Sunday 2^nd July: Nobel prize Museum and Royal Palace day

It was overcast but not yet raining when Mark rose at 6 am and so he managed to get out for a bike ride. The drizzle started at around 9.30 am and continued for much of the day so he was lucky to get a first ride in for Stockholm.

We were so glad we’d completed the two walking tours in yesterday’s sunshine and had wisely planned indoor activities for today given that rain had been forecast. Our morning was spent at The Nobel Prize Museum which was just a few steps away from our apartment. We took the free 30 minute guided tour that was included with the entry ticket but then did the self-guided audio tour after that. The museum is only small but packed with lots of information and interactive experiences so you could spend hours there if you so wish but we stayed for just 2 hrs.

There were lots of interesting facts and I’ve noted those that piqued my interest:

• The Nobel Prize has been awarded since 1901.
• The Museum opened in 2001 in what had been the old Stock Exchange.
• This year will result in around 1,000 as the total tally of Laureates
• Alfred Nobel: 1833-1896. Dreamed of being a poet or writer but father encouraged him into engineering (60% of his books in library were literature)
• Along with his father, they experimented on nitro glycerin.
• His younger brother (19 yr) was killed in accident explosion in the factory so Nobel then tried to develop a more stable form of the explosive
• Nobel developed patents on Dynamite and a detonator device and became very rich as his products were used in mining and construction. Nobel had 94 factories across 20 countries
• Nobel never married. No kids. Spoke 5 languages fluently. He was prone to melancholy and had a very low self concept. Nobel thought he added nothing to the world and should have been drowned at birth. Really depressing for him quite sadly.
• Left all his wealth to a fund to award prizes for contribution to human kind. Current fund is worth 5.5 billion
• Nobel described in his will how recipients to be nominated and selected and which institutions to be involved.
• Died on Dec 10 so that is date of awards.
• Current Prize money is around 10 million kroner
• The Peace Prize is awarded in Oslo, controversially. Reasons unknown: Norway had a Swedish king at the time and were in a union? Norway less militarized?
• Nomination: September nomination forms issued. Jan 31: deadline for nomination. Oct: voting 51% majority or no award. Max 3 joint prize winners. Organisations can only receive Peace prize. Notifications is first by Swedish phone call + 46 number so keep on the lookout on your phone!
• Nominations are classified for 50 yrs
• Ghandi nominated multiple times never received a Nobel prize
• All Einsteins nominations received a prize
• Curie:only person to receive 2 prizes in 2 different categories 1903 physics 1911 chemistry

Our afternoon was spent at The Royal Palace which was luckily just a 3 minute walk away given the rain. We had two tours booked: one for the Royal Apartments and one for The Treasury. We also checked out The Museum of Antiquities and the Museum of The Three Crowns. As with the Nobel Prize Museum for earlier today, the weather outside was cool and wet but inside these venues it was stifling hot and stuffy. This may have contributed to us being rather underwhelmed with The Royal Palace visit. Both tours failed to engage either of us but perhaps that’s because we have so little familiarity with the history of this area and of the monarchy. Either that or the heat was simply derailing us. We both thought that whilst the Royal Palace had size over The Breakers in Newport, RI, it had nothing on the opulence!

It was around 5 pm by the time we left The Royal Palace and we headed just around the corner to Stortorget, the main square, for one drink and some people watching before walking a few steps back to the apartment for a night of dining in. One great feature of our apartment is its location; it’s literally just a few minutes away from all the major sites in the Old Town.

