Sami Reindeer Farm

The Sami people are an indigenous people that have inhabited this area of Finland and some surrounding parts of Sweden, Norway, and Russia for thousands of years.  Historically, in English, they were known as Lapps or Laplanders but today those terms can be considered derogatory.  The Sami have their own language and I think three different Sami dialects.  Sami were probably nomadic or at least semi-nomadic and their territory moved over time.  They have fished, fur trapped, herded sheep, and other things.  But the best known means of Sami livelihood has been reindeer herding.  Today, perhaps 10% of Sami people are connected to reindeer herding, providing them with meat, fur, and transportation.  In some sections of the Nordic countries today, reindeer herding is legally reserved for only Sami people.  We visited the Inari Reindeer Farm in the Inari village which is the center of Sami culture.

You can see Vicky getting up close and personal with a few of the reindeer in the first photo.  Nothing like some food to make animal friends.  The reindeer were very tame.

The man of the family is in the second photo, in native Sami dress including the hat.  He told us that he has 100 reindeer, 70 for food and 30 for pulling winter sleds.  Amongst other things, he told us that 15% of the reindeer get killed by vehicles every year on the roadways.  We saw lots of reindeer on or near the roads on our travels in northern Finland.

The reindeer guy told us that reindeer love to forage for lichens, mushrooms and other things on the forest floor but he said that they also feed them Purina Reindeer Chow, which you can see in the third photo. 

As it was cool, the Sami family invited us into a visitor’s hut for some hot tea.  You can see his wife, also in native dress, in the fourth photo serving our group some tea.

There is always a gift shop at the end of every stop on our tours, or at least it seems that way.  In the case of this Sami family, they can’t earn a living from raising reindeer alone.  They also make handicrafts, tan hides, do tourist stops, the husband is a photographer, and they do other things to make ends meet.

Home-hosted Dinner

We ate dinner one night while in Ivalo at a local family’s home.  This family was a native Finnish family.  Jana, the husband, made us dinner.  Paula, his wife, got a PhD in Helsinki in something like molecular biology.  They moved up to the far north woods for the lifestyle.  Today, she has a job with the local government as a health inspector.  They love where they live.  They have a nice chunk of land which is rather isolated.  This family seemed to me to be extremely happy and comfortable with their lives.

You can see Paula with Vicky in the first photo.  Jana and Paula built their own house which you can see in the first two photos.  I liked their house.  It seemed extremely solid and comfortable.  It was not fancy but was a really livable space.  Jana does some guiding work in both summer and winter for fishing, sledding, etc.  I’m not sure where they learned about construction but they didn’t make it sound like much of a big deal to have built their own home.

The back of their house is in the third photo.  The garden beds were just planted with vegetables.  They have a river just down the bank.  But the big thing here is that they told us that they heat mostly with wood but they buy their firewood.  I asked them why they buy firewood with all the trees on their property.  They said that these trees are over 200 years old.  They are so far above the Arctic Circle that trees grow extremely slowly up there and they wanted to preserve their own trees as a sort of legacy or investment for their daughter.  I understand their position but it was hard to believe that those trees were over 200 years old.

Noora, their daughter, is in the fourth photo.  Noora is three years old, going on 25.  She can’t wait to grow up according to her parents.  After dinner, we were served tea, piping hot.  Noora also got a mug of hot water and a tea bag and she handled it like she was already 25.  She was a very impressive and independent three-year old.

Jana and Paula hunt and fish all year long.  They supply all their own meat and fish.  They forage for wild berries, mushrooms, and all sorts of food.  They also raise vegetables.  Jana made dinner and it was largely home grown and processed.  We had smoked reindeer soup with mushrooms and cheese.  Our main plate (last photo) was moose stew over potatoes with beets, pickles, and lingonberries.  Dessert was chocolate cake with fresh cream and wild blueberry jam.  Everything was very good.

Husky Farm

We also visited the Kamisak husky farm near Ivalo.  These are Siberian Huskies and the farm was near Rovaniementie.  We toured the whole operation.  They have 88 dogs.  They also have horses at another facility.  It was a quiet day here because as we learned again, their busiest season is winter time.  I am still amazed by this.  Here, their winters are a long seven months, much of it in near darkness.  But people come up here to see the Northern Lights and since they are here, they do dog sled rides and reindeer sled rides, ice fishing and skiing, etc. 

You can see the head trainer of this facility in the first photo harnessing up one of the huskies.  It seemed clear that the dog was very used to the routine and knew what to do and when to do it.

One dog is on his house in the second photo.  Each dog has its own house.  You might also notice that these huskies are not that big but evidently, they are very tough and durable dogs.

