Scandinavian Odyssey, Part 4

the view from our hotel room at
the Radisson Blu Strand

            We drove into Stockholm on Monday, July 18, both helped and hindered by the GPS.  And thanks to our GPS, we got a little extra tour of the city, although we were too stressed (i.e. lost) to enjoy it.  We finally located our hotel and our spectacular room: the only room on the 8th floor (the bottom of a 3 floor tower, each floor only having one room).  After dropping off the car at the rental shop, we spent the rest of the day shopping and trying to avoid small rain storms.

An old house at Skansen with a great harvest
of Lilies.  

            The second day in Stockholm was a little more tourist-y; we walked over to the Djurgarden, with the intention of visiting Juribachen, the Astrid Lindgren theme park, but one quick look at the child-infested ticket line convinced us to spend our time elsewhere.  We ended up at the Nordic Museum, where we enjoyed exhibits of Nordic folk art, textiles, and the history of local interior design through the decades.  After that, we were off to Skansen, which mom had fond 35-year-old memories of, which turned out to be mostly false.  It ended up being a little too commercial for our tastes - more outdoor rock concerts than historical reenactments.

Mom, enjoying our boat ride on a perfect, sunny afternoon.

             Daunted by the prospect of having to walk all the way back to the hotel, we braved the ferry crowds and were rewarded with a very pleasant ride around the harbor.

Long hallway at the Stockholm Palace,
recognizably inspired by Versailles'
Hall of Mirrors.  

            The third day in Stockholm started on Gamlastan (the old town).  We spent a few minutes in the Stockholm Cathedral before taking a tour of the royal apartments in the Palace.  Some very impressive rooms, though nothing that made us too jealous of the royals.  We put off our lunch again and again in favor of shopping with the rest of the world, first in the Dalarna horse "museum," then some Norwegian sweater stores, then Scandinavian design stores, and on and on.

The Blue Hall at the Stadshuset.

            After our late lunch, we made our way over to the Stadshuset, and snuck in on the last tour of the day.  The impressive statehouse, built from 1911-1923, was designed by Ragnar Ostberg for the competition which took place in 1907, but some aspects of its design made it seem a lot more recent than that.  The most famous room is probably the Blue Hall (which was meant to be painted blue, but Ostberg decided he liked the color of the bricks just fine), where the annual banquet takes place after the Nobel prizes are awarded.  It was designed to emulate an Italian piazza.  Once our tour had ended, and we went through a little more afternoon shopping, we ended up having dinner outdoors in the Kingsgarden, while listening to a free concert.

We got back to the hotel early that night, and were rewarded with a great sunset view of some hot air balloons touring the city.

            Our final day in Stockholm was a little rainy, but we had kept our indoor stuff for that day, so it didn't matter too much.  We headed over to the island of Skeppsholmen, where the Modern Museum and  Architecture Museum are located.  The Architecture museum had a great exhibit on the history of living standards (apartment sizes and accommodations, etc.) for Swedish families.

Tatlin's Monument . . .

            At the Modern Museum, we enjoyed an extensive exhibit on the Swedish drawer/painter/clothing designer, Siri Derkert.  In another room I recognized Vladimir Tatlin's Monument to the Third International, which I had learned about in my Arch. History class.

Stockholm Stadbibliotek

           Later that afternoon, we braved the Stockholm bus line for a trip to Gunnar Asplund's Stockholm Stadbibliotek (public library, completed in 1931).  I suspect that Mom was a little unsure that this modern building would really be worth the bus trip, but I think that she was quickly convinced that it was.  We even enjoyed poking around in the stacks, and looked through a great picture book of the Swedish countryside.

At the Saluhall

            We made a stop at the Ostermalm's Saluhall for a small snack and a pear cider (my new favorite drink), before heading back to the hotel, where we had an early dinner and spent the rest of the night packing.  The next day we would be off to Finland!

If you would like to see more pictures from our time in Sweden, you can check out my facebook album here.

Scandinavian Odyssey, Part 3

the main house at Starnsjunds Slott

We left Jonkoping, Sweden early on a Saturday morning to drive ~400 kilometers NNE to Falun.  We made a few unexpected but very welcome stops along the way.  The first was at Starnsjunds Slott (slott is the Swedish word for mansion/manor).  It was a beautiful estate, on a hill on a bit of a peninsula, so there were views of the water all around.  We had a lovely buffet lunch in the cafe there, then attempted to take a tour, but no English tour was leaving for another hour and we still had a lot of driving to do.

