The Vasa

This is the 17th Century warship the Vasa, the star attraction of the Vasa Museum

Today was to be a cold, wet and rainy day. What do you do when you're on vacation and it's cold, wet and rainy? Off to the museum!

But there was scenery to see en route to the museum. Such as the Oskarskyrkan, the Oscar Lutheran Church.

Who's the namesake Oscar? Don't know. Could be Oscar the Statuette, or Oscar Madison, or Oscar Mayer Weiner for all I know. I did not have time to find out because I wanted to be in the museum before the rains started.

From a distance, I thought this too was a church.

It was not. It is the Nordic Museum. But that's not the museum that is today's destination. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe next time in Stockholm. Time's a-wasting.

This is a view of the building across the Ladugårdslandsviken.

Easy for you to stay.

Once I cross the bridge and enter onto the island of Djurgården, I see:

Blå porten. Translation: the Blue Gate. This is the gateway to Lusthusportens park at the north end of Djurgården.

Shortly after entering through the Blue Gate, I saw a statue of man.

With a live bird on his head.

The bird is resting there as if it were part of the statue.

The statue doesn't mind.

But I'm not here for a walk in the park, as inviting as the park may be.

I'm here for a museum. But not the Nordic Museum.

If it doesn't look like a church, then it looks like the old Admin Building of some ultra-expensive East Coast private university, don't you think? The Nordic Museum is supposed to be worth visiting. The island of Djurgården is positively lousy with museums: Skansen, an open-air ethnographic museum that would be well worth visiting some non-rainy day; the Viking Museum, which really is just for children, and the must-to-avoid Abba The Museum. I love Abba. I respect Abba. But the museum is over-priced and allows no photography inside. Not. Worth it.

But you want to know what is totally worth it?

Yes. The Vasa Museum.

This is a museum dedicated to a war ship that sank 1300 meters into its maiden voyage when it was knocked over by a wind. Hurricane force winds off the Baltic? No. A light gale.

Front corner view of the Vasa

And that is worth a whole museum -- a whole immensely popular museum -- maybe the most popular museum in Stockholm -- why? 

Side view of the Vasa, with rigging

The Vasa was a warship built for the navy of Swden's greatest king, Gustavus Adolphus. It was the largest ship of its kind. You might even call it "titanic" (in size) (and in fate). Once outfitted with all the necessary military equipment to make it the most formidible warship in the Swedish navy, it became top heavy. It was so top heavy that, on August 10, 1628, on its maiden voyage, a light breeze caused it to topple over and sink to the depths of Stockholm's harbor, sailing a mere 1300 meters (less than a mile) from its dock.

And because it sank into the murky depths of the Baltic, it was preserved, relatively intact. Thus, we have an actual wooden warship from the early 17th Century that was almost perfectly preserved. This is not a replica based on plans and drawings. This is the actual ship.

And this is an actual anchor:

This is its actual bow:

This is an actual cannon that was on board.

The smaller, lighter brown ship is a miniature replica. But most of the rest of what it is this museum is real, pulled up from the depths of the Baltic with the Vasa.

Here is an interesting display of cannon balls from the Vasa:

According to the guide, with the spherical balls, aim for the hull. With the barbed balls, aim for the deck. With the chained-together balls, aim for the rigging. There was a science to the design of naval warfare cannon balls. I didn't know before today!

This is a primitive, wooden backgammon set pulled up with the ship:

No time for fun and games when your voyage last only 1300 meters!

This is clothing and other necessities from one of the sailors: 

And this is the view from the stern:

Apparently the low salinity of the Baltic waters aided the preservation of the Vasa as it sat at the bottom of the Baltic for about 330 years.

Let's go in for a closer look:

And even closer still:

Amazing detail on the decorative sculpture adorning what was an early 17th Century warship.

