I have purchased the airline ticket from Aer Lingus to France for May 1st, arriving May 2nd, 2008 and will depart for home on May 13th. I have started the remaining planning for the trip and have decided that aside from Paris I will be visiting the Picadie region and also the Normandy region. In Picardie I am aiming to visit the Somme battlefields, Amiens and also Pierrefonds Chateaux minimally. I will probably be staying in hotels in the region. In Normandy I am hoping to operate out of Caen and to get to the D-Day beaches amongst other things. Obviously I will be seeing the main Paris attractions as well...
I will post more including websites from my research in the near future.
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Monday, November 03, 2008
Sweden Epilogue
So the limitation with going to Sweden for my birthday trip is that a lot of the touristy places are closed for the offseason, nonetheless there was still a lot to do and I enjoyed the trip thoroughly.
Eventually the rain had to catch up with one of my vacations and this turned out to be the one but it was not the whole trip anyway. I enjoyed walking in the cooler weather much more so than if it had been really hot but I suppose that it would never be really hot in Sweden.
The food there was overall fantastic and even the small cafeteria type places have a great eye for presentation besides being good cooks. I walked a lot but I ate a lot so I probably only made it to even on the weight loss/gain situation.
The small prop plane was definitely interesting and clambering on and off a plane directly from the tarmac was different.
I would definitely go back to Sweden again but it would likely be best to go in late spring or summertime just to have more attractions open during the course of the week. The time of day that things open doesn't seem to change year round. Scandies are late starters and that won't change so 10 to 11am no matter what. Having a full northern summer day and not having anything open for hours after I get on my way might be kind of maddening but I guess wandering would still be fun. The countryside I saw also looked spectacular and if you're into outdoorsy things it looks like a great country to visit in summer weather.
Eventually the rain had to catch up with one of my vacations and this turned out to be the one but it was not the whole trip anyway. I enjoyed walking in the cooler weather much more so than if it had been really hot but I suppose that it would never be really hot in Sweden.
The food there was overall fantastic and even the small cafeteria type places have a great eye for presentation besides being good cooks. I walked a lot but I ate a lot so I probably only made it to even on the weight loss/gain situation.
The small prop plane was definitely interesting and clambering on and off a plane directly from the tarmac was different.
I would definitely go back to Sweden again but it would likely be best to go in late spring or summertime just to have more attractions open during the course of the week. The time of day that things open doesn't seem to change year round. Scandies are late starters and that won't change so 10 to 11am no matter what. Having a full northern summer day and not having anything open for hours after I get on my way might be kind of maddening but I guess wandering would still be fun. The countryside I saw also looked spectacular and if you're into outdoorsy things it looks like a great country to visit in summer weather.
Sunday, November 02, 2008
Sweden Day 9
Not much to say about today really. I got up moderately late and went down for breakfast at about 8:30. When I got back to the room I finished the last minute packing and then watched TV until about 10:00. From there I marched down to central station with suitcase in tow. I should mention the tiled nature of the sidewalks, even though mainly downhill, coupled with their rain troughs made it a very bumpy ride to the train. From there I was able to catch the Arlanda Express right at the time I got there and use the last day of my rail pass for it so it didn't cost me anything extra. As with in Denmark, finding an Icelandair checkin booth is not easy and I found the SAS self checkin booth then dropped my bag off and had to cross completely across the front of terminal to get to the gate I needed. The terminal after security is small but it did have a couple shops and a cafeteria to eat lunch. I had what was called pasta with pesto which turned out to be a sort of ravioli with a dryish pesto filling covered with a creamy zucchini and mushroom sauce. It wasn't bad but just not what I was expecting. It probably could have been kept a tad bit warmer though.
The plane to Iceland boarded on time and we were 3 hours and 15 minutes in the air. The plane for Boston also departed on time and we even arrived in Boston about 20 minutes ahead of schedule. The rest is a ride home from my brother then unpacking and watching at least some of the Patriots game.
The picture from day 9 can be found here.
The plane to Iceland boarded on time and we were 3 hours and 15 minutes in the air. The plane for Boston also departed on time and we even arrived in Boston about 20 minutes ahead of schedule. The rest is a ride home from my brother then unpacking and watching at least some of the Patriots game.
The picture from day 9 can be found here.
Saturday, November 01, 2008
Sweden Day 8
Today started out the latest of all because I was heading to Skokloster Slott. Skokloster Slott is a non-military castle built in the middle 1600s and used mainly as a summer home until the early 1900s when it was occupied full time. The upper floors are all preserved as is from the 1600s due to several family rules and the generally agreeable to antiques weather that Sweden has. In any event before I get into tons of details on it I was up at 6:45 but didn’t really get moving till a bit past 7:30 and ate breakfast at about 8:30. I knew I didn’t have to be to Skokloster until 11:30 because that is when the castle actually opened up. I basically headed to the train station at 9:00 and got on a 9:40 train to Bålsta station which turned out to be very much a suburban train/bus station with pretty much no amenities. That ride took about 50 minutes and from there I had to wait out the 11:00 bus which would take about 25 minutes to the castle. It was sunny out today but a bit cold and since Skokloster is north of Stockholm, probably a bit colder there than what I left behind in the city. The wait wasn’t that bad though due to the sun and it was over before I knew it. The bus ride was uneventful if curious for the fact that there were stops on this route that were literally in the middle of nowhere. I assume there are times people need it and fortunately they only stop if some presses the stop button but it really felt like having a bus stop on my own street in North Andover which would be beyond strange.
As you may have guessed this castle was way out in the middle of nowhere. It is right near the ocean and on a common throughway that ships used to take to get north to south along Sweden however and that is partially why it was built in the particular location it is in. The other being that it is right next door to the still basically preserved childhood house of the man that built the castle. He wasn’t royalty but a military general who had a lot of success in campaigns in Germany especially. For his efforts in the wars he was awarded a large area of land around where the castle is as well as 7 castles in Germany. This is partially why it was a summer home for him. The structure of the castle is taken from many of the German castles he had seen however he built the interior in a much more French style so as to be fashionable. Being a square building with a courtyard the exterior is outside of the fashion for the time where it instead should have been in the shape of an H. That said he stuffed the place full of all sorts of art, artifacts and even had a very large armory of weapons that dwarfed the size of the collection in the Army Museum. The castle offered a guided tour in Swedish or in English. For obvious reasons I took the English tour and was joined by the guide, named Eva and two Frenchmen who seemed likely to be college students. It was very nice having such a small group to work with because the tour became more of a conversation than a narration and the guide was very friendly and knowledgeable and answered any questions we asked. The castle has 77 rooms but we only visited a bunch on the second floor and then a couple on the third floor. They cannot have people go through certain rooms because it may damage the ceilings below them. The majority of the renovation work was done in the 19th century then redone in the middle 20th. The castle is the largest privately built/owned castle in Sweden, however the government bought ownership for preservation purposes in the 1960s and it became a museum at the time. There is supposedly a large history of it being a museum ever since it was built and the owning family apparently did not turn away visitors. The size and scope of the collection in the building is incredible. We saw a lot of pieces of art and furniture and the weapons collection was immense, and we barely saw any of the rooms in it. The guide assured us that every room is very much like the rooms we were in and all of the material is fairly well preserved due to the nature of Swedish weather. There obviously were spots where the sun had done damage to the gilded leather wallpapers or some paint or another but overall the quality of what was in there was very well kept.
After the castle I took a short trip to the church next door. It was apparently built on the foundations of an old cloister from the 1200s or so. The current church was also built in the middle 1600s I believe but the various paperwork I could read on it was a tad confusing. It obviously was modernized as it went along. When we were on the tour one of the Frenchmen asked if the castle had a chapel and the guide responded, no actually, then as she thought about it she said it is very curious because almost all castles have chapels of some sort but she had never realized or thought about it before. It is possible the family came to this church right next door or that they didn’t hold religion in high esteem. As I remember looking through the rooms that were shown to us I don’t really recall seeing much by way of religious artifact in the building. By the way, the perception that most of the riches were stolen, she said, is inaccurate as most of what he had in there was purchased, less than 10% was looted from war and most of that 10% she said was in books in the library which we didn’t get to see. She said the library was contained in 7 rooms and that the owner was an avid reader. The library can only be visited by special permission and accompanied by the librarian. But I was talking about the church. It was a fairly solid Scandinavian church, mainly of brick on the outside and was very warm inside so I hung out for a minute or two but not very long. From there I went over the only thing that looked like civilization in the form of a gas station/convenient store that probably isn’t open if the castle isn’t open. During the summer there is a boat launch right there too and they appeared to have a marine shop in there as well. I bought a cup of coffee and verified that the next bus to come through didn’t arrive until 3:30 and it was about 2:00. In order to kill time I decided I would get lunch of some form in the small cafeteria in the castle and had a bowl of creamy vegetable soup with 2 forms of bread. This was the first time my bread was not from a communal basket and they had a multigrain bread that seemed to be a soda bread rather than a yeast bread and one of their cracker like breads that I had seen all over but never tried. Both were on the blander side but ok. The soup was good and I had a Mariestads Export beer to go along. This was actually a good beer and I enjoyed it. The blond color was slightly darker than most of the Swedish beers I had and the flavor was actually very full.
After killing that time I walked out across the street and took pictures of the bomber (**Update: My brother has notified me that it was a C-47 transport not a bomber**) that was set up next to a hotel in a field. It had obviously seen the ravages of time but it was still very cool and I was curious why it was there but was not able to find out. The spot where the plane was also afforded a couple good pictures of the castle. I walked back after that and it was fairly close to the time the bus was going to arrive so I waited out the last few minutes and had an uneventful ride back to Bålsta station where the train back to Stockholm was actually just waiting and was able to get on right away. The train ride back was also uneventful and I was back in Stockholm Central Station at about 5pm. I figured my best bet was to get something to eat before heading back to the room to get things sorted out for the flight back on Sunday. I wandered around a bit indecisive about where to go and what to eat but finally opted to eat at China Sweden, obviously a Chinese restaurant. I had spicy Szechuan chicken, which came with boiled white rice and another Mariestads Export. The food was good but in Sweden the concept of spicy is much like it is in the Boston area which means not really spicy at all so far as I can tell, at least at this restaurant. After eating I headed back to the room to get set up to come back home.
The pictures from Day 8 can be seen here.
As you may have guessed this castle was way out in the middle of nowhere. It is right near the ocean and on a common throughway that ships used to take to get north to south along Sweden however and that is partially why it was built in the particular location it is in. The other being that it is right next door to the still basically preserved childhood house of the man that built the castle. He wasn’t royalty but a military general who had a lot of success in campaigns in Germany especially. For his efforts in the wars he was awarded a large area of land around where the castle is as well as 7 castles in Germany. This is partially why it was a summer home for him. The structure of the castle is taken from many of the German castles he had seen however he built the interior in a much more French style so as to be fashionable. Being a square building with a courtyard the exterior is outside of the fashion for the time where it instead should have been in the shape of an H. That said he stuffed the place full of all sorts of art, artifacts and even had a very large armory of weapons that dwarfed the size of the collection in the Army Museum. The castle offered a guided tour in Swedish or in English. For obvious reasons I took the English tour and was joined by the guide, named Eva and two Frenchmen who seemed likely to be college students. It was very nice having such a small group to work with because the tour became more of a conversation than a narration and the guide was very friendly and knowledgeable and answered any questions we asked. The castle has 77 rooms but we only visited a bunch on the second floor and then a couple on the third floor. They cannot have people go through certain rooms because it may damage the ceilings below them. The majority of the renovation work was done in the 19th century then redone in the middle 20th. The castle is the largest privately built/owned castle in Sweden, however the government bought ownership for preservation purposes in the 1960s and it became a museum at the time. There is supposedly a large history of it being a museum ever since it was built and the owning family apparently did not turn away visitors. The size and scope of the collection in the building is incredible. We saw a lot of pieces of art and furniture and the weapons collection was immense, and we barely saw any of the rooms in it. The guide assured us that every room is very much like the rooms we were in and all of the material is fairly well preserved due to the nature of Swedish weather. There obviously were spots where the sun had done damage to the gilded leather wallpapers or some paint or another but overall the quality of what was in there was very well kept.
