Day 13 - Oslo!

Akershus Fortress

Cruise photo

Our last day in Scandinavia was spent in the Akershus Brygge area.  (Brygge is the Norwegian word for harbor or bridge.  In this case it's for harbor.) First we walked around the Akershus Fortress.  The fortress was originally built around 1200 and has been remodelled several times since. Then we took a 2 hour boat cruise around the Oslo Fjord and its many islands.  It was misty when we were walking around the fortress, but stopped raining when we were on our little cruise.   Then at 3 p.m. we walked over to the ultimate touristy spot in Oslo -- Akershus Brygge -- and ate at Olivia.  The Germans we talked with in Arlandsvangen recommended it.   It was kind of chilly as some big clouds were rolling in, but the outdoor seating at Olivia is covered, has heaters everywhere, the seats are covered in sheepskin, AND, if that's not warm enough, they have lap blankets.  Olivia is an Italian restaurant.  Mom had a lasagna dish and I had spaghetti with shrimp.  It was wonderful!  While we ate, it poured...which didn't affect us at all.  In fact, we thought we had pretty good timing. 

At Olivia

It was a very relaxing way to end our visit.

We are back at the hotel now, packed, and ready to go to bed.   We'll be getting up at 6 a.m. tomorrow to get to the airport well ahead of our 10:40 flight.  It's going to be a long day, but we look forward to getting home and seeing everyone again!

Loves to you!

Deb and Marlys

Day 12 - Oslo!

What a great night of sleep we had!  I know I said it before, but sleep can never be overrated.  When done well after not being done well, emphasizing its importance is acceptable. 

After a (wonderful) late start to our day, we walked to the harbor and took a boat ride to the Bygdoy Island.  It's really a pennisula, and it looks like it could be a little on the posh end, but it also is home to loads of touristy museums.  First we went to the Norwegian Cultural Museum.  The big thing there is that they have likely over 75 historical buildings that span a 400 year period.  Sadly, there was no area specific to Gudbrandsdalen or Oppland so we couldn't see a layout of a home that our relatives would've had.  But the ones we saw were very interesting. 

Then we went to the Viking Ship Museum and saw 3 original Viking ships that were excavated.  They were excavated from burial sites.  The jury is out on whether they were used prior to the important guy's death, but no doubt *some* boats were used that looked *something* like the ones we saw.  Also at this museum was a bunch of other artifacts found at one of the burial sites.  Honestly, I started getting overloaded with information and started taking pictures of all the human faces that were carved in the various old things.  It also seemed like a lot of the wood dragon carvings could've easily been Chinese.  Yet, there was nothing to either verify or deny my conspiratorial theory about that.

On the way back from the harbor we stopped in at City Hall because there is a giant room with huge painted murals.  It's like Diego Rivera met Henrik Ibsen and painted about what he heard...in a different style.  Okay, it's nothing like that at all.  However, in this vacuous room, Nobel Prizes have been given. 

I sadly took no minature photos today.

The last museum of the day was the Kon Tiki Museum / shrine to Thor Hierdal.  Mom did this one solo as they were about to close and I was museum-ed out.  She says that it was good and that Thor Hierdal proved that people sailed before they invented the wheel.

After a nice rest back at the museum, we took an evening stroll up to the Vigeland Sculpture Garden.  Vigeland is home to way over 100 sculptures by one artist (can't remember his name) and they are all nude.  All of them.  There are also dozens of relief panels.  I made up a story on these three panels.  Moral of the story is to not play with wolves or horses when you are only 3 years old.  It will not end well. 





One last thing to leave you with: restaurants in Oslo stop serving dinner at 9 p.m. This is no New York.  This isn't even Chetek.  We did find a Subway type of place whose motto is "Food with Care", not "Made with Care."  Important distinction. 