Here are some of the decorative sculptures from the Vasa painted like they would have looked for the duration of the Vasa's 1300 meter journey. The sculptures are not random. They are figures from antiquity, mythology (Roman and Norse), the Bible, and more.

Hercules:

The "Wild Man":

A sea god:

Gideon's Warriors. While this is ostensibly Biblical, KIng Gustav Adolphs would have appreciated the symbolism of the Biblical army to his military.

And, speaking of the Old Testament, here we have King David:

Emperor Titus of Rome:

And, of course, a Roman Warrior:

The statuary was not random. Every piece had a point.

Even the Lion:

Or, maybe, especially the lion.

My time at the Vasa was longer than the total length of time that it stayed afloat on its maiden voyage.

I was thinking of hitting the next-door Nordic Museum next:

But it was time for fika!

My walk to my now-favorite cafe and bakery was about as long as the distance sailed by the Vasa in its history. A little less than a mile.

I passed the interesting looking Royal Dramatic Theatre.

And Berzelii Park:

I wanted to visit this park to see this sculpture by notable Swedish sculptor Carl Milles.

Lekande björnar. Translation: Playing bears.

Soon my feet took me to the Vete-Katten cafe and bakery for my afternoon coffee break. I overdid it. But this could be my last fika in Stockholm as I leave tomorrow.

Clockwise from top left:  Coffee (can't have a coffee break without coffee) (even it is a lighter roast); kanelbullar (cinnamon roll); blåbär vanilj (a blueberry pastry with vanilla pastry cream inside), and, the star attraction of the fika all over Stockholm: the kardemummabullar (the cardamom bun). I know why the denizens of Stockholm pooh-pooh the cinnamon bun: the kardemummebullar is superior in every way. But the  blåbär vanilj might have been even better.

I rested up before my last supper in Stockholm proper. I will have one more night in Stockholm at the end of the trip, but I'll be staying at the airport as time will be tight. My overstretched stomach still recovering from my fika, I had a light supper:

A Bob's Hot Burger, with a side order of cheese fries, from the Gnarly Burger across the street. It's rainy and cold, so I didn't want to go far. And the Gnarly Burger has a burger named for me:  beef patty, pepper jack cheese, lettuce, onion, jalapenos, and a spicy mayo. It was quite good. The cheese fries came topped with cheese and jalapenos. Nachos, but only with french fries. The cheese fries had that liquid cheese found in ballpark nachos. So I had jalapenos on my burger and on my fries. Do jalapenos count as a vegetable? And to wash it down I had a Bailey's milkshake. The flavor was nice. but it was a bit on the thin for my tastes. I want my milkshakes a bit thicker.

I may have time for another museum tomorrow before I catch the ferry boat to my next destination. We'll see how much sleep I get tonight.

Stockholm: Arrival

View of Gamla Stan from Stockholm City Hall

They love their Cardamom Buns in Stockholm.  I thought this town was going to be big into Cinnamon Buns, but Swedish Cinnamon Buns (kanelbullar) take a back seat to this city's love affair with kardemummabullar.

And why I am talking about how much the citizens of Stockholm love their Cardamom Buns? That's where I am for the start of a Scandinavian holiday: Stockholm. 

This is not a vacation driven by burnout and the need to get away ... or else! I had Delta airlines credit that needed to be used or losed from cancelling various trips in the now-concluded COVID era, so off to Stockholm it is.

My hotel was a very short roll of the wheeled luggage from the central train station where you  are quickly whisked from Stockholm ARN airport to the downtown area known as Norrmalm. Much cheaper than a taxi (although not "cheap" -- nothing is cheap in the Nordic countries) and very easy to maneuver even after 16 hours of traveling and only an hour or two of sleep.

The flight got in very early this morning and I was at my hotel before 9:00 a.m.  And the hotel did not have my room ready yet! Can you imagine that I could not check in six hours early at no extra charge?

So I had time to kill. And I was hungry. Off to find me some cardamom buns. And I found them at the nearby Vete-Katten cafe and bakery.