Their crew demonstrated dog sledding, minus the dogs in harness, in the third photo.  People can rent a dog sled for one hour, two hours, four hours, a day or three days.  There are usually six to eight dogs on each sled but we were told that it was variable, depending on the length of time of the ride, the weather conditions, the ground conditions, etc.  It sounded easy enough with just a few things you really needed to keep in your focus.

Since it gets cool up here, they have different sizes of rooms to take a break.  Each has a fire in the center of it.  Our unit was quite cozy and comfortable inside.  The unit in the fourth photo was one of the smallest rooms.

After serving us blueberry juice, snacks, and tea, they brought in some six week-old puppies for us to hold.  I wasn’t sure if Vicky was going to give hers back.

Helsinki, Finland

We are now in Helsinki, Finland.  But while we are still in Finland, we have gone from the rural far north of Finland to the capital and far south of Finland.  Helsinki is the capital and most populous city of Finland.  It’s located on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, bordering on the Baltic Sea.  The city proper has a population of about 650,000 but with the metropolitan area, it’s about 1.5 million people.  Helsinki is by far the main urban area of Finland as well as the center for Finland’s politics, education, finance, research, and culture.  Helsinki is quite close to Tallinn, Estonia, Stockholm, Sweden, and Saint Petersburg, Russia and it has close historical ties to all three cities.  It was also the venue for the 1952 Summer Olympics. 

Helsinki was established as a trading town by King Gustav I of Sweden in 1550, which he intended to rival the city of Tallinn, Estonia.  Russian Emperor Alexander I moved the Finnish capital from Turku to Helsinki in 1812, to reduce the Swedish influence in Finland and bring the capital closer to Saint Petersburg.  It’s been called the “Daughter of the Baltic” and Helsinki is on the tip of a peninsula and 315 islands.  Yes, 315 islands!  So in our three days or so in Helsinki, we worked hard to see all that we could but I will just be giving a real overview of what we saw in Helsinki.

You can see a glimpse of Market Square in the first photo.  It is the central square of Helsinki and was my favorite area of town.  It borders on the sea and has ferry service to other islands.  Places like the Presidential Palace and Helsinki City Hall are located adjacent to Market Square.  This area has bars, restaurants, stores, transportation, and is a hub of activity and fun.  We spent quite a bit of time in this area and enjoyed all of that time.

Helsinki Cathedral is in the back of the first photo and in the second photo.  It’s just a block off of Market Square.  The cathedral is a Finnish Evangelical Lutheran cathedral.  The church was originally built from 1830 to 1852.  It was a tribute to the Grand Duke of Finland, Tsar Nicholas I of Russia.  It was known as St. Nicholas’ Church until Finland’s independence in 1917.  It’s a major city landmark.

The Sibelius Monument is in the third photo.  I’m including it because our local guide made such a big deal of it.  It’s a sculpture by Finnish artist Eila Hiltunen and dedicated to Finnish composer Jean Sibelius.  The monument was dedicated in 1967.  It consists of a series of more than 600 hollow steel pipes welded together in a wave-like pattern.  The purpose of the artist was to capture the essence of the music of Sibelius but many argue that Sibelius created little music for organs.  We were there in the rain with very large crowds, mostly Chinese tourists, to see this monument.  Personally, I don’t get it.  

Helsinki Central Station is in the fourth photo and I get that.  It’s the main station for commuter rail and long-distance trains departing from Helsinki.  Several hundred thousand people use the train station daily.  The train station was designed and inaugurated in 1919 and it’s still a beautiful station today.  It’s also as busy as a bee-hive inside.  It reminded me a bit of Grand Central Station in New York. 

Esplanade Park is in the last photo and I really enjoyed it.  We were there in spring and it was beautiful.  This park is like Helsinki’s central park.  It’s runs right into Market Square and the harbor.  I would say that both tourists and locals make good use of this park.  The park has sculptures, artists playing and singing and selling their wares.  The side streets are loaded with shops, restaurants, and bars.  The park has a stage for concerts and fashion shows.  It was a great place to soak up Helsinki.

More Helsinki

We are still in Helsinki, Finland.  It was quite an interesting town with a wide variation of architecture, culture, designs, politics, history, and people.  Most people speak Finnish and Swedish since Finland was ruled by Sweden for something like 500 to 600 years.  Our local guide said 20% of Finnish people own boats.  Helsinki has lots of immigrants with the largest numbers from Russia, Estonia, and Somalia.  Some 5,000 people are homeless in Helsinki but they house them in winter time.  We saw lots of museums, galleries, theaters, and other cultural centers.  This post will just me another glimpse of Helsinki but far from a complete picture. 

The Church in the Rock was an interesting stop.  It was much more popular this trip than our last time in Helsinki.  The church is immersed in the mountain, inside a massive block of granite.  It was opened in 1969 but had been planned for a very long time.  While it sits inside granite rock, sunlight comes in through the skylights.  It is also used as a concert hall since it has extraordinary acoustics created by the surface of the rock walls.  The interior is copper domed.  If nothing else, it is unusual.  You can see the entrance in the first photo.