Day 11 - Arlandsvangen (and then to Oslo)

Today (Friday) we took a fjord boat tour.  The boat picked us up in Arlandsvangen at 9:15 a.m., went to Gudvangen, and returned to Arlandsvangen by 1:10 p.m.  The tour itself was very nice and scenic, but it the weather wasn't the best.  It went from light drizzle to light rain to windy rain the entire trip.  On the positive side of that, there were some really interesting small cloud formations alongside the walls of the fjord.  They sort of added to the immense scale of it all. 

Like I said earlier, this is the most touristy area we've been in.  Our boat tour reaffirmed that as there were loads of Chinese, Italians, and a few Germans.  We talked with one younger German couple a bit throughout the day as we the only ones who got on and off at Arlandsvangen.  They were from Munich.  We shared driving recommendations as they were driving from Oslo heading north, and we were doing the opposite. 

After the boat tour we drove to Oslo.  We didn't drive any further distance or for any longer time than any other day of driving, but as we started in the afternoon, it seemed like it took forever.  During the first hour or so we went through around 10 tunnels. Then we followed some dammed up lakes and rivers.  When we got closer to Oslo E16 was closed and the detour was long and slow.  At no point did we go over 80 km/h, because of the windy-ness of the roads, so all in all it took about 5.5 hours. 

Oslo is a manageable larger city and it will be easy to get around by just walking.  We think there are around 500,000 people here, so smaller than the Twin Cities.

Also...since I'm really writing this on Saturday morning...we both had a really good night of sleep.  To bed by 11 p.m. and up at 9 a.m. Yea, Oslo!

Day 10 - Tretten to Aurlandsvangen



Drive west of Lom

 Today was a harrowing day of driving in the mountains.  We left Tretten on E6 and turned west at Otta, went through Lom, and turned south on FV302 at Turtagro to Ovre Aurdal, and then on to Aurland.  The part to Lom was pretty, but not very adventurous.  The drive from Lom to Turtagro was very mountainous: the temperature dropped to 8 C, and it was windy, sprinkling, and there was snow.  There was enough snow for the a big snow machine to lay cross country tracks all over the place at Krossbu.  It got rockier with more switchbacks and amazing vistas down valleys for huge long distances.  Then at Turtagro we took a smaller road to the south.  We had a full tank of gas, so felt pretty solid in that regard.  And I drove cautiously as there are no shoulders or many guardrails.  This road was about as wide as our driveway if it were paved.  You can get 2 cars to pass, but it's tricky so it's always better to wait for on coming traffic (if you can see them) at a wider spot in the road. 

Stacked stones

Ibsen Monument

Other than just being geographically interesting: frozen lakes, melting rivers, humongously long water falls dropping down the face of cliffs, landslide areas (in the distance for the most part) there were a few other things that were also interesting.  First, everywhere you look on highway 55, there are stacks of rocks dotting the landscape.  This road is called the Sognefjellsvegen, and after doing a little online research, it looks like the road is the most scenic mountain road in northern Europe.  I can't find any information on the rocks. They were pretty and (I can't say this enough) everywhere. Second, there was a monument at the summit of the road to Henrik Ibsen and another Norwegian writer.  The other fun things along that stretch were that I got to parlare un po' italiano with some people at a viewpoint; there was an unmanned gated toll booth (see video: http://youtu.be/2_5g-E1u6hQ); and there were loads of roaming sheep.

Ovre Aurdal



Coming into Ovre Aurdal was absolutely crazy.  There were maybe 10 (maybe more?) hairpin turns leading to the town.  The views were stunning!  We took several videos of driving today.  They are short (most of them).  After watching them tonight, I think that Mom is a saint for having the patience of being my passenger.  It's honestly been a little nervewracking sometimes driving here, but I don't think I'd be a very good passenger. 

Igloo!

We went through about 5 tunnels today including the world's longest road tunnel (as opposed to a non-road tunnel??).  It was 24.5 km long.  After the drive through the mountains I actually welcomed this.  It was darkish, but you could drive fast-ish and straight!  They put 3 areas in the tunnel that looked like we were in a giant igloos that broke up the monotony.