After the castle I took a short trip to the church next door. It was apparently built on the foundations of an old cloister from the 1200s or so. The current church was also built in the middle 1600s I believe but the various paperwork I could read on it was a tad confusing. It obviously was modernized as it went along. When we were on the tour one of the Frenchmen asked if the castle had a chapel and the guide responded, no actually, then as she thought about it she said it is very curious because almost all castles have chapels of some sort but she had never realized or thought about it before. It is possible the family came to this church right next door or that they didn’t hold religion in high esteem. As I remember looking through the rooms that were shown to us I don’t really recall seeing much by way of religious artifact in the building. By the way, the perception that most of the riches were stolen, she said, is inaccurate as most of what he had in there was purchased, less than 10% was looted from war and most of that 10% she said was in books in the library which we didn’t get to see. She said the library was contained in 7 rooms and that the owner was an avid reader. The library can only be visited by special permission and accompanied by the librarian. But I was talking about the church. It was a fairly solid Scandinavian church, mainly of brick on the outside and was very warm inside so I hung out for a minute or two but not very long. From there I went over the only thing that looked like civilization in the form of a gas station/convenient store that probably isn’t open if the castle isn’t open. During the summer there is a boat launch right there too and they appeared to have a marine shop in there as well. I bought a cup of coffee and verified that the next bus to come through didn’t arrive until 3:30 and it was about 2:00. In order to kill time I decided I would get lunch of some form in the small cafeteria in the castle and had a bowl of creamy vegetable soup with 2 forms of bread. This was the first time my bread was not from a communal basket and they had a multigrain bread that seemed to be a soda bread rather than a yeast bread and one of their cracker like breads that I had seen all over but never tried. Both were on the blander side but ok. The soup was good and I had a Mariestads Export beer to go along. This was actually a good beer and I enjoyed it. The blond color was slightly darker than most of the Swedish beers I had and the flavor was actually very full.
After killing that time I walked out across the street and took pictures of the bomber (**Update: My brother has notified me that it was a C-47 transport not a bomber**) that was set up next to a hotel in a field. It had obviously seen the ravages of time but it was still very cool and I was curious why it was there but was not able to find out. The spot where the plane was also afforded a couple good pictures of the castle. I walked back after that and it was fairly close to the time the bus was going to arrive so I waited out the last few minutes and had an uneventful ride back to Bålsta station where the train back to Stockholm was actually just waiting and was able to get on right away. The train ride back was also uneventful and I was back in Stockholm Central Station at about 5pm. I figured my best bet was to get something to eat before heading back to the room to get things sorted out for the flight back on Sunday. I wandered around a bit indecisive about where to go and what to eat but finally opted to eat at China Sweden, obviously a Chinese restaurant. I had spicy Szechuan chicken, which came with boiled white rice and another Mariestads Export. The food was good but in Sweden the concept of spicy is much like it is in the Boston area which means not really spicy at all so far as I can tell, at least at this restaurant. After eating I headed back to the room to get set up to come back home.
The pictures from Day 8 can be seen here.
Friday, October 31, 2008
Sweden Day 7
Today started out at a reasonable time of about 7am. I did take it easy to start because as I’ve mentioned before things don’t open up early around here (or Denmark for that matter). So I even shaved like I should have yesterday but didn’t have the time to with having to get to the plane for Visby. I had breakfast at a little after 8am, then slowly walked downtown to scout out where the dinner cruise was supposed to be located and fortunately it was in a spot I already knew very well (more on the cruise or lack thereof later…). With that in mind I set out to find the Army Museum and took a few bad turns and got myself confused a couple of times so that I found it a little bit before 10am. Unfortunately I had reversed in my mind what time the museum opened and what time Skansen opened. The Army Museum opened at 11am. So I decided that since the location of the museum was actually pretty close to Skansen and the weather was still looking ok at this point I spent maybe 15 minutes walking over to Skansen and got in under the Stockholm Card without having to pay further. Skansen is an open air museum and has a variety of attraction in it varying from period housing that was moved into the museum to working craftsmen and such like you might find in Sturbridge village to a zoo of animals from Sweden a so on. It is very sizeable and I walked around from about 10:15 to about noon seeing as much as I could. There were a fair number of guests at the park though I am sure it is a very different scene in the summer time. The weather held to nothing more than a light drizzle throughout my visit and I was able to take a fair number of pictures successfully. In the photo album you will notice the pictures I took at the Army Museum first but I did actually go there after Skansen. At around noon I found what appeared to be the main cafeteria of the park and decided I would get lunch. They probably had started serving at about 11 and there was already a fair number of people in there. I chose to have the potato leek soup and the daily special which was lemon chicken with sugar snap peas and pineapple with a lemon sauce and jasmine rice. I also had a bottled beer that was better than any Swedish beer I had had to point and was very pleased with the meal and the beer overall. The soup really hit the spot…
After dinner I took the walk back to the Army Museum and spent about 2 and a half hours in there. No pictures of course… It is set up in 3 floors and the higher floor is the older history of Sweden and the Vikings and then their medieval armies and eventually into the armies that carried to just about the 1900s. There was a lot of reading and since all the boards were only in Swedish they had books on each floor that translated everything that was in the exhibit. They tried to do their best to point out where each text was on the walls or in the cases, but it was at times very confusing and I also caught myself wondering if the English translation didn’t have more to say than the boards did (perhaps because they explained more of Swedish history expecting that the Swedes would already know it). In any event the museum is not huge but there was a lot to see there and I read a real lot. Unfortunately the books were meant to stay in the building so I didn’t get to take it with me. There were a couple lines in them that made fun of the Danes that I would have liked preserved… In any event they had a fair amount of real pieces both very old and recent and a few replica pieces that were also noted. The second floor was dedicated to the 20th century and beyond including both the world wars and many other European conflicts. At this point they gave a more detailed account of the Swedish army and soldiers and even mentioned their participation in a fair number of other countries’ wars. The Swedes were non-participants in WWII and this is in part probably due to their location but also because they were willing to provide services to the Germans that staved off any attacks. This was mainly the ferrying of soldiers or prisoners around blockades. They state specifically that when the government felt they had built up their armed forces to a degree that they felt they could defend themselves from German attacks they broke off all aid to the Germans. That said they were technically a neutral country to the war. They had a large number of weapons in the weapons rooms which dated back mainly to the 1600s and moved into modern time. Any of the earlier pieces were displayed on the 3rd floor it appeared. They had a reasonable number and variety and included many that were Swedish from the more modern items and mainly Swedish weapons from the older pieces. From WWII on the weapons were mainly German, British, American and Russian. On the ground floor there was an artillery exhibit and a brief exhibit on Sweden’s participation in WWI. This was a special exhibit and as much as I would have liked to know what it said they didn’t actually have any English translations of it which was sort of disappointing as I am a WWI buff. The previous sections about WWI were more general and pointed out the limited involvement of the Swedes. The artillery was a series of cannons moved to mortars to guns and howitzers that spanned from very early cannons to fairly recent. The exhibit was not huge but it was well laid out through the timeline.
After getting out of the museum I walked into the Gamla Stan again and did a bit of shopping and killed some time just walking around (and even got myself turned around inside the old town and spent a few minutes trying to reorient myself). When I was all sorted out I walked back to the hotel. The wind had been picking up and at times was very strong and we had an occasional blob of rain that hit through though most of it was drizzly more than anything. I got back to the room at about 5 and warmed up for about an hour while checking some things online.
At 6 I headed out for the dinner cruise which was supposed to be to Vaxholm and back. Unfortunately after walking around the Strandvagen a few times I was not able to find any boats at all preparing to go out on any sort of dinner cruise. The sign said it should have been at departure point 16, but there didn’t actually appear to be a departure point 16 anywhere. I was there well before 7pm when it was supposed to start but I walked along both areas that had the various tour boats, especially where the company that was supposed to run the cruise seemed to have its boats, but there was nothing at all going on. I can only assume it got canceled due to either limited interest or bad weather or both. There was no sign anywhere saying it was canceled at all… Anyway, as I said it was supposed to depart at 7pm and I went back and forth until about 10 past without any luck. From there I decided I should just get dinner and after heading closer to the hotel I decided to try The London because they were advertising fish and chips and I thought that was what I felt like. Unfortunately, while the food looked good it was probably the least favorite meal I’ve had in Sweden and did nothing to make me think of the Brit version of fish and chips at all. The beer I had was Swedish and called Stor Stark and was a good blond beer. I am curious why the Swedes don’t export their beer to the US. I am sure the general nature of most of their beers would be found likeable by the average American. In any event this was a bit better than the majority of Swedish beers I had tried so there was at least that. The waiter never came back to offer me a second before I was done eating and I opted to just pay the bill and leave. From there I headed back to the hotel. There were 3 girls dressed up for Halloween that were probably in their late teens. I wished them a happy Halloween. In any event they were the only people at all I saw dressed up. It really still is not that big of a holiday outside of the US yet though I did see a few things here and there that suggest that perhaps it is catching on. I have taken pictures of many of them along the way in various days.
All in all it was a good day but the cruise was the first item I had planned on that I missed at all (I’ve even added a few things not planned, such as the Army Museum) and I am disappointed with that.
The pictures from Day 7 are available here.
After dinner I took the walk back to the Army Museum and spent about 2 and a half hours in there. No pictures of course… It is set up in 3 floors and the higher floor is the older history of Sweden and the Vikings and then their medieval armies and eventually into the armies that carried to just about the 1900s. There was a lot of reading and since all the boards were only in Swedish they had books on each floor that translated everything that was in the exhibit. They tried to do their best to point out where each text was on the walls or in the cases, but it was at times very confusing and I also caught myself wondering if the English translation didn’t have more to say than the boards did (perhaps because they explained more of Swedish history expecting that the Swedes would already know it). In any event the museum is not huge but there was a lot to see there and I read a real lot. Unfortunately the books were meant to stay in the building so I didn’t get to take it with me. There were a couple lines in them that made fun of the Danes that I would have liked preserved… In any event they had a fair amount of real pieces both very old and recent and a few replica pieces that were also noted. The second floor was dedicated to the 20th century and beyond including both the world wars and many other European conflicts. At this point they gave a more detailed account of the Swedish army and soldiers and even mentioned their participation in a fair number of other countries’ wars. The Swedes were non-participants in WWII and this is in part probably due to their location but also because they were willing to provide services to the Germans that staved off any attacks. This was mainly the ferrying of soldiers or prisoners around blockades. They state specifically that when the government felt they had built up their armed forces to a degree that they felt they could defend themselves from German attacks they broke off all aid to the Germans. That said they were technically a neutral country to the war. They had a large number of weapons in the weapons rooms which dated back mainly to the 1600s and moved into modern time. Any of the earlier pieces were displayed on the 3rd floor it appeared. They had a reasonable number and variety and included many that were Swedish from the more modern items and mainly Swedish weapons from the older pieces. From WWII on the weapons were mainly German, British, American and Russian. On the ground floor there was an artillery exhibit and a brief exhibit on Sweden’s participation in WWI. This was a special exhibit and as much as I would have liked to know what it said they didn’t actually have any English translations of it which was sort of disappointing as I am a WWI buff. The previous sections about WWI were more general and pointed out the limited involvement of the Swedes. The artillery was a series of cannons moved to mortars to guns and howitzers that spanned from very early cannons to fairly recent. The exhibit was not huge but it was well laid out through the timeline.