Uspenski Cathedral is on the left side of the second photo.  It’s the main cathedral of the Orthodox Church of Finland.  It was designed by a Russian architect but was built after his death, from 1862 to 1868.  This church sits on a hillside on the peninsula and overlooks the city.  It’s also visible from many places in the central part of Helsinki.

I’ve included the Museum of Contemporary Art in the third photo.  They were working on the main section of this building, so this is just one end of it.  But you can see that it is a very modern structure.  It was designed by an American architect, Steven Holl.  It was conceived for the display of art produced since the 1960s.  This museum demonstrates Finland’s ability to achieve crossovers between the worlds of fine art and high technology.  Helsinki has many fine new buildings such as this.

The Finnish National Theater is nearby and is on the other end of the spectrum.  It was established in 1872 and the structure in the fourth photo was done in 1902.  It is the oldest Finnish speaking professional theater in Finland.  The National Theater was a touring company from 1872 until this theater was built in 1902, giving them a permanent home.  The theater has expanded over the years to add three additional permanent stages, so it’s a big operation. 

The Chapel of Silence, or Kamppi Chapel is in the last photo.  I somewhat hate to keep posting churches but they can be very interesting.  This chapel is located in Narinkka Square which is a hotbed of activity and shopping.  The chapel is a non-denominational church and welcomes everyone irrespective of religion, background, or philosophy of life.  And while everyone is welcome, there is NO talking inside the chapel.  It is really just a giant oval, wood-slat building and completely open inside.  It reminded me of the “cone of silence”, from ‘Get Smart’.  But I must say that it was nice to come in from the loud and high activity square and be standing there in complete silence.  They also didn’t allow photos inside the chapel.

Suomenlinna, Sea Fortress

We took a Ferry out to the sea fortress, Suomenlinna.  The Finnish translation is Castle of Finland.  But the fortress was started in 1748 when Finland was part of the Swedish kingdom, so then it was the Castle of Sweden.  The whole fortress is built on six islands and is part of Helsinki.  The two main aspects of the fortress were a series of independent fortifications on each of the linked islands and at the heart of the complex, a naval dockyard.  This island fortress had sea-facing fortifications with the idea being that the enemy would not be allowed to gain a beach-head on the mainland from which to stage attacks.  They also planned munition storage and residential buildings.  There were many changes made over the construction years with changes in leadership and wars and all the problems that go along with a project like this.

Today, Suomenlinna is a UNESCO World Heritage site that’s popular with both tourists and locals.  It was about a fifteen minute ferry ride from the Market Square harbor to the sea fortress.  The islands are filled with history, six museums, a church, many restaurants and bars, and lots of artifacts, trees, lakes, and wildflowers.  Some 800 people live on the island today.  We spent several hours here and walked about two miles.  We got a good overview but I’m sure we could have spent an entire day wandering around discovering new things.

We are approaching Suomenlinna in the first photo below.  This was the primary ferry dock but we saw two more smaller ferry docks on our walk here.  You can see the initial wall but this would have been on the city side and not the sea side of the fortress.  You can also see the church nearby the entrance.

We saw lots of fortifications on our walk.  We went into some of them which sometimes included long tunnels into the rock.  There were not too many people along our way but with the size of the fortress, it has lots of room, so no big surprise.  The wall in the second photo was typical of the fortifications.

The building in the third photo is a museum today.  I’m not sure what was its original purpose.  Some buildings were very well maintained while others were not so well maintained.  You might also notice the sign for a BAR in front of the museum.  We were never far from refreshments at the sea fortress.

We came across many really nice quiet areas on our walk.  We saw loads of wildflowers, trees, and lakes such as the one in the fourth photo.  I might not have minded being stationed here.

The sea fortress is on six islands that are central to arriving in Helsinki by sea.  You can see how close is mainland Helsinki in the last photo. 

Old Market Hall

We are back on the mainland in Helsinki and this was my favorite market that we visited.  The Old Market Hall was opened in 1889.  It’s a beautiful building designed by Finnish architect Gunnar Nystrom.  It is located right next to the Market Square and right by the Harbor.  The building is very long and narrow and the first photo is one short end of the building.  It is the oldest indoor market in all of Finland.  It appeared to be popular with both tourists and locals.  It was lively and quite crowded.  The second photo is about one-quarter of the market, or one side of one half of the market.

You can get just about anything you want in this market.  Merchants sell breads, cheese, fish, shellfish, fruits, vegetables, cakes and cookies, meats, pastries, and more.  They also sell foods to eat and drink like soups, coffee and tea, ice cream, and many complete meals. 

I took a lot of photos but will limit my post.  The third photo was typical of many booths.  I just happen to love smoked salmon, so I included this photo.