View from scary road down to Aurland

 Aurland is absolutely lovely and is 8 km north of Flam on the same fjord.  This is the first place in entire trip that we've met other tourists from the U.S.  It's proof that this is a more touristy area than the other places we've gone.  We went on a drive to (another!) scenic viewpoint at the recommendation of one of the receptionists.  It was treacherous and so when we got to a lookout, we stopped and took pictures. We never made it all the way up the mountain to the "best" lookout, but the road was truly crappy, SUPER narrow and not very well maintained.  Anyway, while we were stopped I chatted with some German tourists from Berlin who were driving a MOTOR HOME!  I was happy that I got to speak both Italian and German today, even though it wasn't stellar it was good to actually understand a foreign language and be able to respond.  :-)

Day 9 - Gudbrandsdalen Area

Today was a day of well deserved rest.  We haven't had a quiet day really, so thought we could use one. 

Mackerel/tomato spread

Breakfast here was pretty typical except there was this packet with a mackerel on it and tomato in the ingredients.  I tried it, but can't say I'd recommend it unless of course you like those two flavors mingled together with lots of salt. 

Single lane brige - Tretten

After breakfast and LOTS of coffee, we drove into Tretten and crossed the river for the shady side of the valley on a one lane wooden planked bridge over a raging river. From there we drove over to Favang.  Most of the roads were paved, but some were not.  Some of the gravel roads showed signs of erosion and wash out from last week's rains.  In one spot there was a gravel truck dumping new gravel for the road with a grader parked off to the side waiting to finish the work.  While you're trying to picture all of this, keep in mind that these are all really narrow mountain roads.  The paved roads don't have a center line, but there is generally room for 2 cars.  The gravel roads have no markings and rarely any guardrails.  Fortunately, we met few cars and trucks.

Our harrowing drive led us to Ringebu which has a cute downtown with cafes, bakeries, clothing stores, book stores, you name it, but nothing with the words "Ringebu" on them.  Bummer.  We did have coffee and split a sweet roll.  The bakery had about 30 different types of loaf bread, so I did the touristy thing and took a photo. 

Then it was off to see Ringebu's famous stave church!  It's a beautiful church located a few miles south of town up a windy little road.  The stave church was built in the 13th century, but it followed a post-construction church that was built in the 12th century.  Of course that one rotted, so the stave church replaced it.  The front door is from the first church, so is about 1000 years old.  Next to the front door there were symbols carved into the wall (early graffiti work?) showing the symbol for each farm in the area.  They looked like the brands that ranchers use to identify cattle.  In a post-Viking sort of way.  They didn't allow photos inside.  At the tops of the wood columns (that are sort of painted to look like marble (?) maybe) there are heads painted.  This seems like a cross between a classic era capital and a greek caryatids.  The heads here supposedly represent norse gods.  Apparently during the early parts of Christianity in Norway it was acceptable to include a little paganism. 

We visited a little art museum near the stave church and then headed off on highway 27 to see the Rodane National Park.  It is seriously one of the wierdest places I've seen.  It's a cross between Wyoming, Arizona, the Bad Lands, and maybe Alaska.  I posted a very brief video on you tube, so check it out! http://youtu.be/bhXCILPSLTY

Afternoon snack at Rodane

What makes it so wierd is that you cannot see that this area even exists from the valley that we're in.  The video was taken about 45 minutes away from Ringebu and it's like we were on another planet.

We're back at the hotel now, fed and getting ready for bed.  Tomorrow we drive to Aurland to see the fjords.  We don't think there will be any problems with the roads as the flood has visibly receded since we arrived.

Day 9

Two things that I must share before breakfast:

1.) I have figured out why our family left.  The were poor sleep deprived souls who just wanted to get some sleep. 

2.) Thank God for the Dutch!  We got in late last night (10:30 p.m.) and our hotel was locked up tight.  If it wouldn't have been for some observant Dutch tourists staying at the hotel with a room overlooking the entrance...we would've had to sleep outside. 

Day 8 - Favang!

