Happy to be Traveling

Post by Ella In the Haga district, we ducked into a little cafe for coffee and pastry.  I left Grubb to order and went to grab a table outside. Grubb comes out with a tray. A small chokaball (intense fudgy chocolate with nuts and rolled in coconut flakes) for me and a big bowl of pea…

Post by Grubb This morning we took the train from Malmo to Gothenburg.  It was a two-and-a-half hour ride, but we were traveling first class (highly discounted for seniors) so it was very comfortable.  When we arrived in Gothenburg and emerged from the station we found ourselves in the middle of a noisy construction zone that looked…

Post by Ella Bear in mind, these were taken from a high speed train through a train window.

Post by Ella Yes showers. Love them here. It isn’t that you can’t get these features back in the states (for a premium of course), but here it’s standard. So far. Our shower here in Malmö . The knob at the left end of the bar has two settings: turn the knob up and you…

Post by Grubb. While we were slurping up our fish stew in a restaurant off a central plaza in downtown Malmo, it was invaded by a mob of teenagers in white captain’s caps.  At first I thought the young crew to a cruise liner had docked and were celebrating a port of call.  Then I found out…

Post by Ella We attempted two museums in Malmö today. Grubb posted about the museum in the castle we visited this morning. Our second museum today, Moderna Museet, was forgettable. Maybe because it was the second museum of the day or maybe nothing captured my attention. As evidence, this is the single photo I took….

Post by Grubb. Late this morning we walked to the Malmo Art Museum located inside the Malmo Castle, a Renaissance fortress of thick brick surrounded by a moat in the center of the old city.  Their current collection of Swedish artwork took us from the late sixteenth century to the present day.  The colorful modern pieces dispelled…

An apartment complex built in 2005 in Malmo, designed by the Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava. Called “Turning Torso”, sometimes called “Twisted Torso”.

The kardemummabullar pastry of soft sweet dough delicately dusted with cardamom called out for a smooth cappuccino.  This palate pleasing combination was appreciated in a park cafe with the dulcet singsong of Swedish accents in the background.

These busts were seen offsetting each other at the entrance to a university building in Lund.  Neither one is in a joking mood.

My aunt Ruth married Roger Sutherland, son of a Swedish Minnesota farmer, who had a job working for the Feds in the Department of Agriculture.  They had four daughters, blond, athletic, and self-assured.  My friends loved it when my “Swedish cousins” came to visit.  At family get togethers, my father would argue with Roger who had the best…

Post by Ella. The Skissernas Museum – Museum of Artistic Process and Public Art. I’ve never seen anything like it. All the work that goes into creating public art: the sketches, models, schematics, the prep work, where does it all end up? Some brilliant person at Lund University had the idea to collect all these works….

Post by Grubb. The fantasy world that I thought would be Malmo actually turns out to be an open-air museum in Lund called the Kuturen in Lund.  Stretching over two blocks, buildings replicating structures that Scandinavians have lived in since the Middle Ages are laid out in a village format and open for inspection.  It was like…

Post by Grubb Along with graveyards, Ella and I enjoy the quiet seclusion of a good crypt.  The Lund Cathedral, an early 12th century Nordic monument to Romanesque architecture, has a crypt made up of stone arches, carved sarcophagi, and several like “the giant Finn and his wife.”  Legend has it that the giant helped build the…