Reindeer Chips and many other snack items were available.  I included this since it was on the peculiar side.

We stopped at this ice cream shop and had an ice cream.  Which kind?  Nora and I had the Licorice Ice Cream from Calabria.  It was surprisingly excellent.  Licorice is very popular in Scandinavia and Finland.

Helsinki Miscellaneous

This post will be the end of Helsinki and the end of Finland.  I just had a few odds and ends to throw out there from Helsinki.

The art work in the first photo is near the Museum of Contemporary Art.  Where else but in a Nordic country will you find an art work of a fish that big?  The fish is in the middle of the three art pieces, standing on its tail.

When most people think of museums, it’s often in an old building and full of old things.  The Amos Rex Museum is in the second photo.  We didn’t go in here but it certainly is an unusual look for a museum.  It appears to be bubbling out of the ground.  The bubbles were empty at this time because it was drizzling rain but earlier there were kids climbing all over them.  It opened in 2018 and is some type of art museum.

We didn’t see very much ‘fast food’ in Scandinavia but of course, they do have some.  On this day in Helsinki, it was lunch time but we wanted to catch the next Ferry out to Suomenlinna.  We didn’t have much time so we decided to grab a quick bite in the market square area where we were catching the Ferry.  I had a Moose Meat Pie as you can see in the photo.  It was quite good and certainly not your ordinary fast food. 

When I think of these cities that have been around for a thousand years or more, I sometimes wonder how they work today’s world into their old structure.  I saw the road in the fourth photo when we were walking the town on our own.  My guess is that this was an old “moat” at one time.  Ancient structures like city walls and moats can certainly be creatively worked into today’s world and create a real asset.

The Finnish people are known to use a minimum of words.  They are simply not “small talkers”.  But this guy on the other end of my bench in Helsinki was beyond that.  He wouldn’t even glance in my direction.  Oh well, so much for Finland, now it’s on to Stockholm, Sweden.

Lunch in Stockholm, Sweden

We arrived in Stockholm, Sweden after our 45 minute flight from Helsinki, Finland.  The first thing we did was to find a restaurant and eat lunch.  I rarely ever start a post from a new country with lunch, but this time I will do just that.  It just happened to be lunch time when we arrived in Stockholm.  We bussed to Old Town and walked several winding blocks to arrive at Magnus Ladulas Restaurant which you can see in the first photo.  The street looked like others in this area.  This restaurant opened in 1970 so it was not an ancient eatery.  But as we went in, the inside did not reflect the outside of the restaurant.

You can see in the second photo that winding our way to our dining table through six-feet walls was unexpected.  You can see Vicky, Nora, and Pete eating lunch in the third photo.  Our local guide showed up during lunch and I asked about this place.  She said that it was a Royal Stables in the 1190’s.  So here we were eating in a horse stables and probably right in the horse stalls.  Now that was unexpected and put me on guard during our time in Stockholm.  Be ready for thousands of years of history.  

Lunch at Magnus Ladulas was very good.  We started with a fresh green salad and fresh baked bread, in the photo below.

Our main plate, last photo, was chicken with mushrooms, vegetables, sweet potato, lingonberries, and garlic yogurt as a dip.  It was quite good and I was especially impressed with the garlic yogurt dip.  I dipped my chicken and potato into it and it was extremely tasty.

So Welcome to Stockholm and Welcome to Sweden.

Stockholm, Sweden

Stockholm is the capital of Sweden and the most populous urban area in all the Nordic countries.  Stockholm has nearly a million residents and the whole metropolitan area has around 2.4 million people.  The city is spread out across 14 islands right where Lake Malaren flows into the Baltic Sea.  This area has been settled since the Stone Age in the 6th century BC.  The city proper was founded as such in 1252.  Stockholm is the center of Sweden for politics, culture, media, and economics.  It has many top-ranked European universities.  It has many famous museums and art galleries.  Stockholm hosted the 1912 Summer Olympics and the equestrian portion of the 1956 Summer Olympics.  It is the seat of Sweden’s government, its highest courts, and the official residences of the Swedish monarch and Prime Minister.   

Stockholm Palace, or the Royal Palace, is the official residence (but not actual residence) Of King Carl XVI and Queen Silvia.  It’s located in Gamla Stan or the island between the bridges.  Our guides mostly called it Old Town.  The palace is the offices of the King and other members of the Royal Palace and the principal workplace of the Swedish King.  It serves the King while he performs his duties as the head of state of Sweden.  The royal residence has been located here since the middle of the 13th century.  The original palace was destroyed by fire in 1697.  The current palace was started in 1700 but due to construction stops, it was not completed until 1754.  Interior work continued until 1770 but there has been no major changes since then.