Shazam!  We met with Ole Jon and his wife tonight.  Ole Jon is a relative of one of Mom's school mates.  Anyway, Ole Jon did some research on one of mom's (and my) relatives, so we discussed that in our hotel's restaurant over coffee and streudel (though it has to be called something else here, right?).  After our talk, they offered to drive us to some of the farms.  The first and most important farm to us is the one posted below.  It's called Bjorgevangen.  It was the last place that Mattie Vang (Mathea Amundson VANG) lived before she and all of her living brothers and sisters and parents moved to Timberland/Barronett.  She took VANG in the U.S. as it is part of the name of the farm: Bjorgevangen.  It looks like someone might own it, but they certainly don't live there on a regular basis.  It's beautiful, isn't it?  Ole Jon thinks that it was built between 1800 and 1850.  Mattie Vang emmigrated in 1894.  She was my great great grandmother.  [My mom is Marlys Nyberg Renz.  Her mother was Elva Rydberg Nyberg.  Her mother was Mathilda Hanson Rydberg.  And her mother was Mathea "Mattie" Vang Hanson.]  This wasn't a house or a farm that they owned.  They rented it and worked the land.  Mattie's father was also a tailor and a logger.  (Can we say jack of all trades?)  Ole Jon thinks that the last people who permanently lived here was in the 1920s.  We did see some other farms and homes, but they were not places that that family lived for very long.  We are tired and going to bed.  It is 11 p.m.  Still light enough to go for a walk, play frisbee with a dog, set up a tent, etc.  and we have no light blocking shades tonight.  Tomorrow might be a good day for a nap. 

Day 8 - Fjallbacka to Tretten

Mom in front our hotel

This is the view from our room
looking north

Just writing to let you know we made it to Tretten.  The flood is bad but the roads were fine.  We have seen a camper in the water and lots of logs.  I think campgrounds located on the river with permanent campers or small cabins were hit...as were some low lying farms and houses.  South of Lillehammer the river is wide like the Mississippi.  They call it a Lake.  The water was glasslike, but it looked high.  North of Lillehammer the river narrows and is just raging.  E6 was a good 4 feet above the river at the lowest point of the road (though the road goes up the side of the valley sometimes too), though at one point it looked only maybe 1 - 2 feet higher than the water.  I think it's starting to recede.  Janna Glomstad, of Glomstad Gjesthus, said that the flood came on really suddenly Friday and that people were trying to move campers in Ringebu Friday afternoon.  They lost 3 campers.  We think we saw one of them. 

Our hotel is up the side of the valley 5 km north of Tretten.  The drive was sort of like the drive to GrandDad's Bluff in La Crosse...before it was closed.

More later...

Day 7 - Uddevalla to Fjallbacka

Today we had a 1 hour drive from Uddevalla to a museum we wanted to go to in Tanum.  We took a highway called E6 which is a lot like the 4 lane highways we are used to.  The landscape has been changing a lot in Sweden.  Yesterday, in Jonkoping, there were lots of big rolling hills with huge farms.  Today west of Uddevalla, there are huge granite outcroppings. 

Bronze Age Farm at Vitlycke, Tanum

One of the many, many rocks with
Bronze Age rock carvings.

At Tanum there is the Vitlycke Museum which has both rock carvings in several areas around the museum and also a replica farm.  Both the rock carvings and the farm are from the Bronze Age.  It really was a great museum! We got there around 11:30 and stayed until 3:00. 

After Tanum, we took a smaller road to Fjallbacka through a little town called Grebbestad.  Both Fjallbacka and Grebbestad are touristy fishing villages.  We're here a little before the tourist season, so things are a little quiet, but all of the shops and restaurants are open. 

Tonight we are staying in Room 7 at the Bryggan Fjallbacka.  It's on Ingrid Bergmans Torg, which we guess might the little square right below our window.  We ate dinner at the Bryggan restaurant downstairs and were able to eat outside.  Mom had a seafood casserole which turned out to be a cream-based fish soup and was yummy!  I had a grilled tiger prawns on pasta...equally yummy!