After getting out of the museum I walked into the Gamla Stan again and did a bit of shopping and killed some time just walking around (and even got myself turned around inside the old town and spent a few minutes trying to reorient myself). When I was all sorted out I walked back to the hotel. The wind had been picking up and at times was very strong and we had an occasional blob of rain that hit through though most of it was drizzly more than anything. I got back to the room at about 5 and warmed up for about an hour while checking some things online.
At 6 I headed out for the dinner cruise which was supposed to be to Vaxholm and back. Unfortunately after walking around the Strandvagen a few times I was not able to find any boats at all preparing to go out on any sort of dinner cruise. The sign said it should have been at departure point 16, but there didn’t actually appear to be a departure point 16 anywhere. I was there well before 7pm when it was supposed to start but I walked along both areas that had the various tour boats, especially where the company that was supposed to run the cruise seemed to have its boats, but there was nothing at all going on. I can only assume it got canceled due to either limited interest or bad weather or both. There was no sign anywhere saying it was canceled at all… Anyway, as I said it was supposed to depart at 7pm and I went back and forth until about 10 past without any luck. From there I decided I should just get dinner and after heading closer to the hotel I decided to try The London because they were advertising fish and chips and I thought that was what I felt like. Unfortunately, while the food looked good it was probably the least favorite meal I’ve had in Sweden and did nothing to make me think of the Brit version of fish and chips at all. The beer I had was Swedish and called Stor Stark and was a good blond beer. I am curious why the Swedes don’t export their beer to the US. I am sure the general nature of most of their beers would be found likeable by the average American. In any event this was a bit better than the majority of Swedish beers I had tried so there was at least that. The waiter never came back to offer me a second before I was done eating and I opted to just pay the bill and leave. From there I headed back to the hotel. There were 3 girls dressed up for Halloween that were probably in their late teens. I wished them a happy Halloween. In any event they were the only people at all I saw dressed up. It really still is not that big of a holiday outside of the US yet though I did see a few things here and there that suggest that perhaps it is catching on. I have taken pictures of many of them along the way in various days.
All in all it was a good day but the cruise was the first item I had planned on that I missed at all (I’ve even added a few things not planned, such as the Army Museum) and I am disappointed with that.
The pictures from Day 7 are available here.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Sweden Day 6
Today will be the story of two different days separated by a lunch. I had to get up early because I was heading to Visby. This involved a 35 minute flight on a Fokker 50 twin turbo prop airplane. I believe the 50 because it carries 50 passengers. I have never been on a non jet nor a plane this small before so there was a tad bit of nerves on Wednesday night but I said what the hell in the end… I got up at say 6am and was showered and out the door quickly. I was able to get to central station and purchase a round trip ticket to Bromma airport (which is the other much smaller airport in Stockholm, Arlanda is the real international one). I missed the 6:50 but there was one at 7:10. My flight was at 7:55 and since not an international or anything I only needed to be there about a half an hour early. The bus takes about 20 minutes and the driver hit that almost spot on. When we got into the terminal I found that I needed to get to the gotlandsflyg check in and then go through security. I forgot to take off my watch and the man at the metal detector gave me the full pat down before letting me through. Note to self to put watch in bag before every flight… In any event by the time I was through security I stood there for less than 2 minutes before they were boarding the plane. It worked out pretty smoothly to keep me getting edgy about it. The plane was fairly small. High winged with the landing gear set in the engine location on the wings. I ended up towards the back due to my entry position as there was no assigned seating. I was pretty much right behind the wing and could stare at the landing gear. They actually close up much faster than I thought they would. The actually flight to Gotland was uneventful and much lower altitude than any other flight I’ve been on. Until we got past most of the archipelago I could see very well then we flew into clouds. It did give me perspective on how many islands there really are out there even if most all of them are not inhabited and have no structures on them. It looked very cool though. We didn’t fly out of the clouds until landing but that was easy and we were getting off the plane in no time (by the way, no gate or anything, just the door/stairs and the tarmac until you walk into the building).
I pushed right out of the airport and got the first taxi at the stand. The ride to the center of Visby was about 5 minutes or so. It was slightly chilly but not cold and there was a bit of overcast but nothing like rain. The ground even looked dry which is different from Stockholm. Pretty much right out of the taxi I could see the walls of the city and since it was about 9am and I was going to skip breakfast and go straight to lunch I immediately started the outer ring of the wall. The cab driver said it is 4km around but I walked it slowly taking a lot of pictures so that I didn’t miss anything and because this is the kind of stuff that I really like. The walls themselves were built in many stages as were all of the various towers and other structures in the wall but most of the town was built between the 1200s and 1300s then modified a few times both before and after the invention of gunpowder. Gotland did not become a part of Sweden until 1648 or so and the inhabitants that did most of the building were Germanic rather than Swedes. Gotland became a very important part of the long distance trade routes established by the Vikings due to its very advantageous location in the Baltic. They had placards along the route outside of the building that had English as well as German and Swedish and I read all of them and took pictures of most of them though a couple had some graffiti on them that rather obscured the text for photos so I skipped them. It probably took me about an hour and a half to two hours to get around the entire outer wall. I then took a sweep up the new town center (outside the wall) and decided it was still too early to eat so opted to dive back into the walls of the city to see what I could find. Inside the wall there were all sorts of narrow cobblestone streets, many that did allow automobile traffic. The housing seemed to be mostly residential with some shops and restaurants thrown in along the way. I assume that Visby is mainly a summer home type place and most all of the housing inside the wall appeared to be vacated for the off season though by about 11am many of the shops and restaurants opened up it appeared. I found the ruins of at least 3 really old churches in there as well. They apparently have a history of churches and the island is known as the Island of 100 Churches because there were that many on it. The majority of them were also built in the 1200s to 1300s and many were torn down and rebuilt a couple times until the middle of the 1300s when the construction just sort of stopped and the churches were all left as is from there. There was also the Domkyrk S:tMaria (that’s how it was spelled). Which was a 17th century church that had eventually been added to a few times and was fairly neat and open to the public. Aside from the churches there was a botanical garden that was started by a local swimming club in the 1800s. The club bought the land and made a garden out of it and used it to teach gardening and nature to the youth of the area. I was surprised to find flowers still alive in there amongst the various trees and other plants they had collected as well several medieval ruin sites. The garden was nice and I suspect it looks very beautiful in spring and summer when most everything is in bloom. After fumbling my way through many of the up and down streets and then eventually through the garden and then back up and down a bit more I found my way back to the north gate and decided that now that it was near noon I should eat lunch. I chose Ali’s which was very near the gate and was an apparently typical lunch place that Sweden has. I ordered a small Bolognese pizza (which is with meatballs but they didn’t crumble meatballs so much as just serve a meat sauce on the pizza) and that came with a salad and bread bar (again communal bread). The food was good and the meat sauce was sorts spicy so I liked it. There was a hint of caraway in the salad dressing but it didn’t bother me too much. It might have been from the sauerkraut but I think it was the dressing itself because I didn’t notice it if I just ate the kraut.
I left the lunch place sort of hurriedly because it appeared that more guests were coming in and there was a limitation of seats and rather than hog up a four person table to myself while others couldn’t sit I figured I could move on. Almost immediately as I got outside it began to rain. It started lighter but it built in strength along the day. Unlike the rain in Kungälv which was mostly misty and not too offensive this eventually became full on drops of driving rain, though fortunately never of the downpour caliber. I wasn’t daunted at first and went back into the walled city where I eventually visited the church to break up the rain a bit. Someone was tuning the pipe organ and at times it sounded really nice and at times I was surprised that a pipe organ could make such noises. In any event I only really spent a few minutes there before I headed back out and sort of made my way through a few of the shops. There weren’t many souvenir shops open even if the majority of the others were. I suspect there isn’t much call for souvenir sales after the main season is well over. Nonetheless I did find a couple that were open and visited them aside from some candy shops and the like. Doing all of this killed another couple of hours but I was not scheduled to fly back until 7:30pm. I am not sure now if this was a good or a bad thing. In planning something like this you really have no idea how long you might want to stay. If taking a train you can usually reschedule, especially if you have a pass, but with the flight it was pretty much no choice. I am certain had the weather held like it was in the morning I would have enjoyed staying out there for the entire day. After some walking and eventually getting thoroughly soaked I decided to stop in a place to get a coffee and sit down for a bit. I warmed up somewhat and the coffee was ok for Sweden but I couldn’t stay seated there forever either, so I eventually set outside again. Unfortunately I must have chosen the poorest moment because the wind was very strong and the rain was very biting. After walking past the cab stand and going into the north gate I decided to turn around and get a cab to the airport to stay in the warmth and dry.
Visby’s airport is smaller than Bromma and felt like it might be about the size of the Greater Lawrence Airport even. In any event there was one small café and a few places to sit and no gift shop or anything. I settled in for the long haul of a couple hours of waiting. I was disconcerted to see flights before mine from gotlandsflyg have some sort of issues or something but since there were no announcements and anything and everything was in Swedish I really have no idea what happened or was happening. The big board of departures got stuck at the 5pm flights and never advanced though it was obvious that a couple of those flights got out. It all seemed very scattered, confused and disorganized. Forever and a few minutes later it was the expected boarding time for my flight but they weren’t ready. That didn’t start until about 20 minutes after they were supposed to. The attendant told me that the plane was delayed and may be there by 8 instead of 7:30pm. Ok, I said. This time I did pack my watch and didn’t get a pat down. We waited in the gate for quite a while so that the plane was not ready for boarding until 50 minutes late. Everyone piled on board and I think we got out to taxi in mere minutes. The nice thing about being the last plane of the night was that they pretty much went straight from taxi to take off without transition.
This was the horror flight I had expected in the morning. No, it wasn’t really terror or anything but there was a fair amount of turbulence that pushed the plane about for most of the flight so that we may only have gotten a one or two minute stretch that was ok. The landing part was near terror. The winds over Stockholm must have been fierce and we were buffeted in every direction all the way down. I was amazed at how smoothly the plane landed as we went from being pushed left and right straight into the rumble of the air strip with almost no transition. I figured there was a good chance we’d make local news for a plane off the runway or something but the pilot must have been damn good at landing in the kind of weather we hit. If I had a hat with me my hat would have been off to him. In any event since I was so hideously late now the next bus that I had prepaid for would not arrive until around 10pm and it was just barely past 9pm. On top of that, even though it had stopped raining in Visby before we took off it was still very much so raining in Stockholm. With Bromma being as small as Visby’s airport and also very much closed inside I decided to take a cab thus wasting the prepayment of the bus fare I will never use. Anyway, that saved me well over an hour so I will deal with it. I had the cab driver drop me off at central station because it was easier than trying to explain where the hotel was and then I chose to quickly scarf down my missed dinner from the McDonald’s right there then run up to the room. I got here just before 10pm.
As I said the part of the day before lunch was awesome then it spun out of control as it went along. I am happy took the chance on this part of the trip but it would have been nice for the weather to cooperate on it so that the whole day was as fun as the beginning…
I should mention, if I ever became obnxiously rich in some fashion I would definitely consider buying a summer home in Visby.
The images from Day 6 are located here.
