Stockholm, Sweden

After two days in O$los we drove all the way across Sweden to Stockholm on the country’s east coast. It’s a beautiful drive, quite similar to northern Minnesota, Wisconsin or the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Gee, no wonder all those states are full of Scandinvians. Even saw a few moose.

The first mention of Stockholm comes from around 1250. The original settlement was on an island in the harbor which is now the old town of the city known as Gamla stan. Stockholm became a powerful and influential trading city and, as result, the country of Sweden became a major European power in the 17th century with the city becoming the country’s capital in 1634. After a plague in 1710, winter put that to an end, and the country’s defeat to Russia and Denmark-Norway in the Great Northern War, the city went into a decline. However, in the late 19th century and through to today, Stockholm again became an important economic center. Now, the city is considered a leader in social, ethical and technological advances. Plus, it’s cheaper than O$lo.

At the border crossing from Norway into Sweden. Yeah, that's Swedish for Sweden. Why can't we just all use English. Very pretty drive through Sweden. Even saw three moose.

Made it Stockholm. Really pretty city. It's the largest city in Scandinavia and it certainly has a big city feel.

Stockholm harbor.

More Stockholm harbor. Lots of cruise ships.

The oldest pub/restaurant in Stockholm in the old town part of the city known as Gamla stan (small S is how they spell it). Den Gyldene Freden opend in 1722. I'm there in the middle checking my iPhone. I inadvertantly left my purse behind here. Got back about a half hour later and, luckily, they had it. Only the third time in 28 years though, not too bad.

We haven't said much about the food on this trip but we tried to enjoy the local faire wherever we went. Here in Stockholm Jeff had Hotch Potch, Swedish hash. I had Fish Soup. Both very good!

We did a Hop On, Hop Off tour of the city. A typical American tourist. Although I'm the only one that wore their seat belt.

The Swedish Royal Palace. Larger than Buckingham Palace in London.

It seems like all the kings of Sweden were named Gustov. This is one of them.

Sweden's Parliment building.

Arches at the back of the Parliment building leading from Gamla stan to Drottninggaten, a major shopping area of Stockholm.

Stockholm city hall. Not many city halls with a light house.

Gamla stan from across the Stockholm harbor. Gamla stan is the old city of Stockholm with narrow streets and very old buildings.

The Swedish Mariner Museum on the left and, on the right, the connected red and brown building behind the masts, the Vasa Museum (more on that later).

Interesting street scene. An old style street toilet in Stockholm.

Free public pressurized air for bike tires. No where near the number of bikes as Copenhagen, or, although there were bike paths everywhere, no where near the organized flow of bike traffic. We almost got run over a few times here in Stockholm.

At the Vasa Museum. Vasa, the pride of the Swedish navy back in 1628. On August 10, 1628, ten minutes into its maiden voyage, a comedic tragedy, or a tragic comedy, occured when Vasa capsized and sank to the bottom of the Stockholm harbor. The story of the Vasa mishap, how it was recovered and refurbished is truly amazing. The Vasa museum was probably the highlight of our entire Scandinavia trip.

A 1/10 scale model the the Vasa warship. It shows how colorful and ornate some battleships were during the period.

Vasa is 95% original material. Because it was covered by the silt and mud at the bottom of the harbor it was preserved virtually intact. It's location was discovered in 1956 and raised in 1961. It was moved to its present location in 1990, a huge building that is air conditioned, de-humidified and rather dark to protect the ship in its present condition. That extention area around the corner of the stern were officer quarters and very colorful and ornate. You can see people on the different levels. That will give you idea of just how big the Vasa is.

Up on the third viewing level the stern of the Vasa is still high above us. At the top you can see two griffins placing a crown on Sweden's king at the time, Gustavus Alophus. At the bottom is the king's family coat of arms. The king was involved in the 30 Years War at the time and was in Poland awaiting the arrival of the Vasa when it set sail but sank in the Stockholm harbor. The stern at this point is about 20 feet wide.

Although it was a tragedy for the Swedish country and its navy to lose the Vasa it ended up being a blessing for the country and the world. There is no other fully intact man-of-war from the 17th century. It has revealed the the building techniques used on these ships and, of course, now earns millions of krones for the Swedish people.
You may be wondering why the Vasa capsized and sank. It had an inherent design flaw. It wasn't built wide or deep enough. The Vasa was the first man-of-war designed by the Swedes with two cannon decks. Since the width and depth of the ship weren't adequate, not enough ballast could be placed on board and so the ship was top heavy. It's believed that more ballast could have been put into storage areas but that have resulted in the bottom cannon deck being below the water line. On the day of the tragedy Vasa only had four sails up and had already tipped dramatically twice before, on the third time, it capsized to the point where the open cannon ports began taking on water. Once that happend the inevidible happened and the ship rapidly sank to the bottom of the harbor. There were about 450 men on board, 100 sailors and 350 soldiers. 20-30 people were killed. 1000's of Stockholm citizens stood on shore and watched the Vasa tragedy.

OK, that's it. Copenhagen, O$lo and Stockholm complete. What a wonderful experience. Just the long drive home to Germany. But, one more stop along the way. Rostock.