I actually could have gotten into this palace but it was not highly recommended by our guides.  You can see a poor photo of the Stockholm Palace in the first photo.  I probably needed to be another island away to get it all into one decent photo.  It’s a very large building.  I was impressed by the ‘changing of the guard’ which we happen to see when there.  You can see one contingent in the second photo.  We saw the changing of the guard at two other royal palaces in Scandinavia but it was not like in Stockholm.  I don’t know why they needed so many horsemen to change the guard but it made for a large tourist spectacle.  I suspect that is the real reason.  I noticed that all the horsemen in the guard changing were men.  But then I noticed that in addition to the royal guards, Stockholm police people were on duty as well.  So I took a photo of a police horsewoman which is the third photo.  I thought she looked better than the royal guards and she didn’t have their silly pointed helmet.

The Nobel Prize is something that Stockholm is most noted for in the world.  The Nobel Museum is also in Gamla Stan or Old Town.  The Swedish Academy and the Nobel Library are also located in this building, seen in the fourth photo.  The museum showcases information about the Nobel Prize itself and about the Nobel prize winners.  It also has information about Alfred Nobel who lived from 1833 to 1896.  This museum is located in the former Stock Exchange Building and was opened in 2001 for the 100th anniversary of the Nobel Prize.  The museum features exhibitions of prominent Nobel laureates such as Marie Curie, Nelson Mandela, and Winston Churchill.  If you turned left standing in the plaza in front of the Nobel Museum, you would be seeing what you see in the last photo.  It was a popular and active neighborhood.

Stockholm Waterfront Views

Since Stockholm is spread out across 14 islands and has so many high buildings, many of the best views of Stockholm are from other islands.  The 14 islands that make up Stockholm are connected by some 50 bridges.  We walked around Stockholm quite a bit and crossed from island to island by bridge.  This post will be photos that I took from one island looking across to another island.  I think that in this watery environment, this will be many of my best memories.  I might also add that a local guide told us that Sweden has some 33,000 islands that make up their country and 24,000 islands that make up the Stockholm archipeligo. 

The first two photos were taken from the South Island overlook.  We drove high up on a bluff overlooking much of Stockholm.  It was a great viewing place and we had a nice look at Stockholm, other than all the seagulls that were dive-bombing us for some reason.  You can also understand why it was so hard to get photos of big buildings such as the Stockholm Palace when you were at such places.  In the first photo: water, boats, beautiful buildings, and big churches really stand out to me.  In the second photo, you can notice the same but also that despite being a highly urban area, Stockholm still has lots of trees and greenery.

The third photo is the Nordic Museum from the mainland.  This museum is on Djurgarden, another island in central Stockholm.  We didn’t visit this museum but walked around it.  It is dedicated to the cultural history and ethnography of Sweden from early modern life, said to begin about 1520. 

The last two photos were taken from Gamla Stan which is the most central island and called Old Town and looking across the water to other islands or perhaps the mainland.  Again, when you are in front of these building rows, you might try to back up to get in a good shot, but then you would end up in the water.  Most of the time you want photos such as these, you need to be across on another island.

Going up Lake Malaren

We took a Ferry from the harbor near our hotel up Lake Malaren to Drottningholm Palace.  It was a 50 minute ferry ride but that included several stops along the way.  We could have gotten there by subway, ferry, or by vehicle.  I’m glad we took the ferry as you can see the scenery changes as we moved up the lake.  We went under several bridges and we went from the central city to the country in a short period.  We took the Drottningholm Ferry which was built in 1909.  The trip was no different than leaving a big city by car and driving out into the country.  But in our case, we did it by boat.  It was also easy to see why so many people have boats in Sweden.  They can probably commute by boat much faster than by vehicle and it’s probably far more pleasant.  It was quite a nice boat ride the day we made the trip despite some slight drizzle of rain.

Lake Malaren, or Lake Malar, is just west of Stockholm.  It lies at the junction with Salt Bay, an arm of the Baltic Sea.  At one time, this lake was a bay of the Baltic Sea and seagoing vessels sailed far into interior Sweden on its waters.  But due to movement by the earth’s crust, a rock barrier formed at the mouth of the bay so that by about the year 1200 ships could no longer enter its waters.  Today, Lake Malaren is Sweden’s third largest lake.  The lake covers an area of 440 square miles, about 75 miles across, about 189 square miles of actual lake, and there are more than 1200 islands in the lake.  The lake today is only about one foot higher than the Baltic Sea.  Because of that and other factors, the Baltic sometimes runs into the lake, causing it to be slightly salty.  

This post will be five photos taken from the harbor in central Stockholm on up Lake Malaren towards Drottningholm. 

The first photo is still in town and an interesting display of buildings and roofs.

I would say that the second photo is away from the old central area but definitely still Stockholm.

I am not sure if the third photo is in Stockholm or not but it’s in the metropolitan area and sort of looks like the suburbs.

