Dinner at Restaurant Kaffeegillet on Gamla Stan A starter of smoked salmon on toast with a spicy mustard sauce. Grubb had Swedish meatballs and said they were just as good as what his mom used to make. That’s a little bowl of lingonberries on the plate. I had a plate with three types of herring,…
Storkyrkan
Post by Ella This amazing cathedral was originally commissioned, it is thought, in the mid 13th century by Birger Jarl, founder of Stockholm. The oldest bricks that are still part of the church date to 1306. The church, St. Nicolas Church, gradually expanded and became the Stockholm cathedral. The Cathedral is the church of the…
Vasa
Post by Grubb. Still on the Djurgården island, we couldn’t resist the Vasa Museum. This an immense maritime museum built around an almost fully intact 17th century 64- gun warship that sank in 1628 and was salvaged in 1961. The Vasa gives you an idea why Sweden was so great a power during the Thirty-Years…
Tunnel of Viking adventure
Post by Grubb. Around noon we took the ferry from Gamla Stan to visit the Viking Museum on Djurgården Island. I was captivated by the museum’s mapped historical timeline. Given the extent of the three-hundred year extended Viking tour, it’s a wonder that we all don’t have a drop of that marauding Nordic blood in our veins. And…
Nobel Flashback
Post by Grubb. After our first stop in Gamla Stan where we had been awestruck by the Stockholm Cathedral (four hosannas), we cut through a plaza to go to the Nobel Museum. When I was growing up in Chicago where my father was at the university doing his thing, my parents would throw a tree-trimming party…
The oldest first
Post by Ella. Gamla Stan, a small island and the venerable Old Town of Stockholm was a nice way to spend part of our first full day in Stockholm. The town dates back to the 16th century. We find the Nobel Prize Museum with a fascinating look at every winner (and things they developed or…
Our route, Thursday, June 1
i can’t believe it’s June! So on a cool (57° and windy) in Stockholm… Metro to Gamla Stan (Stockholm’s Old Town) Strolling around Gamla Stan Some sights: Nobel Prize Museum, Storkrykan Ferry to Djurgsrden Some sights: The Viking Museum, Vasa Museum Ferry back to Gamla Stan Find the manhole cover guy Find dinner Metro home
Moose flees photo opportunity
Post by Grubb. I always get a kick out of the absurdities of travel, especially the misunderstandings. While we were boating up the coast of Norway (a few days ago), we took a quick bus jaunt over the Lofoten archipelago. Our guide, speaking first in Norwegian, then in English, was a middle-aged man who directed our…
Our route, Wednesday, May31
Got on a plane in Tromso Flew to Oslo Changed planes Flew to Stockholm Then, to get from the airport to Stockholm, the best option is to take the Arlanda express train. But it had a derailment a few days ago and was still out of action. We stopped by the info desk at the…
Can you find…
The entrance to the hidden mall? Inside the mall on the 3rd floor, a large cafe with a reading nook.
Stop, there’s an aurora!
Post by Grubb. And it’s inside the Nordnorsk Museum painted by Gunvor Bull-Teilman in 1974. It’s the only aurora borealis we saw today.
Lutheran cathedral, old style
Post by Grubb. In the middle of Tromsø, made entirely out of wood, is a 19th century Lutheran cathedral painted yellow. The uncushioned pews are more like I remember enduring. Per Vigeland’s stained glass told a more compelling story than the vague figures looming in the Arctic Cathedral. That’s Moses lifting up a snake in the…
Lights out
Post by Grubb. The Northern Light Planetarium on the campus of UiT Arctic University of Norway sits on a ridge above Tromsø. Since it wasn’t raining, we decided to walk up to the planetarium and take in a show they have about those otherworldly lights. It was a beautiful trek, like taking a walk in the hills…
Our route, Tuesday, May 30
We hoofed it up to the planetarium because they had a presentation on the Northern lights Bus back down to the Nordnorsk KundstMuseum for some Nordic art Walk over to Tromsø Cathedral (northern most Lutheran Cathedral) Stroll in and out of shops just because Discovered another hidden mall
Hands-on aurora
Post by Grubb. The #33 bus got us to the rainy forest leading up to the Arctic University Museum. Outside the museum was an example of a hut the indigenous Sami peoples of northern Norway lived in. If we had the construction students at CNM build something like this we would call it a Hobbitat for Humanity. …