Stockholm Viking Museum

This is a quick post about the Viking Museum in Stockholm which wasn't there when I lived there. We're in Riga now so we took the Tallink overnight ferry there and back again for the long Easter weekend. It's a cheap way to travel to Stockholm and kind of fun with the shows, bars, buffets, and rooms like the bigger cruise ships. It wasn't what I though of when I first heard about riding on a ferry. First, here's a few pics from the trip to Stockholm.

Tunnelbana Blue Line

Here's more of the art in the Tunnelbana stations to go with the previous post about the red line.

Tunnelbana Red Line

Is this simply the entrance to the Stockholm Tunnelbana? Sure. It's an efficient and clean way to get around a beautiful city just like the bus system. But, it's also the entrance to a really big art museum! It's touted as the world's longest art exhibit at 110 km long. Over 90 of the 100 subway stations in Stockholm have been decorated with sculptures, mosaics, paintings, installations, engravings and reliefs by over 150 artists.

We finally slowed down and took a closer look at 2 of the lines. You miss so much when you just pass through to another destination. Many of these stations are destinations in their own right. Here's a look at a few on the red line starting with Östermalmstorg.

Moderna Museet

I wrote about the Modern Art Museum in Stockholm previously here. It's still free but they charge for one or two major temporary exhibits if you want to see them. I love the place for the lunch spot with the beautiful overlook, interesting art pieces, and challenging thought processes. Here's a few random pics.

Hallwylska Museet

Hallwyl Museum is one of Stockholm's free museums. It's centrally located so I can't believe I missed it when I lived here. It isn't huge so it's a nice hour or so of looking around at this 1890s home with the collection of Countess Wilhelmina von Hallwyl.

Tutankhamun

The traveling exhibition of Tutankhamun is a great way to experience the discovery of the tomb. There's informative audio guides, multimedia displays, and convincing replicas. One review claims the originals in Egypt aren't as well presented as this. However, I read that they're working on a new Grand Egyptian Museum near the Giza pyramids that will be partially opening in May 2018. There's something to add to the bucket list since I've been fascinated by ancient Egypt since I was a little boy.

R&R Cost-Construct

Cost-construct doesn't follow common sense. It follows government negotiated rates for some routes, perhaps some influence from consumer demand, and apparently a bit of good fortune when the cost-construct gods smile on you. I've learned it pays to at least ask.

The R&R point for Caracas, Venezuela is Miami. There's heavy demand for those flights, so prices are generally high. We wanted to cost-construct R&R to Stockholm, Sweden. I asked. The surprising answer was that a flight to Stockholm via Paris on Air France was a little cheaper than going to Miami. Who would think?!? No money out of pocket! Yep, R&R is in Stockholm. :-)

Drottningholm Palace

Drottningholm Palace is an easy tunnelbana and bus ride from Stockholm taking at least 30 minutes depending on where you start. A part of the palace is the current residence of the king and queen of Sweden. It's much nicer than the city palace so I can see why they choose to live here. The house is nicer looking and the grounds are extensive and beautiful. You can walk around the outside for free so if you want another good park to hang out in then this is a great choice.

The temperature dropped again to the mid-60s but it was a sunny and glorious day to finally explore this place before leaving Stockholm. I can't believe it's now 24 days to departure and just 9 days to pack out. I guess we really need to get busy on that sorting I wrote about 60 days out! I've written about it and thought about it but just haven't executed it so much. Next weekend is the real crunch time. In the meantime there's too many nice distractions here such as...

The palace has a public part serving as a museum for a fee. The palace is worth a visit for the free grounds, but I think the inside is a little more impressive than the Royal Palace in Stockholm. It's harder to get to as a tourist with little time, but if you're here for a few days or an entire Foreign Service assignment then definitely go see it!

Royal Palace Stockholm

Oh Sweden! Spring and temps in the 70s F happened a week ago but now I'm reminded of where I am. Overcast, rainy, and highs in the 50s for the weekend calls for a bit of inside tourism to inside places. Will the temps edge above 70F before leaving next month? We'll see.

Nearly 2 years later and I've finally visited the Royal Palace (Kungliga Slottet). It's not far or difficult to get to in Gamla Stan but it's just one of those things I hadn't gotten around to doing. The ticket includes 4 museums consisting of the Royal Apartments, Treasury (no pics allowed), Tre Kronor Museum, and Gustav III's Museum of Antiquities. There's also an awesome armory museum as a seperate ticket with royal coaches that I've blogged about before which is definitely worth a visit. The palace building doesn't look like much other than a boring big building. It's really too bad the Tre Kronor or Three Crowns castle burned down because that looked much more interesting from the model of it.

