Day 12 Helsinki, its Sunday, and raining so…….

Sailed into port around 10am, drizzling and cold.  Took a bus to the city train station, checked our rollers for the day, got 24 hour bus/rail/metro passes and ready to head out in the middle of this cold, windy, rainy storm.  Oh Boy!  The tour books recommend a “Orientation Bus Tour”, since we are off season, we chose a metro line that did basically the same route and oriented ourselves.  Since the weather was so bad, (and it was Sunday) we limited ourselves to the three main churches in town.  In order: the Lutheran Cathedral, Uspenski Orthodox Cathedral, and Temppellaukio Church.

Lutheran Cathedral.  Finished in 1852.  A Neoclassical nirvana.

    

 

Uspenski Orthodox Cathedral.  Finished in 1868.  Built for the Russian military when Finland belonged to Russia.

    

    

    

 

Temppeliaukio Church, (Church in the Rock).  1969.  Blasted out of solid granite. The roof is a 13 mile long copper ribbon.  Below the church is an air-raid shelter for 6,000 people.

    

    

With so many bridges in Scandinavia, “locks of love” are found frequently.  This one in Helsinki was the most dense.

Alex and my favorite statue.  “Bad, Bad Boy”.  Umbrellas were for the rain, and the “fountain”.  Awesome.

    

Day 11 Drottningholm Slott and ferry through the archipelago to Helsinki

First, a new term: “Latte Dads”.  We continued to see young men pushing buggies around Stockholm. We were told that rather than maternity leave after birth, there is family leave. Each parent gets 9 months paid leave!  Mom is first, then dad.  Hence the latte dads are all over the city, museums, and parks pushing their 9-18 month old babies.  Alex and I thought that was awesome.

    

Last day in Sweden, so we took the Metro and bus outside of the city proper to the Drottninghholm Slott or Palace.  This was a 17th century summer retreat for the queens of Sweden.  The Swedish royalty struggled since they weren’t “absolute” like the French and Russian Kings and Queens and had to haggle and hassle with a Parliament.  That is another reason there was so much intermarrying of European Royalty in the 16th and 17th century.  Power and alliance first, then prestige and pampering.

    

The King’s bedchamber.  Where the ceremonial tucking-in and dressing would take place.

    

The “front door” to the Palace.  Busy.

    

A view of the back of the Palace.  Acres and acres of landscaping and gardens.

Another interesting sight was the Drottningholm Court Theatre.  Its founder King Gustaf, put much of the country’s finances and one third of his time into acting in and developing this opera house, when a group got fed up with his inattention to running the country, they assassinated him and the country forgot about the opera house.  It sat idle, abandoned and forgotten until the early 1900’s.  It was found to be a time machine from the 1700’s, it was cleaned up, dusted off, and they have resumed staging operas there.  All the original sets, trap doors, orchestra pit, etc. have either been reused, or duplicated, very interesting peek into the past.

The library.

    

Photo out the back window of the gardens.

A shout out to Alex and Hannah for getting us around Scandinavia.  Between the travel books, (primarily Rick Steves), maps and phone app, we rarely, if ever, had a misstep or board a wrong bus, train or subway.  Our final transit to our fourth country, Finland.  Another overnight ferry, with some great views of the Stockholm archipelago as we head north east to Helsinki.

Cheaper than an hotel, but pretty small, above their heads is the bunk, two more on the right.

    

Another parting food shot.  This is what happens when you buy a pizza, then spend a half an hour chasing a bus to the ferry, check into the ferry, then sit down in the cabin to consume, this and another pizza.  Hard to hold the pizza perfectly flat.  We “combed” the food back on the crust discovering they didn’t cut the pizza either.  Luckily, Gloria had her TSA approved pocket knife, (1 inch long) to slice the pie up.

