So the time has come to make our way home to Portishead. Our flight is not until 9 pm so that’s given us most of the day for some last minute activities. We put our bags into luggage lockers and headed towards Vassamuseet. Unfortunately, our arrival coincided with the arrival of about 10 coach parties, so with the chaos and long queues we decided to try the Abba Museum next door. The queues were a lot shorter but we couldn’t bring ourselves to fork out the £ 50 to enter. Inside we went into the Spirit Museum, this being a lot for affordable, and having just opened as we arrived, a lot quieter. This turned out to be a really interesting museum covering many of the social and historical aspects of alcohol in addition to the techniques involved in creating them. Many of the exhibits looked at the herbs involved in spirits and we both learnt about fusel oils that result as a by product of distillation and fermentation.
We then found a collection of old maritime vessels you could go on for free. Part of the maritime history museum, exploring the icebreaker and lightship was a lot of fun. You could go pretty much over any part of the vessels. We spent some time there.
We then treated ourselves to a good lunch at a restaurant overlooking the harbour.
So, is creating a Bucket List an age thing? Written when you become more aware of your mortality? Anyhow, think of it as a list of places and things I’d like to do.
So this afternoon we boarded the M/V Östanå for a cruise around just a very few of the thousands of islands that form the Stockholm Archipelago. As we boarded a few spots of rain started and the skies darken, but within minutes the sun was out and we had an extremely good 2.5 hour guided tour. We’d highly recommend Strómma and in particular the guide, Marie, whose informative and engaging narrative continued throughout the cruise.
Yesterday we explored around Södermalm, the island our apartment is on. Just a 15 minute walk from our apartment is the highest point within central Sweden, that of Skinnarviksparken. At 53 metres high, yes, 53, it is a good point from which to take in the panorama of Stockholm city. We then continued on to stroll the streets of Södermalm, an area famed for its secondhand and vintage shops.
After dinner we headed back to Skinnarviksparken and joined hundreds of locals in the hope of catching sight of the blood red moon. Alas, it was not to be, there was a fair bit of cloud on the horizon unfortunately so after waiting a couple hours we decided to call it quits. A shame but we did manage to get some good photos of Stockholm harbour at night.
Stockholm harbour, City Hall on left, from Skinnarviksparken about 10 pm.The blood red moon should have been in this picture! Hey ho..Near Vita Bergen, some of the oldest houses in the area, some of which still don’t have running water, sewage or electricity!
The heat took its toll yesterday and we fair slumped by early evening. A good night’s sleep behind us and a 10 am start ensured we could survive a bit longer today. We headed into the city from our local metro (Tunnelbana) station which is Hornstull to Gamla Stan and then walked on foot to the island of Skeppsholmen to visit the Design and Architecture museum – ‘ArkDes’. There were a number of interesting exhibits, particularly the more historical aspects of building design in Sweden, but the museum appeared rather lacking in anything to do with design. Entry was free so I probably have to take that into account, but the museum didn’t really appear to have a focus. It didn’t take very long to walk around, you can probably gather that we felt it rather lacking. Co-located with ArkDes is the Swedish Museum of Modern Art, which also has free entry to the main exhibits. Again, this appeared to be poorly laid out with no particular focus or flow as you walk around the rooms. In an attempt to make up for the lack of interesting content we headed to the museum restaurant, and I can report that was a much better experience. We had some tasty sandwiches and looked out from a panoramic window that showcased the harbour side views.
In the afternoon we headed to the Tekniska museum ( science and technology) hoping we might learn something. For a pair of nerds (okay perhaps just one) it was rather a disappointment. It was totally aimed at very young children and again appeared to have no particular focus, theme or engagement. A bit of a shame.
The rest of the day was spent doing a bit of shopping before having dinner out and making our way back to our apartment.
Looking across the busy harbour to the Royal Palace from the opposite island, Skeppsholmen.