My "kardemummabullar" is in the back, next to the light-roast coffee. I also got a "tosca," a Swedish almond roll, in addition, since one cardamom bun was not going to tame the hunger pains from the tiny amount of food received flying a U.S. carrier transatlantic. (European airlines feed you better.) (But Delta feeds you better than other U.S. legacy carriers.) 

I must say I undertand now the Swedish love of the cardamom bun. Cardamom, if you are unfamiliar, is a spice most commonly used in the U.S. in chai tea. It has an almost floral flavor, but not soapy-floral like lavender. I predict that I will eat more cardamom buns -- many more cardamom buns -- before I leave Sweden.

The Vete-Katten is about more than the kardemommabullar. It has a very nice selection of cakes, pastries, and sandwiches.

Cardamom has been consumed and I still have several hours before a bed is ready for me at my hotel. So off I wander the streets of Stockholm. First stop: Klara Kyrka.

The churches of Stockholm -- and other older buildings -- seem to combine the red brick exterior with a green spire-type roof. Unfortunately, for Tourist Me, the doors of the church were shut:

I can't seem to find any information of when, if ever, the interior is open to the tourist horde, so I am limited to shutterbugging at the church's beautiful exterior.

This is the Central Train Station. This is the part for the regular city train transit, not the "Arlanda Express" area where I entered Norrmalm.

Stockholm is an archipelago, a series of islands. And that means: lots of water, lots of bridges.

I am staying in Norrmalm, but this is Gamla Stan, the old historic core of Stockholm, on a single small island.

The next destination is Stockholm City Hall, which is a highly recommended tour.

It is cold in Stockholm now. The spring weather is exactly the same as the brutal winter weather that just ended in Las Vegas. Temperatures here are in the 40s, with overnight lows getting close to freezing. Spring comes late to Scandinavia! So this would be a perfect time for some indoor tourism.

City Hall is on a different island: Kungsholmen. But it is on the extreme eastern tip of the island, so it's a short walk even in the cold weather for which I am a little inappropriately dressed. Hey, I just flew in from Las Vegas and my unpacked bags are sitting in my hotel's luggage storage room. Give me a break!

Across the water from City Hall in the other direction, north to Norrmalm, is an interesting looking building:

I don't what it is or why it is. I just that it is. I think it is just an architecturally-interesting office building, but I'm open to new information on this.

Time to see Stockholm City Hall.

The English-language tour of the interior will start at the top of the hour, which leaves time for touring the building exterior.

Lots of statuary, many in niches in the exterior:

The southern side of the building is along the water. There is a tall, thin column with a statue on top. Lots and lots of tall thin colums with statues on top throughout Stockholm.

This is the "Birger jarls kenotaf":

Translation: the cenotaph of Birgr Jarl. Birger Jarl is the founder of Stockholm. This is a monument to him, It is a cenotaph, which is a "mock" tomb. It appears to be a tomb. But no one is buried there. And there's a word for such a thing and the word is "cenotaph." I learned that word recently watching a video on ancient Egypt. There were lots of cenotaphs of various pharaohs around ancient Egypt, probably to thwart tomb-robbers, or maybe it was just away to have multiple memorials in the face of being limited to having a single mummified corpse that had to remain intact. And, here, in Stockholm, is a cenotaph honoring the city's founder.

 

On a warm sunny day this must be the place to be.

More moseying on the south side of Stockholm City Hall.

But now it's tour time. And indoor time!

The first stop on the City Hall tour is the famous "Blue Room."

Yes. It is famous. This is room where the Nobel Prize laureate banquet is held each December 10. It's called the "Blue Room" because the original plan, when the building was built at the time of the prior turn-of-the-century, was to plaster over the bricks and paint the plaster blue. Like the blue waters of Stockholm. Or maybe the blue of the Swedish flag. Doesn't matter. The architect decided, mid project, that the bricks were too beautiful to plaster over. So the "Blue Room" is free of the blues.