I pushed right out of the airport and got the first taxi at the stand. The ride to the center of Visby was about 5 minutes or so. It was slightly chilly but not cold and there was a bit of overcast but nothing like rain. The ground even looked dry which is different from Stockholm. Pretty much right out of the taxi I could see the walls of the city and since it was about 9am and I was going to skip breakfast and go straight to lunch I immediately started the outer ring of the wall. The cab driver said it is 4km around but I walked it slowly taking a lot of pictures so that I didn’t miss anything and because this is the kind of stuff that I really like. The walls themselves were built in many stages as were all of the various towers and other structures in the wall but most of the town was built between the 1200s and 1300s then modified a few times both before and after the invention of gunpowder. Gotland did not become a part of Sweden until 1648 or so and the inhabitants that did most of the building were Germanic rather than Swedes. Gotland became a very important part of the long distance trade routes established by the Vikings due to its very advantageous location in the Baltic. They had placards along the route outside of the building that had English as well as German and Swedish and I read all of them and took pictures of most of them though a couple had some graffiti on them that rather obscured the text for photos so I skipped them. It probably took me about an hour and a half to two hours to get around the entire outer wall. I then took a sweep up the new town center (outside the wall) and decided it was still too early to eat so opted to dive back into the walls of the city to see what I could find. Inside the wall there were all sorts of narrow cobblestone streets, many that did allow automobile traffic. The housing seemed to be mostly residential with some shops and restaurants thrown in along the way. I assume that Visby is mainly a summer home type place and most all of the housing inside the wall appeared to be vacated for the off season though by about 11am many of the shops and restaurants opened up it appeared. I found the ruins of at least 3 really old churches in there as well. They apparently have a history of churches and the island is known as the Island of 100 Churches because there were that many on it. The majority of them were also built in the 1200s to 1300s and many were torn down and rebuilt a couple times until the middle of the 1300s when the construction just sort of stopped and the churches were all left as is from there. There was also the Domkyrk S:tMaria (that’s how it was spelled). Which was a 17th century church that had eventually been added to a few times and was fairly neat and open to the public. Aside from the churches there was a botanical garden that was started by a local swimming club in the 1800s. The club bought the land and made a garden out of it and used it to teach gardening and nature to the youth of the area. I was surprised to find flowers still alive in there amongst the various trees and other plants they had collected as well several medieval ruin sites. The garden was nice and I suspect it looks very beautiful in spring and summer when most everything is in bloom. After fumbling my way through many of the up and down streets and then eventually through the garden and then back up and down a bit more I found my way back to the north gate and decided that now that it was near noon I should eat lunch. I chose Ali’s which was very near the gate and was an apparently typical lunch place that Sweden has. I ordered a small Bolognese pizza (which is with meatballs but they didn’t crumble meatballs so much as just serve a meat sauce on the pizza) and that came with a salad and bread bar (again communal bread). The food was good and the meat sauce was sorts spicy so I liked it. There was a hint of caraway in the salad dressing but it didn’t bother me too much. It might have been from the sauerkraut but I think it was the dressing itself because I didn’t notice it if I just ate the kraut.
I left the lunch place sort of hurriedly because it appeared that more guests were coming in and there was a limitation of seats and rather than hog up a four person table to myself while others couldn’t sit I figured I could move on. Almost immediately as I got outside it began to rain. It started lighter but it built in strength along the day. Unlike the rain in Kungälv which was mostly misty and not too offensive this eventually became full on drops of driving rain, though fortunately never of the downpour caliber. I wasn’t daunted at first and went back into the walled city where I eventually visited the church to break up the rain a bit. Someone was tuning the pipe organ and at times it sounded really nice and at times I was surprised that a pipe organ could make such noises. In any event I only really spent a few minutes there before I headed back out and sort of made my way through a few of the shops. There weren’t many souvenir shops open even if the majority of the others were. I suspect there isn’t much call for souvenir sales after the main season is well over. Nonetheless I did find a couple that were open and visited them aside from some candy shops and the like. Doing all of this killed another couple of hours but I was not scheduled to fly back until 7:30pm. I am not sure now if this was a good or a bad thing. In planning something like this you really have no idea how long you might want to stay. If taking a train you can usually reschedule, especially if you have a pass, but with the flight it was pretty much no choice. I am certain had the weather held like it was in the morning I would have enjoyed staying out there for the entire day. After some walking and eventually getting thoroughly soaked I decided to stop in a place to get a coffee and sit down for a bit. I warmed up somewhat and the coffee was ok for Sweden but I couldn’t stay seated there forever either, so I eventually set outside again. Unfortunately I must have chosen the poorest moment because the wind was very strong and the rain was very biting. After walking past the cab stand and going into the north gate I decided to turn around and get a cab to the airport to stay in the warmth and dry.
Visby’s airport is smaller than Bromma and felt like it might be about the size of the Greater Lawrence Airport even. In any event there was one small café and a few places to sit and no gift shop or anything. I settled in for the long haul of a couple hours of waiting. I was disconcerted to see flights before mine from gotlandsflyg have some sort of issues or something but since there were no announcements and anything and everything was in Swedish I really have no idea what happened or was happening. The big board of departures got stuck at the 5pm flights and never advanced though it was obvious that a couple of those flights got out. It all seemed very scattered, confused and disorganized. Forever and a few minutes later it was the expected boarding time for my flight but they weren’t ready. That didn’t start until about 20 minutes after they were supposed to. The attendant told me that the plane was delayed and may be there by 8 instead of 7:30pm. Ok, I said. This time I did pack my watch and didn’t get a pat down. We waited in the gate for quite a while so that the plane was not ready for boarding until 50 minutes late. Everyone piled on board and I think we got out to taxi in mere minutes. The nice thing about being the last plane of the night was that they pretty much went straight from taxi to take off without transition.
This was the horror flight I had expected in the morning. No, it wasn’t really terror or anything but there was a fair amount of turbulence that pushed the plane about for most of the flight so that we may only have gotten a one or two minute stretch that was ok. The landing part was near terror. The winds over Stockholm must have been fierce and we were buffeted in every direction all the way down. I was amazed at how smoothly the plane landed as we went from being pushed left and right straight into the rumble of the air strip with almost no transition. I figured there was a good chance we’d make local news for a plane off the runway or something but the pilot must have been damn good at landing in the kind of weather we hit. If I had a hat with me my hat would have been off to him. In any event since I was so hideously late now the next bus that I had prepaid for would not arrive until around 10pm and it was just barely past 9pm. On top of that, even though it had stopped raining in Visby before we took off it was still very much so raining in Stockholm. With Bromma being as small as Visby’s airport and also very much closed inside I decided to take a cab thus wasting the prepayment of the bus fare I will never use. Anyway, that saved me well over an hour so I will deal with it. I had the cab driver drop me off at central station because it was easier than trying to explain where the hotel was and then I chose to quickly scarf down my missed dinner from the McDonald’s right there then run up to the room. I got here just before 10pm.
As I said the part of the day before lunch was awesome then it spun out of control as it went along. I am happy took the chance on this part of the trip but it would have been nice for the weather to cooperate on it so that the whole day was as fun as the beginning…
I should mention, if I ever became obnxiously rich in some fashion I would definitely consider buying a summer home in Visby.
The images from Day 6 are located here.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Sweden Day 5
Wednesday, which by the way is my birthday, started out pretty well. I got up around 7 and took my time getting ready until I had breakfast as per Monday and Tuesday at about 8am. I took my time eating it but the room was kind of crowded so I opted to clear out before I really needed to. I headed straight for the Stockholm City Hall and got there a little before 9am by walking slower than my normal. They had room on the 10am tour so I took that spot and had an hour to kill before it started. I mainly walked around outside the building and took a lot of pictures. It was sunny out and there was little to no breeze which made the just barely above freezing temperature pretty easy to deal with, at least for me. The City Hall was built between 1911 and 1923 but was intended to look like a 300 year old castle. The architect, I could neither spell nor pronounce his name, seemed to be pretty good at what he did and also had a lot of latitude to do what he desired. The place was really interesting to visit. The guided tour was about an hour long and was covered by my Stockholm Card so no money spent there. The guide’s name was Lori and she did a good job if at times she struggled with English. Most of the time it was specific words though. In any event the tour was informative. Most of the people on it aside from me were Chinese it appeared which confused me because there was a Chinese tour a half an hour later. I suppose their tour didn’t give them enough time.
All said and done I was out of the City Hall by 11 and walked straight over to the Gamla Stan (by the way it should be pronounced “Gawm-Law Stawn”) where I decided I would have an Italian lunch before I tried to visit the Royal Palace museums. There was a place right as I got on the island called Rodolfini’s and I had a Lasagna Verde, which was a basic meat lasagna made with spinach noodles. The very Swedish thing in this place was the opener salad served family style of shredded cabbage with a creamy dressing, not anything I’ve ever heard of in an Italian restaurant. In any event I added a glass of red wine which was a generic table wine that went well with the food and then eventually when I was done a quick espresso to finish things off. The food was good and the portion was reasonably sized and the meal very filling. I at some point should mention the curious community bread basket thing I’ve noticed in Sweden. Almost all of the restaurants I’ve been to offer bread to the patrons out of a big basket. Some of the breads may have plastic over them but a lot don’t. There are no tongs or anything and guests just reach right in and take what they want. Not sure where this comes from but I do find it interesting.
While I am on curious Swedish things I should also mention at some point the fact that everyone wears black it appears. I wore my khaki Dockers on Tuesday when I went to Orebro and it sparked me noticing that I only saw about 5 people with grey pants and maybe 2 other people wearing khaki. Since then I’ve kept track and it’s very thin. Of course people wear blue jeans but otherwise it’s black or very dark grey. I assume it is a winter thing but it is curious.
From the Italian restaurant I headed up to the Royal Palace for 12 when all the museums opened. However as I got there I found a bunch of people lining up in the main square. I found a board that posted today as changing of the guard parade at 12:15. They had a parade for my birthday. I was touched… In any event I watched the whole thing and instead of taking pictures took a lot of video of it. Especially with the drum and bugle corps it was very fun. I figure there is a bit more precision from the top notch American parade units but all the same they got helmets with spikes on the top and we don’t have that. The parade took about a half an hour and I managed a reasonable location for filming. The Chinese people next to me only pushed in the way once or twice.
After the parade I went into the ticket office but before actually stuffing myself in line I found that Stockholm card holders could just bring the card and didn’t need to get the tickets. So first I visited the Tre Kronor Museet, which is the Museum of the Three Crowns, which are representative of the Swedish Monarchy. It was a basic history of the castles that had inhabited the Stockholm area including the predecessors to the Royal Palace as it stands. The original castle burned down and was completely destroyed except for one tower in the 1700s. The royal palace is very much a large boxy structure that isn’t quite as picturesque as a medieval castle but it was still an interesting visit. From there I spun around and visited the Treasury Museum where they had collection of the royal jewels on display. Not quite as extensive as the Tower of London it still had some very nice pieces in it. Finally, for the Royal Palace I visited the Royal Apartments. The palace is not actually used as a residence by the royal family, they instead live in Drottningham Slott, which is some distance away but whenever there are royal function in Stockholm the family and their guests stay here. This includes events like the Nobel Banquet, which of course happens here. The guest apartments were perhaps a little sparser than I may have expected but they were certainly beyond the means of anyone I know could afford. The beds were small though, which made my hotel bed seem ok in perspective. The actually apartments of the royal family were the lush display of opulence you would expect however, with lots of ornate carving and gold leaf and expensive looking fabrics and the like. Of course there were no pictures in the palace so none of that is captured by my camera. I have yet to visit Buckingham Palace but I have visited Windsor Castle and I would say it was on a par with Windsor. I assume Buckingham blows it away. The ceilings were very high though.
