Statues
Djurgården – part 2
Neil Hopcroft
A digital misfit
Djurgården – part 1
Animal garden – this island is home of Skansen, among other things. A place reserved for cultural highlights of the city. We were there to visit the aquarium, but took a walk along the waterfront back to Kungstradgården T-bana. Find the aquarium was a bit of an adventure, most other things on the island are well signposted. Its hiding behind an arthouse, but we found it across the no-mans-land car park from Grona Lund.
The aquarium itself, although quite small, is nicely set up. With a number of sections, including a rainy rain forest and a (thankfully non-smelly) sewer. We had lunch looking out over the Baltic harbour, across to the cruise liner dock on Södermalm. Watching the Waxholms Bolaget ferries sailing back and forth. This is a wonderful location, worth the entrance cost on its own, never mind the fisk.
Part 1 – waterfront
Book review: Skandar and the Chaos Trials
[Hardcover, read aloud to Adelle and Nils]
This is the third book in the Skandar series, a series we have been enjoying so far. They are set in a fantasy world where unicorns are found to be real and have magical powers when teamed up with a rider. They are vicious animals quite unlike those you normally think of.
This third book covers Skandars third year at the Eyrie (the previous two covered his first and second years) – his sister joins him on the island, and there is an unexpected tension between them as Skandar tries to please everyone but manages to annoy everyone while he is doing it (sounds familiar). It turns out that their family is even more broken than we had thought in the previous two books.
Similarities with the magical world of Harry Potter are obvious, but this series is grittier, Skandar being more flawed than Harry but trying harder to get things right. I’m hoping the views of writer, AF Steadman, are more palatable than those of Rowling, but I haven’t found any comments either way.
Adelle and Nils both love this series, the first book was much better than we had expected from the cheesy looking cover, so we continued with the next book when that came out – there will be five books in the series, one for each magical element, earth, wind, fire, water and spirit. We have already started the next, Skandar and the Skeleton Curse. The final book in the series is not yet available but is due to be published in August.
Skansen open air museum – part 5
Misc
Skansen open air museum – part 4
Animals
Skansen open air museum – part 3
Adelle at Skansen
Skansen open air museum – part 2
Previously: Skansen open air museum – part 1
Skyline
Skansen open air museum – part 1
We accidentally decided to go to the Skansen museum – we went on a bus tour of the city, which drove around Djurgården (among other places) pointing out the attractions available there. We thought there was some deal for getting in cheaply because we’d been on the bus tour but had managed to get ourselves confused. But we decided to go anyway.
It is an open air museum taking up much of the island. It started as a collection of buildings from around Sweden before the industrialisation of the country. So theres a lot of buildings which don’t appear to be in their correct context (which gave the place a slightly sickly sweet Disney meets New England feel).
First stop was food, we climbed from the entrance up to the nearest cafe, sat upon a tall rocky outcrop. The venison stew was remarkably good value (being something like 10 krona more than you’d pay for a McDonalds hamburger) and gave A. her first taste of lingonberries. Just what we needed.
We noticed a lot of people carrying big bags of apples, and decided to go the direction they came from. There was an apple and pear festival going on, but the poor pears hardly had a look in, the apples stole the show. There were a number of stalls selling apples in various forms, mostly raw for later consumption but you could have them cooked in different ways.
The museum, as well as having many buildings from all over the country, houses a zoo with a number of animal enclosures and walks through reproductions of rural scenes.
This post has been split into parts to make it easier to digest with full size pictures (and easier for my somewhat delicate hosting service to deliver those pictures to you).
Buildings of Skansen
Södermalm
A walk around the island of Södermalm
Söderhallarna
Looking back: not far from here was ‘the English Shop’, where you could buy baked beans and marmite, if you so desired. We didn’t go there much but it was a comfort to know that we could.
Södermalm is, in some ways, the Boulevard Saint-Germain of Stockholm, a bohemian island where all the cool kids hang out. In the centre of the island, just over the way from Medborgarplatsen T-Bana station is the Söderhallarna library and arthouse complex. Inside its quite a confused place, trying to be a number of things at the same time without being able to decide which it really is. Its a meeting place, a concert hall, a shopping centre, a cinema and an eating place. And probably some other things too.