This morning after a leisurely start we walked the short distance from our apartment on the north western tip of Sodermalm (Lorensbergsgatan) to Långholmen kajak to pick up our kayaks. We’re conveniently within a 10 minute walk to the kayak place but we decided to detour a bit in order to pick up some energy bars and drinks for our trip a. We’d highly recommend this kayak hire centre. Their staff were extremely efficient, helpful and took the time to explain the route we could take for our 3 – 4 hour trip.
From their base on the southern side of Långholmen we paddled across the Mariebergsfjarden and headed around Kungsholmen island, ending up by the City Hall and Gamla Stan before heading back to the base. We had stopped a couple of times, but starting to feel the heat and needing a proper lunch we decided to stop before our time was up. Thanks to the team at Långholmen kajak we had a fun time.
Today we made the 3 hour journey from Jönköping to Stockholm, arriving here in time for some lunch. By the time we had found our way to our Airbnb and returned the rental car near the central train station it was 4 pm so we decided to explore the old town area of Gamla Stan. The area is home to the Kungliga Slottet (Royal Palace) and the Riksdagshuset (Parliament) which together with tall buildings and narrow streets makes it a honeypot for tourists!
Driving up here I had time to reflect on our time so far here in Sweden. A couple of observations. Firstly, the country is becoming completely cashless (so much for bringing plenty of cash). Want to use public toilets – you have to use your card for a 5 kr (approx 50 p) transaction. Buying lunch at a coffee shop like Costa in a mall we visited today, yeap no cash – only card. Want to pay for your car parking – the machines will only take cards although most will have downloaded the App and paid that way. No surprise are supermarkets where you can use both but hopefully there is an assistant manning a check-out which means, typically, you can use cash.
Like home, the countryside is extremely dry, and like our holiday last year the country is subjected to forest wild fires. Link to map of wildfires (in Swedish). Actually, the power of Google comes into its own on these occasions since as we entered one of the areas subjected to the wild fires my phone came up with a fire warning and safety information. Very useful. To be honest the fires here are not on the scale that we experienced in the US and Canada, but nonetheless, its sad to see so much peoples lives affected by these fires.
Our drive was relatively flat on the way up and we oscillated driving through arable farm land and forests on a regular basis. The other fact of note is that this area of southern Sweden is sparsely populated. This is perhaps brought home in the factoid that Sweden has a whole population of just over 9 million compared to London’s 8.1 million. Stockholm’s metropolitan area comprises 26 municipalities and accounts for 2.2 million of the total of 9 million.
Gamla Stan – very busy tourist areaStorkyrkan Church – Stockholm’s oldest building that dates back to 1306Soldiers on guard outside the Royal Palace – they must have been sooo hot in their uniform, not to mention their metal helmets – reckon you could fry an egg on one!Front of the Royal PalaceInside the Chapel of the Royal Palace
According to the regional guide the area around the towns of Lammhult and Värnamo is known as the Kingdom of Furniture. Both towns are approx 70 km south of Jonkoping and about 40 km north of Almhult.
In Lammhult you can visit the showrooms of the following furniture makers and sellers:
Well, you would not believe how long its taken me to get the correct characters for these regional and county/town names! But finally, thanks to adding about five different keyboard input options to my Chromebook I’m finally sorted. Phew!
Anyway, here we are in Jönköping, the largest town in the region of Småland, with a population in the order of 90,000. The town is situated on the southern end of Lake Vättern. It is a huge lake, the second largest in Sweden and occupying an area of 1,882 square kilometres.
So what can you do in the Jönköping area?
First, let’s set the location of our Airbnb. It’s just off the E4 motorway, junction 98b exit, following signs for Centrum you come to a roundabout with the first exit being Tullportgatan. We’re staying on Slottsgatan, the first road off Tullportgatan. It’s a very convenient location, there is a large car park at Tullportgatan and a choice of late opening grocery shops in the area. Also, at most the central area is no more than a 15 minute walk from our apartment. (email me if you’d like our Airbnb details; we;d certainly recommend it) We’d say the area is safe too, we were out walking after 11 pm on a Saturday night and didn’t encounter anything that made us concerned.
Oh, a little fact… Agnetha Fältskog of Abba was born here in in 1950. Robert is checking her address in Stockholm in case we might pop in for a cuppa!