I finished up at the palace area around 2pm and decided I would make a dash for the Vasamuseet that I had missed the other day. The walk was reasonable and I made it in almost exactly a half an hour. I thought the museum closed at 4 but instead it closed at 8 which was surprising. It did mean I could have taken my time getting there but I was cool with the brisk pace anyway. The Vasamuseet is dedicated to a royal commissioned warship that in 1628, on its maiden voyage, was tossed over by a couple squalls of wind and the capsized killing probably 30 passenger and crew or so and causing a gigantic political stir where it was discovered that because of the fact that the Swedes at that point had never built a ship with 2 gun decks the ship was designed with too narrow a bottom and there was insufficient room to hold enough ballast rocks to keep the ship stable. If they added more ballast then the ship would have been in to the gun portals and that wouldn’t work. The ship’s designer died about a year into its construction and the main forces behind the hurried nature with which it was built were both royal and military so no one was ever convicted of causing the disaster. It is most likely the inexperience that was the real issue. In any event, in 1953 an archeologist realizing that the waters of the lake may actually protect the ship from being destroyed much in the same way as those that were found in Roskilde Fjord (though they were much older) were preserved by the fact the water was not salt water and also very silty. He was correct and a couple years later he actually discovered its location. It was sitting on center keel and was largely preserved. They took a couple years to get it up but it was raised in one piece in 1961 and since has been kept preserved. The cannons had already been salvaged only a couple years after the ship sank but a lot of the rest of the artifacts and relics from it were still down there and a lot of that has been brought up as well. The ship is very big and I was surprised at its size when I entered the main hall. I don’t think the pictures I took will give the proper perspective but the ship held approximately 130 people as a normal crew and they believe there may have been as many as 200 people on board when the ship sank. I definitely would advise a visit to the Vasa if you are ever in Stockholm. This was also covered by the Stockholm card.
I left there about 4pm and headed at a more leisurely pace towards the Gamla Stan again and did a tiny bit of the souvenir shopping I had to do until about 5 or so when I decided I should look for food. I exited the island right on Drottninggatan again and not too far up found Drottninggatan 6 Dining & Bar. I was sucked in by the menu item of grilled Black Angus steak served with baked potatoes and bacon wrapped asparagus spears. When I got in and looked at the menu closer I was torn with what to get but decided to get what I was sucked in by and I enjoyed it a lot. It was by no means the best steak I’ve ever had (Kobe) but it was definitely a lot better than the steak from Jensen’s and cooked properly. I had a Swedish beer that was only ok at best to accompany it and then followed the meal with a selection of Swedish made ice creams with chocolate sauce. I probably should have had cake for my birthday but I like ice cream better. It was vanilla, chocolate an strawberry and was good. I also had a matching coffee that was passable but was obviously made from an espresso, cappuccino machine per the way the English do it. Not my favorite but it was not too chalky.
From there I headed back to the hotel to finish up the day at about 7pm or so.
The pictures from day 5 can be seen here, but there were some wireless signal strength issues while I was posting so a bunch of them are out of position at the end of the list and editing them on this laptop is too much of a pain so I won't be doing anything to fix them until I get home.
All said and done I was out of the City Hall by 11 and walked straight over to the Gamla Stan (by the way it should be pronounced “Gawm-Law Stawn”) where I decided I would have an Italian lunch before I tried to visit the Royal Palace museums. There was a place right as I got on the island called Rodolfini’s and I had a Lasagna Verde, which was a basic meat lasagna made with spinach noodles. The very Swedish thing in this place was the opener salad served family style of shredded cabbage with a creamy dressing, not anything I’ve ever heard of in an Italian restaurant. In any event I added a glass of red wine which was a generic table wine that went well with the food and then eventually when I was done a quick espresso to finish things off. The food was good and the portion was reasonably sized and the meal very filling. I at some point should mention the curious community bread basket thing I’ve noticed in Sweden. Almost all of the restaurants I’ve been to offer bread to the patrons out of a big basket. Some of the breads may have plastic over them but a lot don’t. There are no tongs or anything and guests just reach right in and take what they want. Not sure where this comes from but I do find it interesting.
While I am on curious Swedish things I should also mention at some point the fact that everyone wears black it appears. I wore my khaki Dockers on Tuesday when I went to Orebro and it sparked me noticing that I only saw about 5 people with grey pants and maybe 2 other people wearing khaki. Since then I’ve kept track and it’s very thin. Of course people wear blue jeans but otherwise it’s black or very dark grey. I assume it is a winter thing but it is curious.
From the Italian restaurant I headed up to the Royal Palace for 12 when all the museums opened. However as I got there I found a bunch of people lining up in the main square. I found a board that posted today as changing of the guard parade at 12:15. They had a parade for my birthday. I was touched… In any event I watched the whole thing and instead of taking pictures took a lot of video of it. Especially with the drum and bugle corps it was very fun. I figure there is a bit more precision from the top notch American parade units but all the same they got helmets with spikes on the top and we don’t have that. The parade took about a half an hour and I managed a reasonable location for filming. The Chinese people next to me only pushed in the way once or twice.
After the parade I went into the ticket office but before actually stuffing myself in line I found that Stockholm card holders could just bring the card and didn’t need to get the tickets. So first I visited the Tre Kronor Museet, which is the Museum of the Three Crowns, which are representative of the Swedish Monarchy. It was a basic history of the castles that had inhabited the Stockholm area including the predecessors to the Royal Palace as it stands. The original castle burned down and was completely destroyed except for one tower in the 1700s. The royal palace is very much a large boxy structure that isn’t quite as picturesque as a medieval castle but it was still an interesting visit. From there I spun around and visited the Treasury Museum where they had collection of the royal jewels on display. Not quite as extensive as the Tower of London it still had some very nice pieces in it. Finally, for the Royal Palace I visited the Royal Apartments. The palace is not actually used as a residence by the royal family, they instead live in Drottningham Slott, which is some distance away but whenever there are royal function in Stockholm the family and their guests stay here. This includes events like the Nobel Banquet, which of course happens here. The guest apartments were perhaps a little sparser than I may have expected but they were certainly beyond the means of anyone I know could afford. The beds were small though, which made my hotel bed seem ok in perspective. The actually apartments of the royal family were the lush display of opulence you would expect however, with lots of ornate carving and gold leaf and expensive looking fabrics and the like. Of course there were no pictures in the palace so none of that is captured by my camera. I have yet to visit Buckingham Palace but I have visited Windsor Castle and I would say it was on a par with Windsor. I assume Buckingham blows it away. The ceilings were very high though.
I finished up at the palace area around 2pm and decided I would make a dash for the Vasamuseet that I had missed the other day. The walk was reasonable and I made it in almost exactly a half an hour. I thought the museum closed at 4 but instead it closed at 8 which was surprising. It did mean I could have taken my time getting there but I was cool with the brisk pace anyway. The Vasamuseet is dedicated to a royal commissioned warship that in 1628, on its maiden voyage, was tossed over by a couple squalls of wind and the capsized killing probably 30 passenger and crew or so and causing a gigantic political stir where it was discovered that because of the fact that the Swedes at that point had never built a ship with 2 gun decks the ship was designed with too narrow a bottom and there was insufficient room to hold enough ballast rocks to keep the ship stable. If they added more ballast then the ship would have been in to the gun portals and that wouldn’t work. The ship’s designer died about a year into its construction and the main forces behind the hurried nature with which it was built were both royal and military so no one was ever convicted of causing the disaster. It is most likely the inexperience that was the real issue. In any event, in 1953 an archeologist realizing that the waters of the lake may actually protect the ship from being destroyed much in the same way as those that were found in Roskilde Fjord (though they were much older) were preserved by the fact the water was not salt water and also very silty. He was correct and a couple years later he actually discovered its location. It was sitting on center keel and was largely preserved. They took a couple years to get it up but it was raised in one piece in 1961 and since has been kept preserved. The cannons had already been salvaged only a couple years after the ship sank but a lot of the rest of the artifacts and relics from it were still down there and a lot of that has been brought up as well. The ship is very big and I was surprised at its size when I entered the main hall. I don’t think the pictures I took will give the proper perspective but the ship held approximately 130 people as a normal crew and they believe there may have been as many as 200 people on board when the ship sank. I definitely would advise a visit to the Vasa if you are ever in Stockholm. This was also covered by the Stockholm card.
I left there about 4pm and headed at a more leisurely pace towards the Gamla Stan again and did a tiny bit of the souvenir shopping I had to do until about 5 or so when I decided I should look for food. I exited the island right on Drottninggatan again and not too far up found Drottninggatan 6 Dining & Bar. I was sucked in by the menu item of grilled Black Angus steak served with baked potatoes and bacon wrapped asparagus spears. When I got in and looked at the menu closer I was torn with what to get but decided to get what I was sucked in by and I enjoyed it a lot. It was by no means the best steak I’ve ever had (Kobe) but it was definitely a lot better than the steak from Jensen’s and cooked properly. I had a Swedish beer that was only ok at best to accompany it and then followed the meal with a selection of Swedish made ice creams with chocolate sauce. I probably should have had cake for my birthday but I like ice cream better. It was vanilla, chocolate an strawberry and was good. I also had a matching coffee that was passable but was obviously made from an espresso, cappuccino machine per the way the English do it. Not my favorite but it was not too chalky.
From there I headed back to the hotel to finish up the day at about 7pm or so.
The pictures from day 5 can be seen here, but there were some wireless signal strength issues while I was posting so a bunch of them are out of position at the end of the list and editing them on this laptop is too much of a pain so I won't be doing anything to fix them until I get home.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Sweden Day 4
Today started sort of late… I got up at 6:30 and got out the door to breakfast at about 7:30. I had the same as yesterday because I liked it and I am not really into the actual Swedish Breakfast concept. That said I headed over to the train station to get to my 8:30 train to Hallsberg (I heard it pronounced mainly Hallsberry) where I would switch to Örebro. Things did start off very wrong however in that the train to Hallsberg was 1.5 hours late due to signal troubles on the tracks. All the trains were very delayed in the morning and some were waiting longer than us. Now… you’re probably wondering why I would bother with going when the train was going to be that late or even going to be half that late. First off I had set my mind to doing it and the Savard stubbornness had kicked in and 1.5 hours was my limit and the train arrived with 2 minutes to spare. So I set out on the nearly 2 hour ride and it went by fairly uneventfully. Of course I knew I wasn’t making my change which should have happed an hour and 10 minutes before I arrived but I spoke to the woman at the desk and she set me on the next one that would get there. Since I had the rail pass I didn’t have to pay anything and it was only a couple stops up. I didn’t sit in the first class section for this ride and it wasn’t bad. The first class seats are better but there was nothing wrong with the regular second class seats. In any event I got to Örebro with it being slightly overcast and obviously having just passed through some rain but the whole day managed to be overcast and wet feeling but rain free. The temperature was probably in the 40F range.
Örebro is a large city it appears and I had actually landed at a small station, I had figured there would be a larger station but there wasn’t an accessible map to work with. I took a guess as to which way to head and did manage to find my way to the city center and from there I found Örebro Slott. The doors were open and I went in and found a small gift shop. The woman told me they are only open for guided tours on Saturday and Sunday but they had a history of the castle exhibit in the west tower. I had to exit the front gate and stay inside the moat to get into the west tower. It was kind of neat. The tower wasn’t gigantic and it was self serve but I liked what was there. After leaving the castle I tried to find Wadköping which is an open air museum in the lines of say Sturbridge Village and after some walking along the canal I managed to find it. It was indeed open (there was no charge) but the exhibits were minimal and like the fortress in Kungälv any of the costumers weren’t bothering with the day. Since there really wasn’t a lot of people there I could understand it. I had read that it gets big in the summer and at Christmas. Still I wandered it for a bit then wandered around the town for a while. I found my way back to the center of the city and eventually decided to have lunch at a place called Lokus that appeared to be run by Polish people. I had a hamburger with fries that they had put lettuce and Russian dressing on. The burger wasn’t over cooked but it was very thin, sort of a large version of a McDonald’s or Wendy’s burger. I didn’t take a picture of it because there were two elderly, very nervous women playing video gambling of some sort right in front of me as I ate and they kinda disturbed me. It wasn’t anything spectacular to look at anyway… That said it wasn’t all that bad.