 

 

Monday 3^rd July: Viking and ABBA museums and Hop On Hop Off Bus day

It was another day forecast to be raining for the most but we had, again, planned indoor activities. Our first stop was at The Viking Museum were we took the 10.30 guided tour that came with the entry ticket. Mark had noted someone advised that you only needed 20 minutes at this museum, and my research said 1 hr, but we found we spent 2 hours there and it was barely enough time to do the place justice. It’s only a relatively small museum but was packed with multiple groups of cruise ship tours filing through the space which made it harder to reach and see the exhibits. Our young history academic guide was informative and entertained us for his 30 minute segment which made the visit all the more worthwhile. We found out some interesting facts which I’ve noted below:

• The Viking Period is roughly considered 740-1080
• Christian missionaries arrived in the 8th century and started to proselytize to replace Norse religion
• Vikings Adopted Christianity to be able to trade
• Sweden turned Christian by end of 11th century
• Swedish Vikings: were more to the East and invaded areas like Constantinople, what is now Russia and Ukraine.
• Norway and Denmark Vikings were more to the west
• The word ‘Viking’ is actually considered a verb as found on rune stones (carving on ancient stones; a bit like Viking alphabet)
• Harald Bluetooth was a Viking and Danish king and the modern Bluetooth technology, a combined Danish / Swedish invention, is named after him. 
• The Bluetooth symbol is derived from the Rune initials of Harald Bluetooth.

The ABBA Museum was next on our list and this was just a short walk from the Viking museum which worked out well. Our entry ticket was for the time between 12 – 12:30 and we arrived to find a massive queue, and the massive queue was for the 12 – 12.30 time slot. It was well organized though and we were glad entry was so carefully paced as the exhibition space is below ground and any overcrowding down there would be quite unpleasant. We opted to take the audio guide tour and this was excellent as it was narrated by Benny, Bjorn, Agnatha and Frida and this made the experience that much more personalized and intimate; you felt that they were talking directly to you as you went around the exhibits. The pathway through the exhibit moved through various rooms, packed with displays and memorabilia, and it took you through the life journey of each of the band members from their early years as children becoming interested in music through to their teens and then how they met and formed the band and then on to their post-ABBA years. It was a great experience and, whilst you might be aware of some of the events on their timeline, their whole history was put into much greater context by being fleshed out in this way and, especially so, as it was in their own words. I think I enjoyed our time there more than Mark but I was, and continue to be, a huge fan of their music. We spent two hours there but you could spend a whole day in the venue as there are many different exhibits and interactive experiences to enjoy. This is another place I would definitely add to a to-do list if you’re ever in Stockholm and I would pre-purchase the tickets to ensure you can get access at a nominated time. Turning up and trying to buy them online as you queue may see you having to wait a long time for a vacant time slot.

We emerged from the ABBA experience by about 3 pm and were both a bit tired after our time spent at the two museums. We noticed that there was a Hop On Hop Off bus stop right near the ABBA museum exit and so we decided that would be a good way to fill in the rest of the afternoon; it meant we didn’t have to walk or think too much or worry about the rain. It was only after boarding the bus and checking the route on the map that we realized just how big Stockholm is and how many different and interesting areas of their city there are to explore, all much further away than a simple walk from our apartment though. It was at this point that Mark said we probably needed a bit more time than our 5 nights here to do the place justice. We ended up doing 1 ¹/₂ loops on the bus before it stopped for the day near 5.30 pm. We were pretty tired after our full day and so headed to dinner at the Hairy Pig which was only ok.

 

 

Tuesday 4^th July

It was our last full day in Stockholm and luckily the rain had eased off enough to let Mark enjoy one last bike ride. Our morning was taken up with a 2.5 hr free walking tour of the Ostermalm area. This is the modern downtown area of Stockholm and the focus for the tour was on the more recent history and culture of Sweden.

We had a funny thing happen though as we left the apartment. When we exited our front door onto the street, we decided to head left for a change instead of right. Mark had struggled to find any decent cafes nearby and today, when we had only walked about 20 steps, there was a cafe right in front of us, Under Kastajen and the most delightful, beautiful looking cafe it was at that. Mark said the coffee was only ok but the setting was lovely and we decided then that we would come back here for dinner tonight. This is just another example of how I think we needed a couple of more days here.