The fourth photo sort of seemed like we were getting out of town and into the country.

The last photo was our last stop for the ferry before the palace.  I think only a couple of people got onto the ferry at this stop.

Drottningholm Palace

We took a Ferry from the harbor near our hotel up Lake Malaren to Drottningholm Palace.  The palace is located on Lovon Island.  It was built from 1662 to 1686.  It’s the most well preserved royal castle built in the 1600’s in Sweden.  It’s also representative of European architecture for that period.  It has French Baroque influences and Classical Italian elements.  It’s capped by a Nordic roof.  It was formerly the Swedish royal family’s summer residence.

Today, the current Swedish royal family uses Drottningholm as their primary residence and has since 1981.  It’s guarded by the Swedish Military just like Stockholm Palace.  The rooms in the southern wing of the palace are reserved as their residence.  The rest of the palace and the palace grounds are open to the public year around.  Drottningholm Palace is on UNESCO’s World Heritage list.      

You can see our first glimpse of the palace in the first photo, as we came around a bend in the island.

I took the next photo from the ferry dock, which is where I had to stand to get the front of the entire palace in one photo.

You can see a royal military guard in the third photo. Nonetheless, we were let into this palace.

The fourth photo was taken from behind the palace, in the royal gardens.

The Palace Theater is on the left in the last photo.  It was built in the 1760’s.  The palace has several other out-buildings as well.

Inside Drottningholm

Drottningholm Palace is a real palace and the interior was very impressive.  There were baroque elements and classical Italian elements and Nordic elements.  But the main thing is that it was all impressive.  Every inch of space from the entry way to the stairs to the rooms and all the other space was wall-to-wall and floor-to-ceiling impressive.  The marble, statues, paintings, sculptures, furniture, flooring, and on and on was all impressive.  Photos were allowed but no flash, so I’ve had to do a little photo editing on my photos to add more light.  Most of the time I was just trying to get floor to ceiling photos to give the sense of completeness of the decorations. 

The first photo was just the stairs leading out of the entry hall where we came into the palace.  All the marble, decorations, light fixtures and everything was top notch.  It took us up to the first floor, the queen’s floor.

The pictures, painted ceilings, wood flooring, Chinese vase, furniture with inlaid wood, elegant clock, crystal light fixtures, and this was just a simple room in the second photo.  I think it was a drawing room.

The royal bedroom bed is in the third photo.  It appears that the king and queen enter from either side but each has their own entry to the bed.  That seems rather formal but they are a king and queen.

The library is in the next photo.  It has an impressive collection of books.  The entire room was impressive and had good light for my photo.

I’m not sure but I think the room in the fifth photo is the guard’s room.  It had an impressive collection of sculpted busts.  The marble, paintings, and lighting were impressive and it had a great view of the gardens.

Our palace tour guide said that the first floor was for the queen and the second floor was for the king.  We now go up to the second floor.

The stairway in the next photo took us up to the next floor or king’s floor.  But there was never a thought that this was “just a stairway”.  It was a magnificent stairway.

Once up to the next level, we had some nice views of the gardens.  The garden photo was a through-the-window photo but I still like it.  This is the oldest section of the gardens and is the Baroque section.

I’m not sure but I think the next room is the War Memorial Gallery room.  It was a long and narrow room and impressive from every angle.

The paintings and other art works were abundant.  Many were quite large on either walls or ceilings.  They all told stories but I’m not sure what story is being told in the photo below.

The last photo is another floor-to-ceiling photo of the Hall of State room.  It was the largest room on the king’s floor and this is just one corner of it.  The windows were too bright on the full room photos.

Drottningholm Gardens

The Drottningholm Palace gardens were as impressive to me as the palace.  Of course, I’m more of a garden guy myself.  We must have walked the gardens for over an hour and we barely touched seeing the gardens.  They are a huge area.  Of course, back in the day, the gardens including such large areas as hunting parks.  It was not all formal gardens. 

The first photo is not far into the formal or Baroque garden that is the closest area to the palace.  This section of the gardens has a formal and intricate array of plants, grass, hedges, water pools and cascades, sculptures, and more.  Some of the closely pruned upright hedges were square and others were round but I was never able to tell exactly why the difference.  Our guide did not know either.

Out beyond the Baroque garden, we saw more water features with ten pools and water cascades, somewhat like water falls.  Beyond those were multiple sections of hedge groves surrounded by pine hedges.  Farther out still were four linden tree-lined avenues.  This area was the English garden section.  You can see a photo from near the back of the tree-lined avenues in the second photo.  The palace looked quite small from there but that was not the back of the gardens.  We kept going on from there.

