to Amy and Warwick for having us to stay - you guys were brilliant hosts and great tour guides.
Country tally:
Megan 32
Tim 30
Stockholm
harbour
Strand-
vagen
along the
waterfront
Stortget
Vaster-
langgatan
Swedish
Megan
Megan
The
narrowest
street
street
Megs, Tim
and Amy
and Amy
A boat...
Djurgards-
bron bridge
Stockholm's
Grand Hotel
Megs, Amy
and Warwick
relaxing by
the water
Stunning
evening
The Vasa -
Vasa
Museum
Museum
Town Quarter
in Skansen
Mother Bear
in Skansen
zoo
Bear cub
An 18th
century
Swedish
cottage -
Skansen
cottage -
Skansen
Megs and
Tim - central
Stockholm
No comments:
Post a Comment