The area tourist board has a really good site, to which I’d like to add some recommendations.
Looking to hire bikes and do some mountain bike trails? Try Cycling Jönköping
Fancy getting out on the water – try Fortuna Marin. They are easy to find down near the pier
Fancy an evening stroll? The area around the pier has a number of bars and restaurants, there are also several both sides of the narrow canal that divides both parts of the town
Need to find your nearest supermarket – use this link – there are plenty of them
Huskvarna
Situated less than ten minutes drive from Jönköping is the town of Huskvarna. Without doubt the museum of Husqvarna, a Swedish company that was established in the town 300 years ago is a must-see. The company is probably known on an international basis for its chainsaws and sewing machines, but the company has manufactured stoves, ovens, kitchen equipment, guns, cycles and motorbikes. Some of the kitchen appliances might only be remembered by those in the Nordic area however. Do not miss going to this museum, it is crammed full of interesting exhibits. This is not a museum with lots of wordy information boards and not very many exhibits, there is plenty to see – racks and racks of different bicycles for example, likewise chainsaws.
No pictures!Looking across from in front of the Jonkoping railway station to the pierThe central square of Jonkoping. Most of the central shopping area is pedestrian friendlyA row of workers cottages close to Husqvarna Museum now converted into artist studiosLooking more like the setting for a Yorkshire mill building, this is the Husqvarna MuseumChainsaw collection – some of the many 100s of different models producedYes, outboard motors, they had some success with them for a whileA manner of different sewing machines, from early foot-powered designs up to the latest Viking branded touchscreen-controlled app-driven machinesIntroduced in 1975 this was one of the chainsaw models that made Husqvarna into the leading brand
So yesterday we left our hotel in Copenhagen and took the short train journey across the Oresund to Malmo, Sweden. The railway track is suspended underneath the road bridge so we had plenty of views up and down the coastline. On arrival Robert signed his life away at the car rental desk (don’t get me started, I hate car rental companies! Frankly, they need to be better regulated and ‘opened-up’ as the mobile phone industry has been with roaming. Argh…) Anyway, we headed out of Malmo towards the IKEA town of Almhult and the IKEA Museum, the trip took us approx 2 hours driving. Almhult is the birthplace of IKEA, the founder living on a farm nearby and as the business grew, establishing the then growing IKEA in an old timber sawmill. The town has its own huge IKEA, the flagship store, plus a short distance away the IKEA Museum. It was extremely interesting covering everything from the history of the company, the types of materials used and the partnerships established with global furniture manufacturing companies, particularly those in Poland. Ingvar Kamprad, the founder, met with a lot of opposition from Swedish suppliers when he asked them to supply wood or manufacture furniture to his designs. He established links with a Polish furniture maker that was far more keen to work with him, particularly as IKEA moved into flat-packed furniture design. IKEA challenged the norms of furniture design and pricing, something that the Swedish furniture manufacturers of that era didn’t like. They closed ranks and collectively started a fake news campaign to discredit his furniture as being of poor quality. However, one of the leading and influential Swedish magazines of the time decided to compare one of IKEA’s sofas to a similar one produced by an established supplier. The magazine’s report published their conclusion that the IKEA sofa was better produced, used better quality materials and, in their opinion, would last a lot longer than the competition’s sofa that cost twice the price of the IKEA one. Demand for IKEA products surged after the report was published.
In other IKEA news, the meatballs in the restaurant are the same as in the UK and, (see FaceBook – prank – post) we haven’t been selected to appear on the front cover of the next catalogue. There was a photo set up you could have your own cover photo printed! Our photo does look a bit odd, we thought the picture had been taken but suddenly the flash went off.
From there we drove on to our AirBnB base for the next three nights, in the lakeside town of Jonkoping. It took about 1h45 to drive from Almhult. After meeting our host we headed out to the local grocery store to pick up some provisions to make dinner.
It’s now Sunday morning and we’ll see if we can hire some bikes or kayaks.
IKEA Museum – well worth a visitLooking back towards Jonkoping town centre from the pierLooking out across the lake