O$lo, Norway

After two days in Copenhagen we were on to O$lo, Norway. Just north of Copenhagen we caught the twenty minute ferry from Helsingor, Denmark to Helsingborg, Sweden. From there, most of the drive to O$lo was along the west coast of Sweden.

At the Danish port of Helsingor, as our ferry left the break water, we passed Kronborg Castle. Shakespeare used this castle as his Elsinore in Hamlet.

In Sweden, on the road to O$lo.

You may notice our unique spelling of O$lo. We figured that’s pretty appropriate since in 2009 it was rated the most expensive city in the world. Regretfully, it fell to the number two spot in a 2011 survey.

O$lo was established around 1070. Throughout its history the city had been destroyed a number of times by fire until 1654 when King Christian IV of Denmark ordered it rebuilt but with the new name of Christiania. In the early 1800’s, when the union with Denmark came to an end, Christiania (O$lo) became the capital of Norway. Not until 1925 was the city name restored to O$lo.

O$lo has a small city feel, especially in the city center just north of the harbor and it’s an easy walk to most of the major sight-seeing venues there or to hop onto ferries to take you across the bay to others. And, O$lo is expensive.

After the long drive and checking into our O$lo hotel we needed a little refreshment. Two pints of the local lager, $22.

The harbor in the O$lo fjord. The Akershus Fortress sits on the bluff above the harbor.

We're on a ferry to the opposite side of the harbor. The O$lo harbor with the O$lo city hall in the background. City hall is where O$lo presents the Nobel Peace Prize each year.

Aker Brygge behind the boats in the harbor. Aker Brygge is a former shipping and industrial area of O$lo which has been renovated into a modern eating and drinking area.

The Viking Ship Museum in the Bygdøy area of the city which is across the harbor from the city center.

The Viking Ship Museum contains three ships that were discovered in the late 1800's and early 1900's. Each ship was found in a burial mound. This is the Oseberg Ship.

Jeff said he's in his ancestorial home. He's half German, half Swedish. So, even though we're still in Norway, he felt his Viking blood flowing.

The bow of the Oseberg Ship, or was it the stern? They both look the same.

Now at the Fram Museum. Fram was a very famous Norwegian ship built to explore the colds of the Artic and Antartic during the late 1800's and early 1900's. Fridtjof Nansen was the Norwegian explorer that gained international fame on the Fram.

On board the Fram. Norway has built an enclosed museum which houses the Fram and tells the stories of a its amazing adventures.

More of Jeff's Viking blood. At the helm of the Fram.

After catching the ferry back across the harbor, time for refreshment again. At the Beer Palace in Aker Brygge. A new champion of the absurdly expensive, I'm sitting there with two pints of local lager, $36.

Stortinget, Norway's parliment building in the O$lo city center.

At the opposite end of city street Karl Johans gate (that little "g" is how they spell it) from the parliment building is Slottet, the Royal Palace of Norway's monarch.

A guard at the royal palace. One man's goofy tassle is another man's manhood.

The Vigeland Sculpture Park is a short tram ride west of the city center. It contains the 200+ bronze and granite sculptures created over twenty years by Norwegian artist Gustav Vigeland. All the statues are of men and women, of various ages, children and even babies, all nude, mostly involved in daily activities but some quite abstract. This is looking west from the bridge.

The Vigeland Sculpture Park looking back to the east. You can just make out the bridge with its 58 bronze statues.

This monolith is almost 50 high and has 121 individual figures, men, women, children and babies, that appear to all be trying to get to the top. It took three stone carvers 14 years to complete.

Some of the figures around the monolith. They form a circle of life, from very young to quite old.

One of the bronze statues at the bridge. Not sure what it's called but I don't think this guy likes kids.

The Angry Baby is the most famous, individual statue in the entire park.

More bridge bronze statues. We named this sculpture Touchdown Tony and Touchdown Tammy.

After all that art, one last Norwegian beer. Jeff's drinking this one for his friend Borg.

Well, so far the Scandinavia trip has been fun. A couple bumps in the road; no hot water in Copenhagen and obscenely expensive in O$lo. But, we're so happy we made the trip and have seen and done the things we have so far. On to Stockholm!!

Copenhagen, Denmark

The second day of our Scandinavia tour we caught the 0845 ferry from Puttgarden, Germany to Rodby in Denmark. After the 45 minute crossing it was a leisurely, Sunday morning drive into Copenhagen.

Jeff and I at the ferry port in Puttgarden, Germany. It's about 0815, a dreary, drizzly day.


Video boarding the ferry in Puttgarden, Germany. Very efficient operation.

On board the ferry, bound for Denmark.

Copenhagen just 159 kilometers away.


Copenhagen (Danish: København), not too surprisingly, means ”merchants’ harbor.” A settlement of some sort has existed here since the late 1100’s. It became the capital Denmark in the 15th century and, as a Scandinavian state, it shares a long history with both Norway and Sweden; some as an ally, some advesarial. Throughout that history Copenhagen has bourne the brunt of attacks by the Hanseatic League and Great Britian and occupation by Nazi Germany. Today it’s considered to have one of the best qualities of life of any major city in the world and their citizens some of the happiest. 36% of all Copenhagen citizens commute to work by bicyle.