Tomorrow we leave Sweden for Norway.  There has been a lot of flooding in Norway so we are anticipating that we will have to take some detours.  We'll be leaving right after breakfast and hopefully will be in our next hotel by 4 p.m. or at least for dinner.  Wish us luck on navigating our potential alternate routes!

(photos will be posted soon!)

Day 6 - Stockaryd to Uddevalla

We just arrived at the Riverside Hotel in Uddevalle.  We had a very exciting day!!!  I will leave you with this one photo for now, but will write more after we eat dinner. Mom is standing with Mikael who isthe great grandson of Oskar Svensson.   Oskar was the brother of Claus Svensson who changed his last name to Nyberg when he move to the U.S.  Claus is Mom's grandfather.  They are standing in front of a newer house built around 1900.  The smaller house to the right is the house that Oskar and Claus were born.  That makes this the Svensson/Nyberg family house.  That also makes Mikael Mom's 4th cousin and my 5th cousin.  It was a great day!

Day 5 - Stockaryd

Hey hey! Swedes in smaller towns say this greeting really quickly.  In the big cities, it's just "hey."  It's not spelled "hey" it's spelled "hej."  When you say it back to them, they think you know Swedish which in my case always ends badly once they reply with some comment about the weather or some such thing.  Trying to fit in is not always a good thing.  I think I'll revert to "hello." 

We left Vaxjo this morning.  Drove over to the "Crystal Country" where they make nice things by Kosta, Orrefors, Boda, etc., etc.  We bought some things that we will have to be careful about packing and some fun things that we won't have to worry about at all.  So far our meager purchases have been self-serving.  (Don't want you to get any hopes up.) They did have a glass skull. I thought of you, Tom, as we have something like it in the liquor cabinet, but really, it's not worth the haul...and it's creepy. 

The road from Kosta up to Stockaryd (pronounced Stocka rude) looked a lot like Ely, Minnesota: tons of logging, no cars, and huge rocks.  And guess what the big industry in Stockaryd is?  Logging!  It's like we're in Hayward or someplace. 

Mom reading the note left for us at
Old Hjelmssryd Vicarage

We are staying in the Old Hjelmssryd church vicarage.  It's old and nice and cheap.  We had a dinner of bulghar salad and bread with caviar paste.  It's right next to the the old Hjelmssryd church which was built in the 1200s and was usurped in 1800s by the new Hjelmssryd church which is just down the road about 5 km. There are 3 villages with the name of Hjelmssryd within 25 km.  And here I thought Barron and Barronett was bad.  Har har!



House in Kalberga

 

House in Kalberga

So we got here early and were able to drive around both before and after dinner.  Mom brought photos from home of some of the farms/homes that our relatives lived in.  The photos are from a village called Kalberga and were taken around 1900.  We found Kalberga.  It's about 8 homes on a dirt road leading off another small asphalt road.  In the photo mom has, the house door is very distinctive, so as we were driving we focused on finding a door that was exactly like it.  We also focused on finding a 1.5 story house with little half windows on the second floor under the eaves.  Here's what we found:

1. ) The distinctive door is on 5 houses...still...100 years after the photo was taken.  It's like they all shopped at Sears.  I'm betting the handle and hinge would be the same too. 

2. ) There are 2 main house designs.  1.5 story houses with a center gable dormer and 1.5 story houses without a dormer.  (check out photos from these 3 houses, to see what I mean)





Bottom line, we didn't find the exact house, but we know we are in the local area which is in itself a pretty neat thing.  The name of the house in Kalberga is Torpet Nybygget.  It means "newly built cottage" and sadly has nothing to do with "Nyberg"  though the Nyberg family is the one who lived there.

Kalberga's one road

We went to the Hjemssryd cemetaries today and found some Nybergs who we are not directly related to, no Rydbergs, and 2 Rylanders (thinking of Billie Rylander from up at the farm). 

Since we did a lot already today and got here earlier than expected, we're only going to stay here one night.  We're not sure where we'll be tomorrow night, but it will be between here and Fjallbacka.  Maybe we'll get to the west coast tomorrow. 