Day 10 Stockholm—Skansen and the Vasa Museum

Skansen is a 75 acre open-air museum and zoo in Stockholm.  Hugely popular during the summer, unfortunately mostly closed down off season. It was founded in  in 1891, to bring all the culture of Sweden to one location and celebrate it.  150 buildings from all over the country were disassembled then reassembled  in Skansen to allow Swedes and all people to observe how the Swedish lived and worked over the centuries.  All but three are original.  Unfortunately, all were closed but a couple, they look great from the outside, but during the tourist season, they have re-enactors all over to explain what your are seeing and experiencing.  So….we spent more time in the zoo, and with the lemurs.

    

    

    

    

The Vasa was launched in 1628. The ship foundered and sank after sailing about 1,400 yd. into her maiden voyage on 10 August 1628. She fell into obscurity after most of her valuable bronze cannons were salvaged in the 17th century until she was located again in the late 1950s in a busy shipping lane just outside the Stockholm harbor. Salvaged with a largely intact hull in 1961.  And placed in the current museum in 1988.

    

Note on the right equipment to continual replace the rusted steel bolts with carbon fiber/stainless steel bolts

Look at the people on the left for an idea how huge this ship is.

    

98% of what you see is original.  Typically in historical reconstructions, you are lucky to see 30-40% original.

It was richly decorated as a symbol of the king's ambitions for Sweden and himself, and upon completion was one of the most powerfully armed vessels in the world. Vasa was dangerously unstable however, due to too much weight in the upper structure of the hull and too narrow of a keel. Despite this lack of stability she was ordered to sea and foundered only a few minutes after encountering a first wind stronger than a breeze.

    

The typical crew numbers for a ship of this size is 400, however on the “shake down” cruise only 150 were on board.  Of these 30 were killed, 15 remains were found.

They are slowly “rebuilding” the facial features of the crew using computer modeling.  Very lifelike.

An incredible exhibition detailing its construction, short voyage, recovery and restoration.  One of the highlights of our vacation.

 

Finally, our last dinner in Stockholm, “The Plank”, a classic Swedish favorite, a steak smothered in unknown gravy surrounded by potatoes.  Awesome.

Day 9 Stockholm

Moving from one country to another is always a challenge.  Flying takes one hour, train takes 6 and a ferry 10, but which is faster and the most economic?  Today we chose to fly from Copenhagen to Stockholm; easy decision I thought, when the flight was booked a month ago.  However, we left the hotel this morning at 6:30, walked to the Metro, took that to a train stop, took another train to the airport, went through security, then waited an hour for the flight. 

One hour flight, ( made the mistake of getting coffee on the flight—I had just woken up from my short nap and didn’t know it was $5!), then we land, take a bus that stops 7 times, then transfer to a train, then to the Metro in Stockholm, then walk a few blocks to the hotel.  6 hours.  BTW, our hotel in downtown Stockholm was built in 1647, 367 years ago!  Quite a building.  Walls are two feet thick, this must also explain why there is only one bathroom on our floor!  Cooler here then Copenhagen since it is further north.  We added an extra layer for our afternoon of touring.

Today was typical in that we went to the TI (Tourist Information) at the airport and got a Stockholm Card for our three days here.  It allows us to get into all the museums and we can ride all the transportation with the card.  It pays for itself if you are as busy as we are, and a lot more convenient then paying for everything.

    

Advertised as the narrowest street in the world.

Our favorite sight today was the Storkyrkan Cathedral.  Initially built in 1279, but what we see now is mostly from the 1600’s.  It had some Catholic roots, but now it is the Church of Sweden.  What is most unique is the great wooden carved statue of St. George fighting the dragon carved in 1471.  An interesting topic for the inside of a church.

         

         

    

    

    

 

We tried to tour the The Royal Palace, but it was very difficult to get around, much of it was closed, and what wasn’t, we weren’t allowed to take pictures.  We got a few pictures in the armory.  Otherwise still rainy, we had a great Swedish dinner at a very nice restaurant down the street, more sights tomorrow.

    

No comment.