The Chinese Pavilion is a Chinese-inspired royal pavilion which was built in 1763-1770.  It is far back in the royal gardens and not in sight of the palace.  The Chinese Pavilion is the building on the left in the photo below.  The other two buildings are much smaller and are out-buildings.  Also, there are many more smaller buildings, plus a kitchen that brought the food to the pavilion via an underground passage.  This was an interesting area to visit. 

Other sections of the garden were not just not formal, but actually closer to being a cross of parkland and wild lands.  This may have been where the hunting was done.  These areas had turf areas that was mowed and maintained.  But these areas also had groves of trees and lakes that seemed to be left alone.  You can see two of these areas in the last two photos.  It was very pleasant to walk around these back garden areas.

Ferry back to Stockholm

Our return Ferry from Drottningholm Palace back to Stockholm was worth its own post.  Normally, I wouldn’t think that a 50 minute ferry ride back the same route would need a second post but this one deserved it.

We took the Drottningholm Ferry which was built in 1909.  It’s in the first photo and this was before we boarded it, in Stockholm.  But this was the ferry that we took for the ride from Drottningholm back to Stockholm.

You can see Vicky getting ready for a glass of wine on the ride back in the second photo.

The third photo is very near Drottningholm Palace as we started back.  You can see that this area of the islands is quite rural in character.  I think the yellow area is a farmed area with a crop of either mustard or rape seed. 

Once again I will tell you that this trip had more good meals in peculiar places than perhaps any other trip we’ve taken.  We had perhaps three lunches in museums for instance and all were good.  In this case, we had lunch on the way back to Stockholm aboard the Drottningholm Ferry.  I had low expectations but I was wrong to have had them.  Our lunch aboard the ferry was excellent.  Everything was specially prepared and they did an excellent job.

Our first course was a salmon salad which you can see in the photo below.  It was excellent and I cleaned my plate.

Next we had Herring over potatoes with salad and lingonberries, photo below.  It was very good as well and I again cleaned my plate.

Stockholm City Hall

The City Hall in Stockholm turned out to be a major attraction.  Once again, I didn’t have great expectations for a city hall and once again, I was wrong.  City Hall sits on the water’s edge of Kungsholmen island and has great views of Lake Malaren and of the other nearby islands.  City Hall was built between 1911 and 1923 and was the largest architectural project of the 20th century.  Over 8 million bricks were used in the construction of city hall.  City Hall houses the Municipal Council with 250 government offices for the city administrative staff.  The building is also famous for its grand ceremonial halls and its unique art works.

You can see City Hall in the first photo.  They were doing refurbishing work on the left side where you see black tarps.  The spire in the corner tower features the golden Three Crowns which is one of the most famous silhouettes in Stockholm.  The Three Crowns is the Swedish national coat of arms.  The tower is almost 350 feet tall and has tours and offers some great views of Stockholm.  City Hall is a square building but has an open courtyard in the center.   

The open courtyard is in the second photo.  This is the center area of the city hall building space.  It would have been crowded except for the rain.  As it was, everyone was taking shelter under cover on the sides of the courtyard.

The Nobel Prize banquet is held every year in City Hall.  It is hosted here every December 10th and has been since 1930.  The Nobel Prizes are awarded at the Stockholm Concert Hall but the banquet is held in City Hall.  Some 1300 people squeeze into the Blue Hall for the Nobel banquet.  The Blue Hall is in the third photo below, lower left area.  Why isn’t the Blue Hall blue?  That’s what I asked our city hall guide.  Evidently the architect planned to paint the bricks blue but later changed his mind.  He did not, however, change the name of the hall.  Go figure!   Each diner at the banquet is limited to a certain number of centimeters of space, and it’s not very much.

After the Nobel Prize banquet is finished, the attendees go up the stairs seen in the third photo and move to the right to get to the Golden Hall for dancing.  Our tour guide said it was a rush to finish dinner and get up to the dancing hall where everyone has much more space.  The Golden Hall was actually much more impressive a room with its 18 million gold mosaic tiles.  It is a fabulous room.  I wouldn’t mind doing some dancing there myself.  The art works of various kinds were really great in this hall.  It certainly didn’t seem like I was in a city hall room.  

The art work at one end of the Golden Hall can be seen in the last photo.  I looked at it for quite a while and must say that it is an interesting piece of art.

Stockholm Statues

European cities seem to have lots of statues compared to US cities.  I thought Stockholm had quite a few unusual statues.  It had lots of statues of kings, men in battles, horses, naked people, and I’m sure that those are the famous ones.  I’m going to post some of what I expect are the far lesser famous statues that we passed in Stockholm.  Nothing wrong with kings and horses but I thought these were more interesting.

I’m not sure about the first guy.  He looks like a Hollywood producer.  I just liked the statue. 