             So back on the road, we were making some more good time, until we spied an IKEA from the highway, and had to make another quick stop.  We learned that Swedish Ikeas are really exactly the same as the ones in America, with the slight exception that the signs were completely un-understandable, as opposed to only being half understandable at home.

an old building (now restaurant),
by the river in Falun

             We finally made it to Falun, which was a very cute town but surprisingly dead for a Saturday night.  We mourned the fact that there was a whole Dalarna Horse museum that we could not visit because again we would have to get on the road early-ish in the morning.

this sign taunted us from the outside of the
Dalarna Horse Museum in Falun

an idyllic scene, in the town of Sundborn

            Our big excursion for the next day was up to Sundborn, where Carl Larsson's house is.  We got there just in time for an English-speaking tour, led by one of Larsson's great-great-grandchildren.  The house was darling on the inside, decorated with all kinds of colors and patterns, very similar to my own decorating style.  Unfortunately we were not allowed to take pictures inside, so a few from the outside will have to suffice here.

the front of the Carl Larsson house, where it looks like Christmas all year long.

            We followed up our Carl Larsson excursion with an overnight in our final small(ish)-town in Sweden, Vasteras.  If we had thought that Falun was dead on a Saturday night, then Vasteras showed us that Sunday nights can be even deader.  We walked around the town in search of an open restaurant, and ended up back at the one in the hotel.  We did see and read a lot of things that made us want to stick around the next day to explore Vasteras while things were open, however the following morning was rainy, and we just didn't have the strength.

great sculpture in the square in front of our hotel, in Vasteras:
workers biking to their jobs.

If you would like to see the rest of my pictures from these small towns in Sweden, please click here.  On to Stockholm!  

Scandinavian Odyssey, Part 2

mom with our favorite statue in Boras, visible from our hotel room window: the man in the river.

After leaving Copenhagen, my mom and I took a quick, smooth train ride to Malmo, Sweden, to begin the Swedish leg of our trip.  Malmo looked like a great town, but unfortunately we didn't get to explore it.  Instead we picked up our rental car at the nearby Avis office, and headed north to Boras, Sweden.  Boras was an adorable town.  Cobblestone streets, a river running lazily through the middle of the town, and there was a wonderful display of sculptures everywhere over the town.  In spite of a rainy visit, we enjoyed walking around finding some of these sculptures:

stone seats in the town square - from the display a few years ago, but so loved
by the locals that they got together to buy the seats.  They double as a sundial. 

very cute statue of a little boy in his rain suit.

me and some bunny

mom, trying to get the best
picture of the model factory.

The reason for our visit to Boras was to tour the Textile Museum, which is in an old textile factory, as Boras used to be a major hub of the Swedish textile industry.  We enjoyed a practically-hands-on tour of some of the machines in the museum, including a machine that made socks (note: they are auto-sewn with 2 heels; one becomes the toe and the other remains a heel).  Our favorite part of the museum wasn't a machine at all, however, but the dollhouse-type model of the old working factory, with the entire top floor visible, and full of wooden people constructing blazers.  

factory workers, hard at it.

Another thing we liked at the textile museum was the display of the local art university's graduates' final projects.  Some great and some crazy designs including wallpaper, fashion, fabrics, rugs, and more.

an oriental inspired rug, but if you look closely, you'll see this one
has guns and boom-boxes incorporated into the pattern.

clotheslines filled with this senior's beautiful, colorful fabrics.  

Great stop, now on to Jonkoping, another very cute, pedestrian-friendly town about in the center of Sweden (east to west) and right at the lower tip of Vattern Lake.  We found out too late that it was right next to Husqvarna, which housed a sewing museum of sorts.  Unfortunately, we couldn't make last-minute plans to visit it because the opening hours did not work with our intense driving schedule for the next day, but we did get to wander around the town.  We walked out to the dock by the lake, which is mostly obscured by a huge breakwater (or something), but there are benches and makeshift steps where people can climb to sit on top of it and enjoy the massive view.  There were few people with a guitar and a harmonica up there while we were wandering around, playing Tom Petty songs in very foreign accents.  

climbing in the breakwater in Jonkoping

We enjoyed a very nice Friday evening in Jonkoping, with perfect weather and rested up for our long drive the next day . . .