Carl Eldh Studio Museum

What a difference a week makes in Stockholm. The temperature highs were in the 40-50F range last week, but it started warming up this week and hit 70F this weekend! It looks like everything turned green overnight with flowers bursting everywhere. It won't stay this warm for most of the month but it's a nice anomaly.

Millesgården

Millesgården is just across the water on the island of Lidingö. It was built in 1908 by sculptor Carl Milles and his wife painter Olga Milles. It's now a museum with the home, antique collection, sculpture garden, and art gallery with changing exhibitions. The sculpture garden will be even more beautiful whenever spring finally blooms but it's a great visit any time the weather is nice.

Modern Art Museum Stockholm

My days left here are now in the double digits. The Easter weekend is a 4 day holiday and I'm spending it enjoying Stockholm before I have to move away. Moderna Museet i Stockholm is another of the local museums I haven't been to and it is now free. It was a perfect day to go out and visit another museum. The sun was shining but it was still cool (48F) and very windy so it was good to be inside. They have a nice restaurant like many of the museums here. Here's the wonderful view from the restaurant where you can see across the water to Strandvägen and the Nordic Museum / Nordiska Museet.

Swedish History Museum

Less than 4 months left in Stockholm and I'm still trying to see everything I wanted to see around here. There are several museums on my to-do list and fortunately many of the government owned museums are now free to visit. Check the link for a complete list. I think it's great to use taxes for greater access to these wonderful learning places. The Smithsonian museums in DC are free resources for the people and it'd be great to see that model used everywhere. Museums are a great way to find out about a place and what made it what it is today. The Swedish History Museum does a good job of telling that story with a focus on prehistory, vikings, medieval, and a timeline of 11th century to today. I looked around and enjoyed the museum more than I took photos so here's a small taste of the viking era:

Museum of Medieval Stockholm

There's a great free Museum of Medieval Stockholm just north of the Royal Palace. I finally visited it today after a year and half of being here. I tend to visit attractions when I first arrive at an assignment or when time is running out before the next move.

The museum was built underground around the findings of an excavation. It includes part of the original 16th century stone wall and some cool recreations of medieval Stockholm. There are also some detailed models and maps showing the evolution of Stockholm from medieval times. Here's some pictures of the frozen lake side of Gamla Stan and the outside of the museum before some of the museum itself:

Christmas Market and Lights

Gamla Stan Christmas Market

Nordiska Museet

Nordiska museet has exhibitions about life and work, trends and traditions, in Sweden from the 16th century to today. It's a beautiful building for the museum which was founded in 1873. I remembered I hadn't taken a pic of the building as I was leaving at the 5pm closing. It had already been long dark since sunset was at 3pm so it's hard to see.

Tough Viking

Tough Viking is the leading, largest and most brutal Obstacle Race in Scandinavia and Russia. The obstacles are massive and consists of fire, water, electricity, deep mud, monkey bars and barbed wire set out along a challenging route. The obstacles are designed together with the Swedish elite maritime special forces unit Kustjägarna.

We participated in the Tough Viking competition in the much easier "spectator" class. We actually went to cheer on the Embassy team and enjoy the nice summer weather for possibly the last weekend. None of these pictures are of the Embassy team since this is a publicly visible blog so they're just random tough vikings.

The entire course was 15 KM with 30 obstacles. We stayed on the left side of the map and watched some of the more interesting obstacles. If anyone wanted to watch all of this then they probably should have joined as an actual competitor. It was spread over a huge area even with some of the winding back and forth so it would have been difficult to see everything.

Stockholm Zombie Walk

Once a year in Stockholm there are zombies. They go for a walk through the city.

We're having a little nice weather for a few weeks so it was actually sunny and 73F. Summer appears to be unusually short this year with a bit more umbrellas and jackets needed compared to our first summer here. But I digress so here are the zombies...

Stockholm Pride Parade

Stockholm's Pride Parade is the largest in Scandinavia with as many as 40,000 participants and over 400,000 spectators. There was some rain in the forecast but fortunately it didn't rain on this nice happy parade. It was also warmer than it has been lately. #LoveWins Our daughter took some great pics of the event:

Views Above Stockholm

One last bit of pictures from last week and playing tourist with our tourist friends. (Yes, it was still cool enough for jackets in July) We finally went up in the SkyView on top of the Ericsson Globe Arena. We've been inside the Arena several times for concerts but hadn't gone up in one of the viewing gondolas crawling up the outside of the world's largest spherical building. It's a fun way to see Stockholm! After that we went to our favorite overlook walk along Monteliusvägen for another view above Stockholm and closer to the old town of Gamla Stan.