Our local guide said that the Iron Boy statue, below, is Stockholm’s favorite statue.  I know it was hard to find as it was behind the Royal Palace and Finnish Church but it was in a back courtyard and without our local guide, I doubt we would have found it.  The Iron Boy is just under six inches high but he attracted quite a few coins and a couple of scarves to keep him warm.

Whenever we pass a statue of a naked woman that seems to be unusual anatomically and I say something about it to Vicky, she always tells me that “it was carved by a man”.  So when we passed the statue in the photo below, I tapped Vicky and said, “I guess you were right all these years”.

The guy in the fourth statue is the Swedish poet Nils Ferlin.  You don’t see a lot of statues of modern day poets and he only died in 1961.

The last monument was in the back garden area at the Stockholm Observatory.  We found the observatory on our own and our guide hadn’t even been there.  At any rate, I think this is a monument of the Vasa.  Why the Vasa or any ship would be up at the observatory, I’m not sure but it certainly says ‘Sweden’.

Vasa Museum

The Vasa was a mighty Swedish warship that sank in Stockholm in 1628.  333 years later, the Vasa was rediscovered on the harbor floor and today it has its own museum.  The Vasa Museum is Stockholm and Scandinavia’s most visited museum with about 1.2 million visitors per year.  They said that the Vasa was the world’s only preserved 17th century ship.  It was quite fascinating and I will eventually say why I think it was so fascinating. 

In 1625 the Swedish king decided to develop an incredibly powerful fleet of ships.  The king signed a contract with the Dutch master shipwright, Henrik Hybertsson to build four new ships, one of them the Vasa, said to be the most powerful warship in the Baltic, if not the world.  The Vasa was 226 feet long and more than 164 feet tall from the keel to the top of the main mast.  The ship weighed over 1,200 tons.  It had ten sails, 64 cannons and hundreds of sculptures.  It was a giant of its time.

The museum guide said that the Vasa was designed to be both an awesome ship and an intimidating warship.  Our guide said it had a new double-hull design and that it was built on a tight timeline, on orders of the king.  Hybertsson had died and a couple of people had taken his place.  The tight timeline most likely was also problematic.

The Vasa cast off on its maiden voyage and got about eight-tenths of a mile before it got hit by several gusts of wind and sank.  It never even got out of the harbor where it was built.  It sank in 105 feet of water.  Some work was done to try and retrieve the 64 canons but after that, the Vasa was lost and forgotten for over 300 years. 

It turned out that the slightly saline water plus the lack of bacteria due to all the sewage in the water kept the Vasa in pristine condition for all those years.  When it was finally rediscovered in something like 1961 and eventually raised in the 1980’s, it was the beautiful ship that we can see today in almost perfect condition, with well over 90 percent of the ship original.  It really was a remarkable sight to see.

You can peruse the photos that I took.  No flashes were allowed and lighting was minimal, so the photos are not so good but you can get the idea.  The masts had to be cut short to fit inside the building.  There were also lots of other areas and exhibits with lifeboats, anchors, sculptures, and other things salvaged with the ship.  The ship really was impressive from the standpoint of all the fancy carving on it and all the gun ports.  It was a combination of beauty and beast.

The museum guide and other tourists made lots of comments about the wonderful craftsmanship, the phenomenal work done in the 1600’s, the beauty of the work, and how great the salvage operation to allow us to see it today.

I say okay to all that BUT….the Vasa sailed less than a mile and sank when it got hit by a breeze.  It was supposed to be an ocean-going warship.  It never even made it out of the harbor.  How does that equate to “craftsmanship”?  I don’t know if they have really studied all the height to weight numbers to try and determine what the problem was, but if a gust of wind brought it down, the craftsmanship had problems.

Stockholm Architecture

I’m not particularly an architecture buff.  Walking around Stockholm however, it was hard not to notice the many wonderful buildings.  This was a day that we walked around town on our own so I’m not sure about all the buildings but it really doesn’t matter.  The main theme to this post is simply that Stockholm has a lot of great buildings and some great variety.  These are not necessarily the most dramatic or famous buildings but I stopped to look at each of these.

I don’t know what the first building is, so maybe just a hotel or something, but I really liked the look of this building.

The Royal Swedish Opera House is the next building.  It lies just across the Norrstrom River from the Royal Palace.  The Norrbro bridge connects them and it was a popular place on a beautiful day.

Parliament House is in the third photo and it is right next to the Royal Palace, so this is all in very central Stockholm. We tried to walk up to the Parliament House but a very nice police officer stopped us and told us that it was closed off due to a large protest going on nearby at the Stockholm Palace. I took this photo from just beyond the police line.

The Grand Hotel might not be a landmark or famous architecture but I liked it.  There were a lot of buildings that looked like this in Stockholm.

The Royal Dramatic Theater is the last building.  Here they put on about 1,000 shows annually on eight stages.  It’s a beautiful building.  We didn’t go inside but I’m sure that is nice as well.