Even though I had given myself 5, now 4 hours to see the town I was done quite early. I went back to the train station and hung around until I realized that I was at the wrong station just a few minutes before the train I was supposed to take arrived. Fortunately this station was before Örebro Central. I had assumed that Örebro would have a large station with shops and restaurants and such and had been surprised that all it had was this tiny little stop, but I was right in that it did have more. I just missed it. In any event I wasn’t likely to shop and had already eat so no big deal. The train ride back was uneventful and I was on the actual train I was supposed to be taking back as well so it worked out ok. The ride was also uneventful and I managed to nod off for some of the two hours it took. It was completely on time besides which was nice. When I got back to Stockholm I figured I would get dinner and headed up Drottninggatan which is sort of their version of Newbury street though probably a bit longer. It is the main shopping artery of the new town. I also knew that this would be directing me nearer to the hotel which was fine with me. The restaurant I chose was called Restaurang Drottninggatan (that’s Drottning Street basically). There I had meny 3 which was a set menu meal. Accompanied by a Czech beer I had first a baby shrimp in creamy dill salad that was wrapped in thinly sliced smoked salmon served on a dark rye toast accompanied by a small collection of greens and tomatoes. I skipped on the toast which was stale feeling and the greens which were undressed but the salad itself was good though I am not 100% fond of smoked salmon. The main course was deer in a red wine reduction served with black mushrooms and a cheesy kind of baked porridge (not quite polenta) and a ligonberry relish. I liked the deer though the offers were medium or well and though their medium is more rare than America’s medium the shape of the meat left a couple spots that were pretty much well done and those spots had a much gamier taste than the lesser cooked areas. I still very much liked it. The accompaniments were very good too and I ate pretty much everything. I finished with a coffee and a pear poached in red wine accompanied by a rum raisin ice cream. The ice cream was potent tasting. I liked it. After dinner I headed back to the room to write this and get rested for tomorrow.
The pictures from day 4 can be found here.
Örebro is a large city it appears and I had actually landed at a small station, I had figured there would be a larger station but there wasn’t an accessible map to work with. I took a guess as to which way to head and did manage to find my way to the city center and from there I found Örebro Slott. The doors were open and I went in and found a small gift shop. The woman told me they are only open for guided tours on Saturday and Sunday but they had a history of the castle exhibit in the west tower. I had to exit the front gate and stay inside the moat to get into the west tower. It was kind of neat. The tower wasn’t gigantic and it was self serve but I liked what was there. After leaving the castle I tried to find Wadköping which is an open air museum in the lines of say Sturbridge Village and after some walking along the canal I managed to find it. It was indeed open (there was no charge) but the exhibits were minimal and like the fortress in Kungälv any of the costumers weren’t bothering with the day. Since there really wasn’t a lot of people there I could understand it. I had read that it gets big in the summer and at Christmas. Still I wandered it for a bit then wandered around the town for a while. I found my way back to the center of the city and eventually decided to have lunch at a place called Lokus that appeared to be run by Polish people. I had a hamburger with fries that they had put lettuce and Russian dressing on. The burger wasn’t over cooked but it was very thin, sort of a large version of a McDonald’s or Wendy’s burger. I didn’t take a picture of it because there were two elderly, very nervous women playing video gambling of some sort right in front of me as I ate and they kinda disturbed me. It wasn’t anything spectacular to look at anyway… That said it wasn’t all that bad.
Even though I had given myself 5, now 4 hours to see the town I was done quite early. I went back to the train station and hung around until I realized that I was at the wrong station just a few minutes before the train I was supposed to take arrived. Fortunately this station was before Örebro Central. I had assumed that Örebro would have a large station with shops and restaurants and such and had been surprised that all it had was this tiny little stop, but I was right in that it did have more. I just missed it. In any event I wasn’t likely to shop and had already eat so no big deal. The train ride back was uneventful and I was on the actual train I was supposed to be taking back as well so it worked out ok. The ride was also uneventful and I managed to nod off for some of the two hours it took. It was completely on time besides which was nice. When I got back to Stockholm I figured I would get dinner and headed up Drottninggatan which is sort of their version of Newbury street though probably a bit longer. It is the main shopping artery of the new town. I also knew that this would be directing me nearer to the hotel which was fine with me. The restaurant I chose was called Restaurang Drottninggatan (that’s Drottning Street basically). There I had meny 3 which was a set menu meal. Accompanied by a Czech beer I had first a baby shrimp in creamy dill salad that was wrapped in thinly sliced smoked salmon served on a dark rye toast accompanied by a small collection of greens and tomatoes. I skipped on the toast which was stale feeling and the greens which were undressed but the salad itself was good though I am not 100% fond of smoked salmon. The main course was deer in a red wine reduction served with black mushrooms and a cheesy kind of baked porridge (not quite polenta) and a ligonberry relish. I liked the deer though the offers were medium or well and though their medium is more rare than America’s medium the shape of the meat left a couple spots that were pretty much well done and those spots had a much gamier taste than the lesser cooked areas. I still very much liked it. The accompaniments were very good too and I ate pretty much everything. I finished with a coffee and a pear poached in red wine accompanied by a rum raisin ice cream. The ice cream was potent tasting. I liked it. After dinner I headed back to the room to write this and get rested for tomorrow.
The pictures from day 4 can be found here.
Monday, October 27, 2008
Sweden Day 3
Today started a bit later than yesterday at about 7am. I slept in on purpose because I know that things open late in Scandinavian countries already. I had a quick breakfast as provided by the hotel downstairs after getting cleaned up. It was a cup of juice, a cup of coffee that was ok but maybe a bit sour tasting and I made a grilled cheese and ham sandwich using the toaster and some ingenuity. In any event it got me on my way by no later than 8am after all was said and done. I walked out and found the Gamla Stan, which is the old town and did a couple laps around it (it’s an island which was the original site of Stockholm) and then pushed a bit past it after I had a good idea of where I was. I found one of the site seeing boat tours not far past the old town and chose to take one of those at about 10:30am (I had been walking for some time now). The boat tour took me on a ring around one of the islands of the city and up a canal and along Lake Maloren. It was nice but the boat had windows (for good reason it would have been frigid over the water without them) and those windows were dirtyish so I didn’t really bother to get any pictures on it. It was very helpful for getting the lay of the and though, and I was able to figure out where the Vasamuseet and the Nordisk Museet were and also Skansen.
I want to visit both the Vasa Museet and the Skansen later in the week but decided to go to the Nordisk Museet which was, I thought a history of the Nordic countries. However it turned out to be a series of modern and some older exhibits and was probably something I would have skipped on had I known it beforehand. I did have lunch there, in the cafeteria like museum restaurant and it wasn’t too bad. I had roast beef served with a brown gravy and boiled potatoes and a cucumber salad. Alas I couldn’t find any pepper in the place but it was a meal that Brien could have loved no doubt (aside from the salad which had a tangy dressing that added a lot of flavor to the meal as a whole. The other item of the museum that was neat was a section on the Sami (formerly known as Lapplanders) or the indigenous peoples that have lived in northern Europe since before the Caucasians came along. Their story is very similar to that of the indigenous people in American being one of oppression and discrimination but at least it sounds like the wholesale genocides like the Americans committed were at least less present if only less mentioned. I suppose we don’t publish it in America so much so it is possible they are skipping on some of it too. The Sami still herd reindeer and have made a fair amount of financial headway due to tourism as well but I don’t think they own any casinos…
After finishing the museum I toyed with the idea of going straight to the Vasamuseet but decided I should instead get my Stockholm Card sorted out instead of paying for the museum directly as I had with the Nordisk. I figure I could justify one but not two admissions I didn’t have to pay. Trying to find the place to turn in my voucher for the Stockholm Card was sort of a wild goose chase. There was a place not far from the Nordisk but they said they could only sell cards and the voucher wouldn’t work there. They said to go to Central Station, so I did, and tried the SJ ticket office who said to try the SL ticket office who said, “No the place in Central Station that used to do this closed and you have to go to the Stockholm Tourist Office.” He drew me a route to walk on a map and it made sense but I got myself a tad confused and turned a block too early and managed to then do a couple loops around until I figured out my bearings again (I could have saved myself some issue if I had admitted my tourist state and pulled out the map to get my bearings at least once). In any event I found the place and got the card then headed back to the hotel to get a small bit of rest before looking for dinner and to see if the internet connection was working and it was. I used a few minutes to post up what I had and to speak to my brother online and actually to manage to catch up on the Boston sports scene. After hearing that the Patriots and the Bruins both managed good games over the weekend I headed out.
On my way to the train station to get tickets for Orebro in central Sweden I saw a Jensens Bofhus and forgot that I had been to one in Denmark. I saw that the place was very busy and it was still only less than 6pm so I decided to try it. It wasn’t until I saw the menu that I realized that it was a place I had eaten at before if not in the same country. That said it was very similar to what I remembered after the fact in that it was a serviceable steakhouse but not really anything to write home about but at the same time wasn’t anything bad. The service was moderately quicker than I remembered in Denmark, but not stellar all the same. That said, I managed to finish the meal and head on over to Central Station where I purchased my tickets to Orebro and back and then decided to visit O’Leary’s which appeared to be open. They are filled with Boston area memorabilia which amused me greatly but when I asked if they knew whether the Patriots had won on Sunday they said there wasn’t any real call for American Football there. Fortunately I had already found out they had won 23 to 16 or so from my brother and the Bruins had also won on Saturday against Atlanta. All the same I ran into a pair of business partners from Philadelphia while I was at O’Leary’s and spoke to them for about an hour or so. I wished them well on the hopefully inevitable win of Philly against Tampa Bay and they even bought me a drink. They were also in the medical industry dealing in genetic therapy from what it sounded, and were very friendly. I thanked them for the beer and for the local sports news I pretended I hadn’t already heard. After finishing my third Falcon Export I opted for the march to the hotel where it being after 10pm I decided on writing this then heading for bed. Tuesday promised an early ride to Orebro then a guess as to what I would be doing there…
The pictures for day 3 can be found here.
I want to visit both the Vasa Museet and the Skansen later in the week but decided to go to the Nordisk Museet which was, I thought a history of the Nordic countries. However it turned out to be a series of modern and some older exhibits and was probably something I would have skipped on had I known it beforehand. I did have lunch there, in the cafeteria like museum restaurant and it wasn’t too bad. I had roast beef served with a brown gravy and boiled potatoes and a cucumber salad. Alas I couldn’t find any pepper in the place but it was a meal that Brien could have loved no doubt (aside from the salad which had a tangy dressing that added a lot of flavor to the meal as a whole. The other item of the museum that was neat was a section on the Sami (formerly known as Lapplanders) or the indigenous peoples that have lived in northern Europe since before the Caucasians came along. Their story is very similar to that of the indigenous people in American being one of oppression and discrimination but at least it sounds like the wholesale genocides like the Americans committed were at least less present if only less mentioned. I suppose we don’t publish it in America so much so it is possible they are skipping on some of it too. The Sami still herd reindeer and have made a fair amount of financial headway due to tourism as well but I don’t think they own any casinos…
After finishing the museum I toyed with the idea of going straight to the Vasamuseet but decided I should instead get my Stockholm Card sorted out instead of paying for the museum directly as I had with the Nordisk. I figure I could justify one but not two admissions I didn’t have to pay. Trying to find the place to turn in my voucher for the Stockholm Card was sort of a wild goose chase. There was a place not far from the Nordisk but they said they could only sell cards and the voucher wouldn’t work there. They said to go to Central Station, so I did, and tried the SJ ticket office who said to try the SL ticket office who said, “No the place in Central Station that used to do this closed and you have to go to the Stockholm Tourist Office.” He drew me a route to walk on a map and it made sense but I got myself a tad confused and turned a block too early and managed to then do a couple loops around until I figured out my bearings again (I could have saved myself some issue if I had admitted my tourist state and pulled out the map to get my bearings at least once). In any event I found the place and got the card then headed back to the hotel to get a small bit of rest before looking for dinner and to see if the internet connection was working and it was. I used a few minutes to post up what I had and to speak to my brother online and actually to manage to catch up on the Boston sports scene. After hearing that the Patriots and the Bruins both managed good games over the weekend I headed out.