Since it was only 1130 the morning we arrived, and we were passing right by it, we stopped to see the Carlsberg brewery. This was a very enjoyable, go at your own pace, follow the signs tour.

First stop, Carlsberg brewery. Carlsberg began operations in 1845. They very rapidly became a leading European brewery. One reason was because of the shortage of quality brewing yeast and because of that Carlberg developed their own, Saccharomyces carlsbergensis, which is still used today.

Carlsbergs' bottle collection; 20,214 unopened bottles. Jeff is holding an old wooden carrier for these three liter bottles that were used by folks to buy their beer at the brewery and carry it home.

Carlsberg used an old Indian symbol for quality and well-being , the Swastika. Of course, with the advent of the Nazis they quickly dropped its use. This bottle is from around 1935.

During WW II, grains used in the brewing process were hard to obtain because of shortages and the need for use in other food goods. This poster produced by Carlsberg shows how the nourishment from a single beer equals that of a number of differnt food products. Well, it was worth a try.

I'm sitting with one of the 19th century workers on break. That's a two-liter cask on the table in front of me. Brewery workers had been allocated a ration of four liters per day but eventually that was lowered to just two. Wonder why?

The famous Carlsberg elephants. Four of them hold up this structure which originally was a water tower and completed in 1901. That's our car between the elephants.

The swastika symbol on the side of one of the elephants.

After the brewery we drove into the old town area of Copenhagen to check into our hotel. Along the way we were quite surprised to see that the city seemed rather dingy and run down with lots of trash and debris along the curbside. Even at our hotel there was rubbish piled on the curb and a rather large sink hole squarely in the middle of the sidewalk. After we checked into the hotel we learned the cause of all this disarray. The day prior to our arrival, Copenhagen had the largest single day rain fall in the history of the city; two months of rain in two hours. The city storm drains couldn’t handle that volume of water and the old town area was flooded. Our hotel had a foot of water in the lobby the day prior to our arrival. Within the Copenhagen old town there are a lot of businesses, bars, restaurants and shops that are five to six steps down below the street level. Those establishments had quite a bit of damage and, as mentioned, many of the cobblestone sidewalks had small to rather large sink holes. Throughout the old town none of the hotels, including ours, had hot water. So that’s what we found upon our arrival but we were still able to enjoy the city and what it had to offer.


The new Copenhagen harbor. Dug by Swedish prisoners of war in 1760. We started a harbor tour from here.

Copenhagen's Little Mermaid, based on the Hans Christian Anderson fairy tale. We're on a harbor tour boat so we're going to be in the background of all those people's picture. This place was packed with tourists. Over the years the Little Mermaid has been vandalized with paint and even decapitated.

The dome of the Marble Church shows here between the Royal palace, Amalienborg Palace. On the left is the Queen's residence. On the right the Crowned Prince's. His flag is flying above his palace so he's at home.

The Church of Our Savior with it's spiraling steeple. The spiral is a stairway which allows you to walk to the top. You can see the stairway is actually on the outside of the steeple so it's a wet walk up on a rainy day.

I don't remember which steeple this one is, they seemed to be everywhere in Copenhagen. But, I liked the matching colors of the steeple and the statue.

The steeple above the Copenhagen stock exchange. The steeple consists of the intertwined tails of four dragons.

The Copenhagen harbor tour boat making a very tight turn in canal. Look at how low the bridge is that this long boat had to go under.

On the way up to top of the Round Tower I needed a WC. I had the choice of this new modern facility, down six steps, or . . .

. . . this medieval privy right next door. There was no bucket for flushing so I went modern.

Copenhagen's city hall.

Copenhagen's favorite sons, actually from Odense, Hans Christian Anderson.

Collapsed sidewalk from the flood. This is actually a rather small sink hole.

One of the shops in Copenhagen. Not sure why Jeff wanted to take this picture.

Just some of the sights from Copenhagen. We enjoyed our time there but with no hot water at the hotel, we were ready to move on to O$lo and a shower there.

Lübeck, Germany

Jeff and I are on a multi-city tour in Scandinavia. Our first stop, before taking the ferry across from Germany to Denmark, was to spend the night in Lübeck. This city is north of Hamburg and only a short drive to the Baltic coast. We learned that Lübeck was a major city in the Hanseatic League, which, probably just like you, caused us to ask, "What the heck is the Hanseatic League?" Well, it was an commercial alliance of a number of northern European cities from the 13th to 17th centuries. They were more than a trading organization though. They also had a military presense to protect their interests. The Hanseatic League was also called Hansa and that term still exists today in names like Lufthansa.

Beyond all that Lübeck was a pretty city with an old town that exists on an island in the Wakenitz River. Here's a couple images of Lübeck.

Holstentor is one of the two remaining medieval city gates. It is the symbol of Lübeck and one of the most famous images in Germany.

Lübeck's old city square and some magnificent architecture.
Well, it was a quick stop and a real bonus to our trip. Next stop, after a good nights sleep, Copenhagen, Denmark.