Our guide for the 2.5 hr walking tour was Sebastian who was originally from Mexico City but had been living and working in Sweden, in the area of Political Science, for 8 years. He told us lots of stories of political and cultural significance and plenty of interesting information, some of which I recalled and jotted below:

• There are 14 island in Stockholm and 30,000 in the Swedish archipelago
• Barack Obama is the only US president to visit sweeten. He stayed at the Grand hotel
• The Swedish Parliament is 70% of time left leaning and Social Democrats always win popular vote. The Far right won last election but usually only get 1% of popular vote. Recently increasing crime wave, where 97% of gun crime is found to be committed by immigrants, is most likely the reason for shift. Sweden has the most immigrants of any European country and is now rated the most dangerous European country; they have the  worst gun crime
• Swedish neutrality during the war was actually a bit of a myth: Sweden trading with Germany during war, they failed to help Norwegian king when Germany invaded Norway, the Swedish navy escorted German boats to avoid being damaged by the allies and the Swedish Institute kept experimenting on people, like the Nazis did, until 1954!
• Church officials in Sweden are elected. So it’s quite political
• Hungary and Turkey opposing Swedish entry to NATO. Turkey opposed as Sweden doesn’t punish crime of burning Koran. Finland was approved entry to NATO though as they have rules against burning of anything in a public space
• Downtown is very white as most immigrants reside in the outer areas
• Sweden and England are the only European countries never to be occupied. Independent focus. Hence kept currency
• High Happiness quota due to many things: good welfare system, decent wages, abundance of nature within easy access BUT listen to this one reason given today! Work finish time encouraged to be 5 pm across all industries and levels of employment. Anyone who works later is deemed to be incompetent and needing to work longer to catch up! let’s give this one a go back in Oz!

Our tour finished up around 12:30 in the shopping district so we grabbed a quick bite to eat for lunch before strolling the huge Drottninggatan pedestrian shopping Mall. It was that busy you’d think it was Christmas so we didn’t last too long. We then hopped back on the Hop On Hop Off Bus, as our ticket was valid for another 2 hrs, and used this as transport to get over to the Vasa Museum.

The Vasa Museum was an amazing place and one I would definitely put on a to-do list for Stockholm. It is essentially a museum that was built around the dry dock area of a rescued 17th century downed ship and the story behind both the ships short life and recovery effort is rather amazing.

The Vasa was commissioned by King Gustav II Adolf of Sweden and built between 1626-1628 but sank after just 20 minutes into its maiden voyage and spent the next 300 years under the sea at a depth of about 30 m. The ship was considerably well preserved given this area of Sweden didn’t suffer from sea worm and also due to the very cold and brackish water conditions.

The ship was 52 m high to the top of the pine mast, it had an oak main-ship, was adorned with 700 painted linden sculptures, loaded with 64 cannons on its two fighting decks and had around 150-250 people on board for the maiden voyage, of whom about 30 drowned. The reason for the sinking was that the boat was too top heavy and need more width on its base so as to accommodate more ballast. 

The rescue effort was only initiated in the 1950 and it was April 1961 before the boat saw daylight again. The Vasa has proven to be like a time capsule of 17th century history and is one of largest objects to ever be conserved and what you see on display is 98% original. It a most amazing experience seeing the huge vessel up close and the darkened controlled environment of the museum just adds to the whole surreal aspect of the ships downing and discovery.

It was about 5 pm by the time we left the Vasa Museum and we walked the 30 minute journey home as it was a pretty walk along the harbor front and, being quite busy, provided ample opportunity for more people watching. I noticed quite a few Aussie accents as we made our way back to the apartment. There was a bit of luggage sorting needed as we had to lighten the loads in our main suitcases, before our morning departure and flight to Norway, so that took a good hour or so before we ventured back to Under Kastajen for dinner. It was doing busy trade and was almost full, inside and out, and we had a pleasant last Stockholm evening.

We had enjoyed our 5 nights in Stockholm but didn’t manage to get through all the things on our wish list. We both think you need at least 7 nights to explore the area fully so keep that in mind if planning a visit over this way. Next stop for us is Bergen, Norway.