Day 7 2 August Oslo

We were offered champagne when we went down to breakfast which surprised us, maybe tomorrow. After breakfast we walked about 30 minutes to catch the ferry across the harbour to the Fram Museum and saw the outside of their National Parliament. Once we worked out the correct terminal, it was a comfortable ride across to the museum.

The Fram was a polar exploration ship used by Roald Amundsen, famous for being the first to the South Pole. A national hero of Norway, he was to die in an aircraft search looking for a lost polar explorer in an Italian airship in 1928.

Ice cave...brrrrr

There were lots of AV presentations and special effects to supplement the experience.   A highlight was to go into a very cold exhibit room with a moving deck floor. Once outside again our glasses continued to fog up until the lenses would warm up to room temperature. For these early explorers, you really have to admire their courage and mental toughness.

 

We then ventured across the road to the Kon-Tiki Museum. The Kon-Tiki expedition was an attempt by Thor Heyerdahl to prove that people could sail from South America to the islands in the South Pacific on a balsa wood raft (This is an oversimplified version). He built it in South America and the locals said it was a death trap. He also seems to have acquired artefacts from Easter Island (which is now called Rapa Nui).

 

The exit sign is a nice touch in the cave.

Later he built two rafts with papyrus reeds to prove how far the Egyptians could sail.  He had to build two because the first one sank. He then built the Tigris which burnt down to the water line.

 

 After an initially very crowded bus trip to the Norwegian Folk Museum we saw some interesting exhibits on social history. They have a lot of historic buildings that have been relocated to the site.

 

Most interesting was the stave church, which is a wooden Christian church popular in northwestern Europe.

 

Some medieval buildings for ordinary folk. Grass rooftops are all the rage now.

 

A tent of the Sami who are the indigenous peoples of the Arctic…very big into reindeer herding.

Day 6 1 August Stockholm-Oslo

 Today we are on a “high-speed” train to Oslo.  The train driver explained that the train is in good working order but a safety feature wasn’t working on the track.  He sort of reassured us but he didn’t sound confident. When the train driver announces that they have to restart the computers because they are not in contact with the signals (Yikes); or "we are travelling on the wrong track!" you do start to worry. In some sections, we had to use the regular track so we weren’t able to go at the normal speed. It was a pleasant enough journey and that we were 40 minutes late was no big deal.  

We had some difficulty finding our way out of the train station towards our hotel and there were imprecise directions from the tourist information, but we got there in the end.

We have a room with a view northwest over the city.

Day 5 31 July Stockholm

Today the weather was again monotonously beautiful and perfect like 13-24ºC. We walked to the Military Museum which was a leisurely 30 minutes from our hotel. We spent almost two hours there. We have seen a lot of good military museums, and they had done a good job, in fact some of their layouts were world class.

They also had an exhibition of Sweden’s relationship with Ukraine over the last 1000 years. Certainly, they had been allies against Russia in the past…so some things never change.

Our next visit was the National Museum. An excellent collection of art but lacking those big-name artists. They did however have security guards and lot of beautiful artefacts.

Here is the Statue of Charles XII complete with seagull. Referred to as the statue with pots, they are actually siege mortars. There seemed to be not that many seagulls around. Our theory is that they don’t seem to sell chips on the seafront, hence their relative absence. 

On our way home we stopped in a shopping mall to buy a computer mouse and sit down and have a drink. We thought it was lemonade but turned out to be a ginger beer which was quite refreshing. We had previously discovered a sweet shop, and we bought a nutbollar. It is a chocolate and nut exterior, filled with the lightest cream you have ever eaten. It was like diabetes had gone to heaven.

 For tea we went to the train station and bought a kebab to take home,    and the fellow picked our Australian accents immediately and chatted to us about crocodiles and the Great Barrier Reef.

Stockholm is a very attractive city with a youthful vibe. It was very multicultural, just like Australia, but who was a local and who was a tourist, was more difficult to determine.

Day 4 30 July Stockholm

On another beautiful day here, the weather truly been perfect for tourists. Today should be a highlight of our trip to Stockholm as we visit the Vasa Museum and Abba Museum. Also, it’s Elzabeth’s birthday today so there is lots to celebrate!

 

We take a tram to see the museums today. Check out the tram as its decoration features ABBA’s 50^th anniversary of their Eurovision winning song Waterloo. The trams are super-efficient. Everything we wanted to see was in walking distance, about 2 km or 30 minutes. Stockholm is a great city for tourists to get around.

 

This is what the Vasa should have looked like and...

First up we take the tram to the Vasa Museum which houses the Vasa, a 17th-century warship that sank on its maiden voyage and was only salvaged in the 20th century. In fact, it sailed about 1.5 km before sinking. There was even a test run previously that didn’t go well. Perhaps that should have been a hint!

 

The gun ports on the model.

They did try to salvage it without success with the limited technology they had.

It is an extraordinary exhibit and very well presented and it was as busy as it gets. It seems like it is school holidays here.  

We then visited the Nordic Museum which housed a lot of social history of the country. The two things I noticed was that there were no paintings, or security guards. It was worth seeing but not a highlight.

 

For Christmas...really? What is Boxing Day like... 

A kebab prototype that did not go past the experimental stage in R&D (Retch and disgusting).