On my way to the train station to get tickets for Orebro in central Sweden I saw a Jensens Bofhus and forgot that I had been to one in Denmark. I saw that the place was very busy and it was still only less than 6pm so I decided to try it. It wasn’t until I saw the menu that I realized that it was a place I had eaten at before if not in the same country. That said it was very similar to what I remembered after the fact in that it was a serviceable steakhouse but not really anything to write home about but at the same time wasn’t anything bad. The service was moderately quicker than I remembered in Denmark, but not stellar all the same. That said, I managed to finish the meal and head on over to Central Station where I purchased my tickets to Orebro and back and then decided to visit O’Leary’s which appeared to be open. They are filled with Boston area memorabilia which amused me greatly but when I asked if they knew whether the Patriots had won on Sunday they said there wasn’t any real call for American Football there. Fortunately I had already found out they had won 23 to 16 or so from my brother and the Bruins had also won on Saturday against Atlanta. All the same I ran into a pair of business partners from Philadelphia while I was at O’Leary’s and spoke to them for about an hour or so. I wished them well on the hopefully inevitable win of Philly against Tampa Bay and they even bought me a drink. They were also in the medical industry dealing in genetic therapy from what it sounded, and were very friendly. I thanked them for the beer and for the local sports news I pretended I hadn’t already heard. After finishing my third Falcon Export I opted for the march to the hotel where it being after 10pm I decided on writing this then heading for bed. Tuesday promised an early ride to Orebro then a guess as to what I would be doing there…
The pictures for day 3 can be found here.
Sweden Day 2
Started off the morning a bit early because I forgot, even though told by the front desk, that Sweden was changing it’s hour back today for Daylight Savings Time. That said I was pretty much ready to be away by what turned out to be 5am instead of 6am. I took my time getting ready however because I didn’t need to be to the train station until 8:10.
The morning had a brisk breeze and it was obvious it was going to rain somewhere along the way but I arrived to the train station unscathed but a bit early for the train. I wasn’t sure which track I needed because the ticket didn’t have it published so I guessed I would be best served arriving early and scouting things out. Turns out I needed track 10 right off the main hall, very easy to find. With that sorted out I had an Egg McMuffin and coffee at McDonald’s (the only other place that appeared to be open was Café Ritazza which I have had in England and couldn’t stand their coffee). When I was done it was pretty much time to board the train.
The irony here of course is that first class tickets apparently come with a meal for the full journey at least. So not long after getting on our way to Göteborg (pronounced Gothenberg) I was handed a second breakfast in which I only ate the fruit and yogurt and drank the orange juice. The coffee was rather nasty and I wouldn’t make that mistake again. The train was an X2000 which is Sweden’s version of the bullet train. I could tell it was moving very fast because it was impossible to focus on anything outside at all and I even eventually got motion sick a bit. I chose to nod off as best I could and the 3 hour plus ride was eaten away without much ado except that they ended up being 25 minutes late. The people on the train thought this might be an issue for my connecting bus to Kungälv and wrote all over my ticket how I was late on the train and to please let me on the bus I found. It turns out I waved the ticket in front of the guy and he just nodded me in (this worked on the way back too when I was supposed to be on a later bus).
When I arrived at the Kungälv stop I was a tiny bit dismayed because there was literally nothing but a petrol station and a bus stop there. I found the map of the area and started trying to read it. Because the word Bohus was nowhere on it I was wondering if I had a lot further to go to get to the fortress I wanted to see but as I had given up reading the map and decided I would point in a direction and go I found I was staring dead at the fortress. This was the last day of the year it was open and the entry fee was reduced by 20 SEK because the all of the medieval events and actors and activities weren’t happening at this time of the year. I was fine with that. Of course once I got into the structure it decided it was time to rain and I dealt with light to medium rain the whole way through. I probably took a few less pictures than I normally would because of it but I did risk the camera overall and I really liked the place. I would think at some point a visit during the summer would be in order when they have the place going full tilt and the weather is a bit more cooperative. In any event I was happy with the visit and I think the 6 plus hours of train ride (there and back) were definitely worth it. It was a Norwegian fortress originally that was then taken over by the Danes, who eventually ceded it to Sweden under a treaty in the 1600s. It has been in Swedish hands since. The original structure was added to and during the 17 and 1800s the Swedes let it fall into disrepair and the locals were even allowed to take stones from it for use in building their own structures. In the very early 1900s they began a restoration and the main body of that work was done between 1920 and 1935. They halted work on it until after the war and most of the reconstruction since then appears to have been haphazardly done. They had a guided tour available but it was only in Swedish and most of the placards had an English text as well so was fine on my own. One thing that was really amazing was how few places one wasn’t allowed to tread on the grounds and I went to a lot of places that I’ve seen blocked off at other castles. Unfortunately the dungeon was sealed off as the current entrance was ladder down into it since the original door had been buried under and is not excavated.
On my way out as it neared 3pm I noticed the sign that said please leave before 3 because the gate will close then and it is the only way out… Of course I made it out but the weather was becoming less cooperative and I was pretty well drenched by this point. The kid at the booth didn’t speak English well so he couldn’t answer as to whether there was someplace to eat nearby. I decided a short wander was in order (though the area looked truly residential). Around the corner I found a hotel with a restaurant that had a Danish flag hanging outside and decided that was my place (it was really close). There I had a local lager that was pretty good and had 5% alcohol called Kungälvlager that had a picture of the fortress on the bottle, very touristy I am sure, but it was decent beer. It being Sunday there was a set menu with a dessert bar. I opted for a fish dish that apparently used a very mild but tasty wild fish poached and served with mushrooms and tomatoes and of course boiled potatoes. There was a cold salmon salad served as a starter. Both were very good though the starter worried me at first because I wasn’t in the mood for a cold meal until I realized it was the salad course. I did manage to clean the plates and had a second beer before sampling the dessert bar. I had a slice of apple cheesecake and small piece of blueberry cheesecake (I feel like I am doing the Scott dessert tour) and both were good. The coffee wasn’t bad and also warranted a second cup.
I felt sufficiently warmed and dried off by this point so I opted to head back to the bus stop and only had to wait a few minutes for the bus to show. As I said, I waved my ticket and got on though I was scheduled for a later bus. From there I got to the train station and found the ticket office where I was able to trade for a train heading back to Stockholm in mere minutes from when I sorted it out. I didn’t take the complimentary meal but had a can of citrus flavored sparkling water then tried to again nod off through most of the ride moderately successfully. Realizing this was Sunday I was hoping that O’Leary’s was open and showing American football (it is right on Central Station practically) but it didn’t appear that they were open or at least yet, though it was 9pm. Of course it was Sunday as well… The amusing thing is the place is Boston themed and they are supposed to be a sports bar so they have logos for all our teams painted on the entrance there, Red Sox, Patriots, Celtics and Bruins. Since it didn’t appear to be open and I was very tired I opted to return to the room and retire. The internet connection still wasn’t working on the third floor and I resolved to ask about it on Monday morning. My hope that the person on Monday morning would be more helpful about it than a weekend desk person. Should that be the case I hope the rest will be posted as they are written and I can get some pictures up as well.
I have posted day 2's pictures here.
The morning had a brisk breeze and it was obvious it was going to rain somewhere along the way but I arrived to the train station unscathed but a bit early for the train. I wasn’t sure which track I needed because the ticket didn’t have it published so I guessed I would be best served arriving early and scouting things out. Turns out I needed track 10 right off the main hall, very easy to find. With that sorted out I had an Egg McMuffin and coffee at McDonald’s (the only other place that appeared to be open was Café Ritazza which I have had in England and couldn’t stand their coffee). When I was done it was pretty much time to board the train.
The irony here of course is that first class tickets apparently come with a meal for the full journey at least. So not long after getting on our way to Göteborg (pronounced Gothenberg) I was handed a second breakfast in which I only ate the fruit and yogurt and drank the orange juice. The coffee was rather nasty and I wouldn’t make that mistake again. The train was an X2000 which is Sweden’s version of the bullet train. I could tell it was moving very fast because it was impossible to focus on anything outside at all and I even eventually got motion sick a bit. I chose to nod off as best I could and the 3 hour plus ride was eaten away without much ado except that they ended up being 25 minutes late. The people on the train thought this might be an issue for my connecting bus to Kungälv and wrote all over my ticket how I was late on the train and to please let me on the bus I found. It turns out I waved the ticket in front of the guy and he just nodded me in (this worked on the way back too when I was supposed to be on a later bus).
When I arrived at the Kungälv stop I was a tiny bit dismayed because there was literally nothing but a petrol station and a bus stop there. I found the map of the area and started trying to read it. Because the word Bohus was nowhere on it I was wondering if I had a lot further to go to get to the fortress I wanted to see but as I had given up reading the map and decided I would point in a direction and go I found I was staring dead at the fortress. This was the last day of the year it was open and the entry fee was reduced by 20 SEK because the all of the medieval events and actors and activities weren’t happening at this time of the year. I was fine with that. Of course once I got into the structure it decided it was time to rain and I dealt with light to medium rain the whole way through. I probably took a few less pictures than I normally would because of it but I did risk the camera overall and I really liked the place. I would think at some point a visit during the summer would be in order when they have the place going full tilt and the weather is a bit more cooperative. In any event I was happy with the visit and I think the 6 plus hours of train ride (there and back) were definitely worth it. It was a Norwegian fortress originally that was then taken over by the Danes, who eventually ceded it to Sweden under a treaty in the 1600s. It has been in Swedish hands since. The original structure was added to and during the 17 and 1800s the Swedes let it fall into disrepair and the locals were even allowed to take stones from it for use in building their own structures. In the very early 1900s they began a restoration and the main body of that work was done between 1920 and 1935. They halted work on it until after the war and most of the reconstruction since then appears to have been haphazardly done. They had a guided tour available but it was only in Swedish and most of the placards had an English text as well so was fine on my own. One thing that was really amazing was how few places one wasn’t allowed to tread on the grounds and I went to a lot of places that I’ve seen blocked off at other castles. Unfortunately the dungeon was sealed off as the current entrance was ladder down into it since the original door had been buried under and is not excavated.
On my way out as it neared 3pm I noticed the sign that said please leave before 3 because the gate will close then and it is the only way out… Of course I made it out but the weather was becoming less cooperative and I was pretty well drenched by this point. The kid at the booth didn’t speak English well so he couldn’t answer as to whether there was someplace to eat nearby. I decided a short wander was in order (though the area looked truly residential). Around the corner I found a hotel with a restaurant that had a Danish flag hanging outside and decided that was my place (it was really close). There I had a local lager that was pretty good and had 5% alcohol called Kungälvlager that had a picture of the fortress on the bottle, very touristy I am sure, but it was decent beer. It being Sunday there was a set menu with a dessert bar. I opted for a fish dish that apparently used a very mild but tasty wild fish poached and served with mushrooms and tomatoes and of course boiled potatoes. There was a cold salmon salad served as a starter. Both were very good though the starter worried me at first because I wasn’t in the mood for a cold meal until I realized it was the salad course. I did manage to clean the plates and had a second beer before sampling the dessert bar. I had a slice of apple cheesecake and small piece of blueberry cheesecake (I feel like I am doing the Scott dessert tour) and both were good. The coffee wasn’t bad and also warranted a second cup.
