Stockholm

Mom and I headed to Stockholm last Monday morning. We arrived around noon and took the high-speed train the 40km from the airport to the city – it is fun to ride at 200 km/hour! We had to take the subway to our hotel so we didn’t arrive for awhile. The hotel was really nice and only a few subway stops from the main city. We had some lunch and wandered the local mall. We headed into the old town (Gamla Stan) for dinner. It was raining so we didn’t wander too far but found a nice café for dinner. It was much cheaper then Norway so that was a welcome change (but still not cheap by US standards).

Stockholm is really a beautiful city. It is situated on 14 (or 17 I can’t remember) islands that are all connected with bridges and ferries. The architecture is more European then Norway and the city is really clean and the subway system is very nice. I really liked the city but it does seem overly populated – they utilize a high congestion toll to keep cars out of the city.

So back to our trip - It rained all the next day so we spent most of the day attempting to stay dry and I think we did a decent job. We took the subway to Osermalm and then took a ferry the island of Djurgarden to tour the Vasa Museum. The Vasa was a warship from the 1600’s that sank after 30 minutes on the water in the harbor of Stockholm. The boat was built 1 meter to narrow and the rocks used to ballast it were round so they all rolled to one side so the boat sank. The great part is that they knew it was not stable and therefore not seaworthy but they were scared to tell the King who was demanding it in Spain so they let it sail – opps! So in 1950 they found it (I guess they “lost” it) and pulled it up. It was mostly intact so they spent 17 years preserving it and now it is on display. It was pretty impressive to say the least! Then we headed to the National Museum to see some fine art, the most famous being Rembrandts' Self- Portrait. Then we were off to the Nobel Museum which was not so great but it is located in a beautiful town square so we had dinner in a cute café in the square and headed home.

The next day it finally stopped raining so we were able to get some good photos and see a little more of the city. We saw the Official Residence of the King - but they don’t actually live there! It was very nice and we saw a tiny bit of the changing of guard. We did go to a few interesting royal museums like the treasury and armory which held some pretty neat stuff like royal coaches and the crown jewels which were more interesting then Norway’s but still no comparison to England. Then we had some lunch then toured the Storkyrkan (Stockholm Cathedral) where the current King and Queen were married. After that we decided to take a canal tour which was a nice leisurely tour and we saw some other interesting sites like the Stockholm City Hall were they hold the Nobel Awards. Our last stop was Riddarholmsyrkan (The Ridderholm Church), which was where the royal family (until recent times) was buried so there are lots of crypts etc and the architecture was really neat. So the day was wrapping up since everything closes around 5pm. We wandered and I found a great oil painting of the Old Town so I bought that for our collection and then went to dinner in a very cute open-air café in a park. We headed back to the hotel and picked up our bags for the taxi ride to the airport at the hotel – we had early flights the next day so it was easier to do that. Overall Stockholm was a very cool city – I am pleased I got to see it (and that it stopped raining long enough to enjoy it!) There is defiantly a lot to see so it is somewhere I couldn’t go back to and enjoy more of the sights!

Roros

My mom was here in Trondheim for nearly 2 weeks so we saw a good bit of the local sights including the Nidaros Cathedral, Archbishop’s Palace, and the Crown Jewels. Seeing the crown jewels was interesting since there are not much of them. Norway was a very poor country before they discovered oil so the jewels are pretty minimal and the kings had to buy the jewels themselves since the government couldn’t afford them. It was quite a contrast to the British crown jewels. We spent some time at the local St. Olav’s Festival with commemorates St. Olav’s death (he is a huge Norwegian saint).

We also took a two and a half hour train ride to a town called Roros. It is an old copper mining town that is an UNESCO World Heritage site so most of it is protected. The buildings are all really cute and many of them have sod roofs. There are also the remains of the smelting process. The church in the town is quite large and it has the mining company’s logo on the bell tower since they built it. I think it is the only church in the world with a corporate logoJ We had a nice dinner in town and then took the train home. We ran into my landlady and her husband at the train station since that is were he is originally from. We ended up taking our landlady to her house and she gave us some cloudberries to try. They are somewhat rare and don’t bear fruit every year – not my favorite berry…

We also headed out to an island very in the Trondheim Fjord. It is a 10 minute ferry ride and the island is mostly used for sunbathing and picnicking by the locals. The island called Munkholen – used to be an execution grounds in Viking times, a monastery, a prison and most recently a German camp in WWII.