Day 15 : Stockholm

Beautiful city is all I can say.  The buildings and the water are just so well laid out.  Both during the day and evening it was amazing.  One of my favorites at this point.

Started the day off to see the famous Vasa Museum.  Didn't know anything about it but it was the top place to visit.  One the way we ran into some Santa nomes playing the trees.

There was also a giant bird feeder on the river.  There were two different types of swans and who knows how many variety of ducks.

Found out the museum is all about a ship called the Vasa.  One of four commissioned by a long ago king.  Of the four 2 were big and 2 were small.  Not much is know about the small ones but the 1st big one to be built the Vasa was on display in the museum.

 

It was the first of its kind to have two decks of Canons and was totally preserved.  It was under water for I think at least 200 years but supposedly the water around here doesn't have much salt in it and they use to dump all kinds of sludge in there so basically the environment was not susceptible to things that liked to eat wood.

The funny thing about this ship however is it wasn't stable it ended up being top heavy..  And they knew it but since no on really wanted to give a king bad news they thought they would try it out.  So the Vasa made it about 15 minutes before some wind caused it to start tipping sideways and the canon doors that were open started taking in water.  So it sank, but it sank in the bay and it didn't even make it fully under water they ended up cutting the masts so it wasn't in the way.

Some people did end up dying from the ship wreck.  There was little documented history of the people on the boat.  Guess it was part of the main crew and their families.  The families were suppose to get off before it really hit open water.  They found I think it was about 30 bodies.  In the museum they had information they figured out from teeth, injuries to the bones, where they were found and the items found near them.  It was really fascinating the little stories they would tell about old injuries or the the glass buttons defining their class or how much money they had in a purse.

Next stop wasn't nearly as interesting on the inside.  The outside was very nice.  We went into the Nordic Museum.  This had a history of Sweden.  One floor had a lot of furniture.  But one the main pieces I noticed were chairs.  In all shapes and sizes.

Another area had information on the indigenous people of Scandinavia.  With that information was hats and shoes and other home made goods

From here we had a little Mulled Wine.  Lots of cinnamon, very sweet and warm but great on a chilly wet day.  From the Vast which was on an island about three over from downtown we headed to downtown.  I guess Stockholm is made up of a bunch of islands, the only bad part is there is no really short cuts to get from one place to another.  but at least they make the views and the walks very pleasant.  We saw some giant Moose.

There was a very busy ice rink in the middle of the city.  It was created around a stature in the middle.

Oh and believe it or not this is a mens public bathroom.  Looking inside there is just a hole.

Another church as we were just strolling along.

We finally made it into the old town is your typical beautiful skinny streets with cobble stone.  

We went to the Noble Museum.  I never realized there was a Nobel peace prize (which is out of Oslo) as well as Nobele prices for literature, Physics and others. I read though some the the winners for Literature many of them had real life experiences to write about.  Weather it was Apartheid or some other segregation or discrimination they had experienced it.  In some cases many were even threatened after they wrote there opinions.

Day 13 / 14 : Oslo

  Started day 13 morning with the fortress.  It is right on the harbor.  It has an outer wall that use to have a moat which is now a road but inside the outer wall there was an inner keep.  Unfortunately it is in use by the government or military still so you could only walk around it.

This next picture you can kinda see the different stones used to build the fortress.  Guess a long time ago there was a real old one with big rocks.  Then it was enhanced with slightly smaller rocks.  Finally there are orange/red bricks from the last enhancement.

Next stop was Vingland Gardens.  This is a very large park that felt like being in Central Park in New York except this place had some very strange statues.  Basically the Park is designed to display the artists many sculptures.  The most interesting is this angry baby.  We saw him on t-shirts and all kind of things around town.  Apparently rubbing his hand must mean something, cause it was very shiny.

Where the angry baby was there were a bunch of other sculptures.  They are all adults and kids in different acrobatic poses.  Here are a few that stood out.

At the end of one side of a bridge that had a lot of these statues there were two pillars on the one end. I think its a lizard or dragon and a person.  Its rather odd like the others.

After the bridge was a large fountain.  Around the fountain were a bunch of trees with kids playing in the branches.

Next section of the garden was a raised area with a giant pillar of bodies.  Not much else to describe it.   At the top of the raised area there were gates with figures on the iron gates.

Around the center sculpture were a bunch of couple in various acrobatic poses.

Cool looking sun dial that doesn't do much in the winter.