After a light lunch (nothing from above), we then visited Vrak – the shipwreck museum which was a multimedia and hands on approach to marine archaeology. It was interesting and had some nice uses of technology to engage kids. We now know how to date smoking pipes in Sweden, and bits of wood and bones. (I must update my Linkedin profile CV.)

 We had to wait a little while before we could line up for our 4pm entry to the ABBA Museum. The anticipation grows…It was quite a line to get in and there were lots of people inside but as time went on the crowds thinned out.

Lots of information about the members of ABBA; lots of costumes, performances and awards.

Elizabeth the Birthday Girl has arrived.

Those cat outfits were used for the video of their song SOS.

What a coincidence, I have just something like that at home.

You could get up on stage and be the Fifth Member of ABBA. Everyone was a little shy to do so, but I took the plunge so I could be Elizabeth’s “Dance Monkey” (My apologies to Tones and I – as well as the world of music entertainment for my performance.)

                                              CLICK PLAY, IF YOU DARE.

I am not sure they had this in mind when they said interactive.

A star is born.

If only I had a day job.

 I think that 4 or 4.30 pm time slots are perfect as it was less crowded, but you needed enough people for atmosphere.

 

Video of their Eurovision winning entry.

We can highly recommend the ABBA Museum experience. (Elke would love this!). The museum’s motto is: Walk in. Dance out.

 

That evening we went to dinner in the hotel. The meal was lovely. Who wouldn’t like Swedish meatballs? Our waiter picked our Australian accents right away. We asked if Stockholm was his hometown only to be informed that he was Welsh. He had lived in Stockholm for 25 years. He had left the Welsh seaside town of Conwy when he was 18 years old.  He was very surprised when we said that we knew where Conwy was and had visited there in 2018. We also mentioned that we had visited Cardiff in Wales: He didn’t seem impressed. Apparently, the northern Welsh don’t like the more urbanite southern Welsh – go figure. Maybe it’s like North vs Southern Queensland.

Day 3 29July Stockholm

Today we visited Gamla Stan (Old Town). It is one of Europe’s largest and best-preserved medieval city centres. We suspect that every city ln Europe says the same thing. Lots of cobblestones! Stortorget Square was the scene of the Stockholm Bloodbath of 1520 when about 90 people were executed in the square by Danish forces. On the square there is the Nobel Museum which had mixed reviews, so we didn't bother visiting it.

We visited the Royal Palace which is the largest one in Europe and was quite good and not overly crowded. 

The Silver Throne.

Bernadotte, one of Napoleon's Marshals who was invited to be the Swedish King.

 

We also visited the Royal Armoury which was far more than the name suggests. An armoured horse, perhaps we can get something in Jessie's size? (For those who don't know, it is my niece's family's Shetland pony.)

Desiree's dress with train, wife to Benadotte.

The Riddarholmen Church is the resting place for Swedish monarchs 1632-1950, except for Queen Christina. The burials include Gustavus Addolphus and Bernadotte. It was constructed in the Northern European Gothic style but parts are baroque. 

                                                                                        

The City Hall which despite its appearance is only 101 years old. It hosts the annual Nobel Prize winners in five categories, except the Peace prize is held in Oslo. The Gold Hall is decorated with real gold in the Byzantine mosaic style and is really quite impressive.

After the ceremony, the winners meet the Swedish Royal family here.

The Gold Hall is decorated with real gold in the Byzantine mosaic style and is really quite impressive. The mosaics are made of gold leaf and it took 8 kilograms of gold to make. In today,s value it was probably just under $1 million of our money. 

The City Hall's Blue Room holds the banquet for the Nobel Prize winners and guests. It will seat 1300 guests and streams of waiters come down the stairs to deliver the meals in 8 minutes.

Day 2 28 July Stockholm

 Happy Birthday to Mum, Grandma, Great Grandma. Many happy returns.

Leaving in the very early hours of the morning in Singapore we continued on with a stint in premium economy to Frankfurt. It was very nice, and it must have been about 2 am when the economy passengers got fed as the staff had to sit down during the numerous bouts of turbulence, but they were not white knuckle and probably quite tame for turbulence. The food was nice but the toilet queues still not great. It was a 12+ hour flight from Singapore so we actually arrived here in Frankfurt about 6.30 am. We also successfully flew across part of Ukraine!

Catching our next flight to Stockholm, we arrived at our hotel just before 3.00 pm. It had been a journey of 30 hours. We went for a walk to orientate ourselves in central Stockholm and take a few snaps.  Some guy in the street asked me for directions. I apologised that I didn’t speak Swedish. The same thing happened in Paris 2015. We must look like locals. So, after three changes of planes, nine times through security and immigration, 22 hours sitting on planes, and 8 hours sitting in airports, we completed the very first part of our travels.

Some threatening clouds over the Old Town. We did get a few spots, but fine weather is forecast for our stay.

A view of their Parliament House.

The Royal Palace behind us which we will visit tomorrow. We look forward to sleeping in a bed tonight.

Day 1 27 July Singapore

In transit from Brisbane to Singapore. While waiting for our flight, Elizabeth went off to get coffees and there on the radio…ABBA’s Dancing Queen. Could it be a sign. (Hello Elke.) Seated next to us on the plane was a lady going to meet her daughter in Finland who was on a graduation holiday. Tina lived in Finland until the age of 12 and she has never been back. We bid her farewell in Singapore. It is a very large airport but probably slightly easier to navigate compared to Hong Kong.