Day 8 Frederiksborg Castle and Kronborg Castle

Another early day, the rain/drizzle is back today.  We walk to the underground Metro Station, then take two trains further north, final a commuter bus to our first destination of the day, Frederiksborg Castle.  It sits on an island in a lake in the town of Hillerod.  It is known as the grandest castle in Scandinavia, and is often called the “Danish Versailles”. Built in the early 1600’s, rebuilt in the mid 1800’s after a devastating fire.  Like putting ice cream on a wedding cake, over the top.

After the reconstruction, the royal family who had lived there for over 200 years choose not to return, so the Carlsberg Foundation, (the beer family), took on the project and turned it into a museum of Danish cultural history.  This resulted in an overwhelming, overloading of art and furniture. 

    

A room where the King mediated, filled with incredible paintings.

    

The Great Room, used for banquets, huge.

    

The chapel, huge.

    

More ceiling art.

    

    

The outside gardens.

Further north and on the ocean is the Kronborg Castle located in Helsingor.  The castle's story dates back to the 1420s.  It controlled the entranceway to the Baltic Sea from 1574 to 1585 demanding tribute to pass between Denmark and Sweden.  We didn’t go inside, too castled out right now, but we did wander the surrounds. 

After the castle walk, we went into Helsinger to walk the small, mostly abandoned streets, with tourist season over, it is very quiet and many of the stores and restaurants are closed.  We were convinced we wanted an authentic Danish Smørrebrød and after asking found the restaurant that makes them.  They consist of an open faced piece of dense buttered rye bread then they are topped with meat, cheese and vegetables.  Alex had the very traditional 3 layered pickled herring, cucumber, capers, ham, potato salad, meat balls, cabbage, and pickles.  Hannah had spareribs, pickled cucumbers, cabbage.  Gloria had fish and egg salad, I had fish, shrimp and caviar.  We were full.  Oh, we also ordered “warm French stick”, just curious as to what it was, turned out to be french bread.  “lost in translation”.  Tomorrow we fly out to Stockholm.  Two countries down, two to go. 

    

Day 7 Walkin’ Copenhagen 2.0

We put in another 11 hours of walking, rough calculation of 10+ miles!  Alex downloaded a new GPS map, so we had a paper and digital version to help us through the city.  First stop was Church of Our Savior.  Build in the mid 1700’s, steeple added in the early 1800’s.  What is unique about it is the spiral steeple.  We walked to the very top.  Great views.  Also, what is unique with churches in Scandinavia is they aren’t necessarily denominationally attached.  This one is a Baroque church.  We visited one the other day that was a German church.  Church was church, thank you.

    

    

    

Pretty awesome on the inside too.

Next was Christiania.  This is an amalgam of Woodstock, Burning Man and the movie Groundhog Day.  In the 70’s, the Danish wanted an even freer spirit then they already had, so they established Christiania. A self-proclaimed autonomous community of about 850 residents.  Basically it is a place where they can buy, sell and smoke as much weed as you want.  Indeed, big signs on “Pusher Street”, (main street), state no photographs. While we were walking through, this guy cruises by on his bicycle with the biggest doobie I have ever seen.  It is visited by many Danish and tourists alike, few want to, or are allowed to stay.

        

 

    

Next is our pilgrimage to the Carlsberg Brewery.  A long walk through the city, a big disappointment.  After coming off the “Guinness Experience” in Dublin, Ireland our hopes were high.  It was not to be.  Carlsberg has only been around since 1847; Guinness 1759.  Although they have a collection of almost 17,000 unopened brews, the tour and samples at the end was not inspired.  We ended up spending 6 hours in walking with a brief self-tour.  Not recommended.  No rain today, 90% chance tomorrow, we are planning on taking the Metro out of town to hit a few more castles. 

    

    

    

Another McKelvey Travels family tradition:  trying pizza in the different countries we have visited.  This one scored high.  Enjoyed it on the sidewalk in front of the deli.