Few more things: 

-we spent 500 Skr on 3/4 a tank of gas

-photos aren't uploading well so we'll post them tomorrow

-we saw an animal that looks like a musk ox

-we saw a store called "Em"

'til tomorrow!

Deb and Marlys

Day 4 - Vaxjo



Vaxjo's crazy twin steepled
church



Greetings from Vaxjo! 



That's umlauts over the "a" *and* the "o", thank you very much! :-)

It was rainy today.  It was rainy last night, and it is supposed to be rainy tomorrow. 



Emmigrant Center, Vaxjo



Today we went to the Utvandrarnas Hus (Emmigrant Center) in Vaxjo.  We spent about 5 hours there.  It was a day that Tom, Dad, and Emily would've not tolerated, to be honest, but we got some good information and locations of places to visit when we go to Stockaryd tomorrow evening. 

At Ali Baba



Sooo...that said, we sadly don't have many photos.  Though, I cannot say this enough:  I am loving driving here with the roundabouts.  Rarely do you actually stop.  You just slow down for others and then gun it. 

Tonight we tried to go to a couple of good smelling restaurants to no avail as there were no available seats.  Instead, we went to a totally traditional (snicker snicker) Swedish restaurant called Ali Baba and had the biggest falafel wrap I've ever seen. 

Day 3 - Snarestad + Ale's Stone

On to day 3. 

Today we left Malmo.  This entailed taking the bus over to the Hertz agency, figuring out our new Volvo (the guys at the agency seemed to emphasize the newness of the car for some reason), and checking out of our hotel.  All went without a hitch.  We even got out of town swimmingly!

Upon our outstanding hotel receptionist's recommendation, we took E6 from Malmo to Snarestad.  It's a scenic route that follows the coast line.  We drove through Smygehamn, the southern-most town in Sweden (take that, Key West!) and Abbekas, which supposedly has really good fish, but had no restaurants open for lunch. 



At the Snarestad church



The Persson/Jonsson gravestone



Inside the Snarestad Church



Marsvinsholm Church



From there we went to Snarestad.  Snarestad is a little off the coast, up from Svarte.  It's a town of maybe 100.  We went to the church to check out the cemetary to find any Nyberg ancestors.  We didn't, but talked with the groundskeeper for the Snarestad church who called the church up the road past Balkakra.  The church is in a town called Marsvinsholm.  Ingrid and another groundskeeper there helped us to find the gravestone for Lars Persson and Karna Jonsson!  It's really amazing!  They are the parents of Ingrid Persdatter Jonsson who married John Reinhold...and they are the parents of Annie Julia Reinhold who is Grandpa Ferdy Nyberg's mom.  Got it?  :-)  In short, they are my great great great grandparents.  Cool, huh?  After that, we drove to Skarby, with Ingrid in the lead, to the central church office for the area.  We didn't find any matches, but we did get a good recommendation on what to eat at Ale's Stone...

By the time we left our genealogical hunt, it was 3:30.  We were pretty hungry with a lot of road ahead of us. 

The town of Kaseberga is on the coast at the foot of the hill that leads to Ale's Stone.  We ate fried Baltic herring, mashed potatoes, and lingonberry sauce.  Except for the flavorful fish, this was a lot like our Christmas dinners.  (ha!)

Ale's Stone

After we ate, we walked up the hill to the amazing Ale's Stone.  You might have to look this up to more fully understand it, but the Ale's Stone is a series of 30+ stones all on end placed in the shape of a ship.  Like all good ancient stone formations, the axes of the "ship" align with the summer and winter soltice sunrise and sunset.  Much to our surprise there was small herd of docile (sometimes horned) cows in and around the stones.  :-)  The stones are up on hill/cliff that sticks out into the Baltic Sea a bit, giving an amazing panorama.  It was beautiful up there, but extremely windy.  We thought of everyone back home dealing with the heat (though it looks like the heat wave broke...thanks goodness!) as we were shivering. 