Next stop on the tour was the City Council chambers. It's the size of a small legislative chamber because ...

Stockholm City Council has 101 members. That's a lot for a City Council, I would think, The roof of the council chambers is meant to evoke VIking heritage.

Moving from the council chambers to the final stop on the tour, we look down upon the Blue Room.

Not in a condescending way, of course. In a second floor sort of way.

This is a bust of the building's architect. He's holding a miniature of this building in his one hand.

Past the interior art.

And we arrive the Gold Room.

Unlike the Blue Room which isn't blue, the Gold Room is gold.

And not just gold in color. It's gold in metal. Meaning: there is gold in the flecks of gold that make up the gold mosaics that decorate the room.

This mosaic depicts the stages of life, from birth to death:

Here are closer looks at the gold/golden mosaics:

And this is the star of the show: the mythical Queen of Lake Mälar:

Stockholm is, as originally constitutes, and for the most part, situated between Lake Mälar and the Baltic Sea. To the right of the mythical Queen, is the western world:

See the Statue of Liberty, the U.S. flag, the Eiffel Tower, and the Vatican? They're there, to pay homage to the the Queen of Lake Mälar.  And to the Queen's left, the viewer's right, is the Eastern and Southern Worlds:

Also paying homage to the Queen in a way that Europeans circa 1900 would depict Asians and Africans.

The room is huge and ornate and worth the price of admission for the tour, given that the interior of City Hall is only accessible to us tourists with a guided tour.

I had a little more time to kill before I thought it would be reasonable to see if my room was ready. And my energy was flagging fast. I decided to go to the National Museum, a 20-minute walk away:

The walk was alongside the waterway separating the island of Gamla Stan from Normmalm.

It was cold. Beautiful. But cold.

Gustav Adolphs Torg, next to the Royal Swedish Opera House, or "Kungliga Operan":

Rougher waters:

And another view of Gustav Adolphs statue:

Karl XII's Torg. I presume the statue is Karl XII, but that is only a presumption based on the fact that when a city square or plaza or "torg," in Swedish, is named for a famous person of the past, and there is a large statue in said city square, plaza, or "torg," the statue is of the namesake for the city square, plaza, or "torg." But that is only a supposition.

Which is slightly more reliable than a wild guess.

I made it to the National Museum. I could tour the sculpture courtyard without paying the admission fee. So I did.

This is Oden.

You may know him from the various "Thor" movies. His is the king of the Norse gods. Their Zeus. Their Jupiter. This was done in 1830 by renowned Swedish sculptor Bengt Erland Fogelberg. Yes, he was too renowned back in his day. He was commissioned to sculpt much heroic statuary about town.

This one is "Faun Playing with His Younger Brother," or "Faun lekande med sin yngre broder," which you can just hear being pronounced with that comically thick Swedish accent that I've yet to hear anything even remotely similar to in my short time so far in Stockholm.

I mistakenly thought the National Museum was going to be a history museum, but it's an art museum. Nothing wrong with that, but it's not what I'm in the mood for right now. So it's time to head back to the hotel to see if my room is ready.

This is the Grand Hotel:

It's listed in my "1000 Places to See Before You Die" book. It's a very expensive stay even by Scandinavian standards. Maybe I'll eat in the restaurant there one night.

This is the Kungsträdgården. It's a fairly nice-sized public park.

The park is very crowded. I'm not sure if something special is happening, or whether it's just a Saturday at the end of a long, cold Scandinavian winter.

And the trees are in bloom here.

This is Sergels Torg, a large traffic circle in Norrmalm Stockholm.

And I get back to my hotel and find out my room is ready. Time for a nap that went on way too long. I know you are not supposed to nap when you are adjusting to a time zone shift of several hours, but I was really tired. And my feet were sore.  I'll nap now and worry about sleep interruption tonight later.