  Day 14 we went over to the Natural History Museum.  Outside there was a dragon made out of rubbish.  This kinda followed the theme on the inside.  A lot of the stuffed animals were in their natural habitat with typical trash laying around to show what people shouldn't do.

There were some neat fossils.  This was a giant shell thing with a number of small ones.

Apparently this is a real dear somewhere.  Those fangs make this thing look like some mutant out of a strange movie.

Walking around you always see random churches and old buildings.  After all the walking around we took the Train over to Stockholm.  Last stop on this trip.

Day 11 / 12 : Oslo

Day 11: was mainly a train ride from Copenhagen to Oslo.  The terrain was a lot of farm fields and individual houses.  There were some mini mountains in the area which is a change from what we had been seeing.  When we arrived in Oslo we checked into our hotel which was near the airport.  The funny thing about this hotel is everything is digital.  You walk up to a kiosk and enter your reservation number.  It takes your payment and spits out your cards.  There is a tablet for the concierge.  I poked around it a bit and under FAQ one question was "I need a HUMAN".  Thought that was funny.

Day 12 : This is a pretty ugly City Hall.  It almost looks like a prison.  Supposedly its nice inside but we didn't get a chance to go in it.

On this day we hit a lot of different museums around Oslo.  We started at the Fram museum which was all about the race to the poles.  They had very well documented treks and planning and had the original ship.  Although one of the two expeditions racing to get there didn't make it back.  It was also stated that most of the dogs didn't make it back either.  Little sad but an interesting read.

The South Pole boat wasn't very big at all but that is because they didn't really use it too much.  The North Pole boat was much bigger.  But one thing both boats did have in common was everybody must have been short cause you had to watch your head.

Next stop was the Maritime museum.  The Norsemen really like their boats. 

The most interesting boat they had in this place was some old canoes but the coolest one was basically a Pine tree that had been carved out.  It was said to be over 2000 years old.  It was found on a river bed that was at its lowest ever.  Funny because when they escalated it they had to do it from under water.

Next museum we went into was the Kon-Tiki.  This was an expedition off South America to prove that old style rafts could be used to sail on the ocean.  The expedition was a research activity to prove that native people from South America could reach the Polynesian Islands.

After the success of that expedition there was another one that I can't recall to where but the boat was made out of reeds.  They built the ship in the shadows of the Giza pyramids for publicity but had to get the reeds else where because they were no longer available on the banks of the nile.

Next museum was the Viking Museum.  I really like this one because of the variety of items on display.  The objects in the Museum are from 3 main graves.  Apparently important people were buried in ships with a lot of belongings they would need for their journey to heaven.

One of the graves even had horses to pull the carts that were buried with him.

This particular boat wasn't in the best shape but it showed a different style as well.

After the Viking museum we went to a Folk museum.  This was a bunch of houses and buildings from all over Norway that were moved to the facility.  We have seen this before in a number of different countries and it is always neat to see how times change.

This next building reminded me of the Swiss structures we saw.  Looks like the living quarters were upstairs.

This is a picture of an old church.  It was made out of wood but yet very ornate.  It had all kinds of roof sections and peaks.

Inside the church was a beautifully painted alter.

The snow gave the building a little more realism.

Some of the houses were open with period decorations or utilities to show how they may have looked back in the day.

The doors and their hinges were very decorated.  But you better be only about 5 foot tall to get though any of the doors.

Most of the buildings had dirt roofs with grass growing on them.

This place was especially neat.  Instead of wall paper they had a painted decoration on all the walls.

They had an old bank building.  These buildings were from newer era's than the previous ones.

The most modern area had a gas station and an apartment building.  The apartment building was not actually relocated.  When the building was to be torn down they went in and took measurements and pictures.  They also took everything that was not attached to the building like doors and windows.  They then used the measurement to rebuild the building and placed all the objects back into their original positions.

Last stop of the day was the National Gallery.  This is all about the art work.  There was a variety of art but I only took pictures of the ones I liked.  The first one I really like how the colored buildings just pop on this snowy street.

Not that I know where most artists come from but didn't realize the Scream artist was Norwegian.

They had a Monet.  I don't like all his pieces some are a little too abstract for me but this one was pretty nice.

Not sure who this was buy but the way the light was done was amazing.  This is a picture of the full painting.

this is the same painting just focused on what the light was focused on.

We ended our tour walking back to the Hotel but we took a small detour to see the Palace.  It was a treacherous walk up all that shiny ice leading to the Palace.