After Ale's Stones we drove up to Highway 19 to 23 that took us up to Vaxjo.  The drive took about 3.5 hours and was dotted with animal crossing signs for warthogs (seriously), deer, and moose.  Unfortunately (or fortunately for my car insurance) we didn't see or meet any of them.  The drive was different than we expected.  We expected flat farmland.  Instead we went through lots of hills and forests, and to Mom's dismay, very few rivers. 

Our hotel is really nice.  We got here just as the hotel keeper was leaving...so that was lucky.  Our room is about 1/3 the size of our room in Malmo, but it has everything we need and even overlooks a lake!  We walked over to the nearby restaurant, the Villa Vik, tonight.  I had a Swedish beer (who knew?) and mom had a wonderfully flavored elderflower juice. 



10 p.m. at Villa Vik

 Hope everyone is well and happy. We'll be staying in Vaxjo tomorrow, too!  Take care!

(((The internet is very slow and I'm tired.  I'll edit this to post photos tomorrow.  Loves!)))

Day 2 - Malmo

Hello! 

We are really now Vaxjo at the Toftastrand Hotell AND we have internet!! And we saw lots of neat things today...but first, let me share with you what we did yesterday...

We slept like logs last night!  I think we went to sleep around 9 p.m. Unfortunately, around 3 a.m. some boisterous folks were meandering (we imagine) down our street.  So that woke us up, but by at least an hour later we were both back asleep and woke up by 8 a.m. All in all, we both got a good amount of rest. 



G-ma took this phot for Emily.



 We wanted to see the Malmo Castle, so we took the bus to the central train station, exchanged enough money to hopefully take us through Sweden, and then walked over to the castle.  G-ma thought Emily would get a kick out of seeing the bike parking lot that was floating on the canal by the train station.  We also could see the Turning (Twisting??) Torso building by Santiago Calatrava in the distance.


 They also had cool things that you just don't think about like public air hoses that are located in places that you would really need them...like parks, not gas stations.  So, I took a photo. 

Isn't this a great idea?  Public air hoses *in* the park!

Back to the castle...The castle is surrounded by a moat that is *filled* with alligators!  No, really it just had a few swans and geese ducks. (bummer!) The castle was built at an unfortunate time in which medieval was “out” and renaissance wasn’t quite yet fully defined.  So, it’s just about the ugliest castle we’ve seen, but you be the judge:


Malmo Castle.  Ick.



The castle currently houses a restaurant and a bunch of different museums: art, natural history, castle stuff.  We focused on the castle history, but toured a little of the natural history part as well.  The first diorama we looked at was really an indication of the things to come.  It had 5 taxidermied foxes eating a half-eaten bird.  [see amazing photo @ right]

I don’t think this would have passed typical U.S. diorama standards as it seemed a little brutal, but so be it.  In later exhibits we found that this was pretty normal here as there were human skeletons in numerous exhibits that covered topics ranging from prison life (the castle had been used as a prison at one point) to Bronze Age graveyards.  Then there were the illustrations showing, in flip book fashion, what happens during a beheading.  Then there was the diorama representing some medieval holiday in which there were two people.  One was of a woman’s butt basically sticking out of a herring barrel.  The other was a guy who had drunk too much during the festivities.  Really?!  You have a holiday that has to have *some* sort of cultural meaning and *that* is how you choose to represent it?! Oh, we could go on, but at some point it all got to be too much for us, and we feel like sparing you all the details. 

To be fair, seeing the rooms of the castle was pretty cool. 

But those good exhibits are always offset by this exhibit's name:



The gardens of the castle were really pretty, and we saw the castle windmill. 

We ate lunch at an outdoor restaurant at Lilla Torg which is a square surrounded by really old half-timber buildings.  I got pasta with white sauce and veggies.  Mom got Swedish sausage with potatoes and salad, and cauliflower with a cream sauce.

 

 

And then we walked past a Salon called Rydberg and Company! 

 

More on what happened today later...