I felt sufficiently warmed and dried off by this point so I opted to head back to the bus stop and only had to wait a few minutes for the bus to show. As I said, I waved my ticket and got on though I was scheduled for a later bus. From there I got to the train station and found the ticket office where I was able to trade for a train heading back to Stockholm in mere minutes from when I sorted it out. I didn’t take the complimentary meal but had a can of citrus flavored sparkling water then tried to again nod off through most of the ride moderately successfully. Realizing this was Sunday I was hoping that O’Leary’s was open and showing American football (it is right on Central Station practically) but it didn’t appear that they were open or at least yet, though it was 9pm. Of course it was Sunday as well… The amusing thing is the place is Boston themed and they are supposed to be a sports bar so they have logos for all our teams painted on the entrance there, Red Sox, Patriots, Celtics and Bruins. Since it didn’t appear to be open and I was very tired I opted to return to the room and retire. The internet connection still wasn’t working on the third floor and I resolved to ask about it on Monday morning. My hope that the person on Monday morning would be more helpful about it than a weekend desk person. Should that be the case I hope the rest will be posted as they are written and I can get some pictures up as well.
I have posted day 2's pictures here.
Sweden Day 1
Starting from where my brother dropped me off at Logan things were a bit odd. Entering the terminal I found that the Icelandair check in booths were not yet open and had to wait for about an hour before that opened. Fortunately I was quick enough to get to forth in line. From there I went through security and entered the terminal without issue but the flight from Boston to Reykjavik was delayed by about 50 minutes. They had it posted at about half an hour late but it turned out to be much later. Apparently there were weather issues in the morning in Reykjavik that delayed all flights in and out during the day. I managed to get the last bar seat at Houlihan’s and had a bacon cheeseburger and about 4 Sam Adam’s Octoberfest. The bartender remembered me from May. I must have stayed there a long time then too…
We boarded relatively easy and my flights were both aisle seats ahead of the wings, pretty far forward actually. I was happy with that. I did manage to doze, sort of, during the first flight which was about 4 and a half hours. When we got to Reykjavik I found that they had snow all over, thus the cause of the delays. I was supposed to have a 1 hour and 50 minute layover there but it turns out my plane was on last call boarding and waiting for my flight to come in. So I basically rescreened through security and then got right on the second plane. This flight was 2 hours 20 minutes and had a tad bit of turbulence but was ok. I watched Walk The Line because that was what they were showing. Pretty much took up the majority of the flight. We landed in Stockholm Arlanda at about 1:55pm, ten minutes later than we were supposed to land. I hoped out. There was no customs. Got right to the Arlanda Express train and rode straight to Stockholm Central. There I took probably about 30 minutes to figure out my walking map to get to the hotel. It was almost all uphill after I figured it out. I will be glad it is downhill on the way home. I think the walk took another 20 minutes once I figured out the lay of the land. I checked in.
The room is a ok sized but the bed and bathroom are tiny. The shower has no curtain or door and is right on the same floor as the rest of the bathroom so water everywhere basically. After getting myself sort of situated I tested out the shower and at least the water heated up quick and was a good temperature. The location is a bit off the main path but very near central Stockholm so I should hopefully have quiet sleep and not huge amounts of walking distance to the main stuff. After the shower I headed out into the town to try to figure out the train information for my hopeful trip on Sunday and get Dinner.
I retraced my steps back to Stockholm Central Station and felt pretty good about what I had already learned about where I was going. However I had to find the SJ ticket office so I could plan my trip for Sunday. In doing so I figured out that Stockholm Central is sort of spread in a bunch of different places that may be connected somehow but do not appear to be as far as I can tell. It took my probably about 30 minutes of search but I did find where the SJ ticket office is. I spoke to customer service who pointed me to just go to the booths to get my pass validated and try to reserve seats for what I wished to do on Sunday. The woman wasn’t sure where I was trying to go by name (mainly because I am sure I butchered the pronunciations: Bohus, Kangalv, Goteborg) but with the use of a map I was able to explain it. I have acquired rail and bus tickets to the area of Kangalv in western Sweden. Assuming everything works out I will let you know about it on Sunday.
After getting this sorted out I decided to wander a bit more just to get myself acquainted with the area and think I did an OK job at that. I found what appeared to be the main shopping area and walked around for an hour and change. When it got to reasonably past 5pm I searched for a restaurant (restaurang) and chose a bar/restaurant that appeared to be part of a hotel. I had roasted lamb with gratin of root vegetables and a couple other sides. I tried Spendrup beer as well and decided it’s OK, if not the best beer I’ve ever tried. That was Spendrup Export (which is supposed to have a reasonable alcohol content. The meal was sort of pricey but I had seen cheaper places and opted for a hopefully good meal for my first night here. I followed that up with a Crème Brule with compote of blueberries and raspberries and a cup of coffee. The dessert was very good though for some odd reason the brule reminded me of Coco Puffs from way back when I was a kid, when they used to be really sugar coated. Sad but true. In any event I decided on one more beer to kill some more time then I marched out and tried to sort out my position to the hotel. I backtracked further than I needed to but I was actually accurate as to where I was and was happy for that (for those who really know me they know I am not the best navigator in the world). In any event I came back to the room to relax and kill a bit more time before going to sleep not too unreasonably early.
Pictures for day 1 can be found here. Sorry there aren't too many today.
We boarded relatively easy and my flights were both aisle seats ahead of the wings, pretty far forward actually. I was happy with that. I did manage to doze, sort of, during the first flight which was about 4 and a half hours. When we got to Reykjavik I found that they had snow all over, thus the cause of the delays. I was supposed to have a 1 hour and 50 minute layover there but it turns out my plane was on last call boarding and waiting for my flight to come in. So I basically rescreened through security and then got right on the second plane. This flight was 2 hours 20 minutes and had a tad bit of turbulence but was ok. I watched Walk The Line because that was what they were showing. Pretty much took up the majority of the flight. We landed in Stockholm Arlanda at about 1:55pm, ten minutes later than we were supposed to land. I hoped out. There was no customs. Got right to the Arlanda Express train and rode straight to Stockholm Central. There I took probably about 30 minutes to figure out my walking map to get to the hotel. It was almost all uphill after I figured it out. I will be glad it is downhill on the way home. I think the walk took another 20 minutes once I figured out the lay of the land. I checked in.
The room is a ok sized but the bed and bathroom are tiny. The shower has no curtain or door and is right on the same floor as the rest of the bathroom so water everywhere basically. After getting myself sort of situated I tested out the shower and at least the water heated up quick and was a good temperature. The location is a bit off the main path but very near central Stockholm so I should hopefully have quiet sleep and not huge amounts of walking distance to the main stuff. After the shower I headed out into the town to try to figure out the train information for my hopeful trip on Sunday and get Dinner.
I retraced my steps back to Stockholm Central Station and felt pretty good about what I had already learned about where I was going. However I had to find the SJ ticket office so I could plan my trip for Sunday. In doing so I figured out that Stockholm Central is sort of spread in a bunch of different places that may be connected somehow but do not appear to be as far as I can tell. It took my probably about 30 minutes of search but I did find where the SJ ticket office is. I spoke to customer service who pointed me to just go to the booths to get my pass validated and try to reserve seats for what I wished to do on Sunday. The woman wasn’t sure where I was trying to go by name (mainly because I am sure I butchered the pronunciations: Bohus, Kangalv, Goteborg) but with the use of a map I was able to explain it. I have acquired rail and bus tickets to the area of Kangalv in western Sweden. Assuming everything works out I will let you know about it on Sunday.
After getting this sorted out I decided to wander a bit more just to get myself acquainted with the area and think I did an OK job at that. I found what appeared to be the main shopping area and walked around for an hour and change. When it got to reasonably past 5pm I searched for a restaurant (restaurang) and chose a bar/restaurant that appeared to be part of a hotel. I had roasted lamb with gratin of root vegetables and a couple other sides. I tried Spendrup beer as well and decided it’s OK, if not the best beer I’ve ever tried. That was Spendrup Export (which is supposed to have a reasonable alcohol content. The meal was sort of pricey but I had seen cheaper places and opted for a hopefully good meal for my first night here. I followed that up with a Crème Brule with compote of blueberries and raspberries and a cup of coffee. The dessert was very good though for some odd reason the brule reminded me of Coco Puffs from way back when I was a kid, when they used to be really sugar coated. Sad but true. In any event I decided on one more beer to kill some more time then I marched out and tried to sort out my position to the hotel. I backtracked further than I needed to but I was actually accurate as to where I was and was happy for that (for those who really know me they know I am not the best navigator in the world). In any event I came back to the room to relax and kill a bit more time before going to sleep not too unreasonably early.
Pictures for day 1 can be found here. Sorry there aren't too many today.
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Leaving Friday
I have to get through a few more days of work, including Friday then I will be heading straight to Logan Airport after work on Friday. Assuming the location of Iceland Air's terminal hasn't changed I'll be having a couple beers at Hoolihan's then will hopefully be taking off relatively around 9:30pm. The flight is hopping to Keflavik first then I will have a very short layover before heading straight to Arlanda for Stockholm. Expected arrival time is 12:45 pm on Saturday. The train ride to Stockholm Central Station is supposed to take about 20 minutes and if I have things figured out correctly the remainder of the trip would be a 10 minute walk to the hotel. If everything went right I could be at the hotel and unpacked by say 3pm. If things go as I expect maybe by dinner time I will be ready to see a bit of Stockholm. We'll see I guess. Anyway, I am not 100% certain if I'll have an internet connection available at all times from the hotel, but I will try to get my posts up as often as possible.
Thursday, October 09, 2008
Weather in Sweden
Really quickly, I found an English language Swedish newspaper online and they have the weather forecasts listed at The Local. Of course, weather in Sweden is going to be relatively similar to New England and I run the potential to be anywhere from bitterly cold to cool to even possibly warm. I am going to bring clothes that handle anything from cold to warmish. I'll forgo the winter gear and probably be just fine without the bathing suit too. As I post this Stockholm appears to be about 7C which you can convert for yourself here (that's about 45F for those who are too lazy to check). Yes it's a bit chilly but I am from Massachusetts and am fine with it.
Wednesday, October 01, 2008
Camera Update & More
No, I didn't buy a new camera, but I did buy a larger sized memory card. I moved up in the world from 1gb to 8gb. I am hoping it will allow me to catch some nice videos along with the same huge number of pictures I generally take. I figure that, yes, carrying a camera around screams tourist but, heck that is actually what I am anyway so I might as well play the part.
There is chance that George and his friend Jesper who used to work at his company (and indeed helped facilitate George's move to Denmark) could be visiting me up in Stockholm on my Friday and Saturday there. Nothing is set in stone yet but I hope they can pull it off. It would be good to see them out there.
I am starting to rev up the real preparations for the trip. I feel this year I will need to get a few new articles of clothing before I go because some of my old stuff is getting a bit worn out. Shouldn't be too much I hope though...
It is good to be less than a month away from going finally though.
There is chance that George and his friend Jesper who used to work at his company (and indeed helped facilitate George's move to Denmark) could be visiting me up in Stockholm on my Friday and Saturday there. Nothing is set in stone yet but I hope they can pull it off. It would be good to see them out there.
I am starting to rev up the real preparations for the trip. I feel this year I will need to get a few new articles of clothing before I go because some of my old stuff is getting a bit worn out. Shouldn't be too much I hope though...
It is good to be less than a month away from going finally though.
Friday, September 05, 2008
Sweden In October
Ok, so it is not exactly the most correct time to visit Sweden, but my next trip will be based through Stockholm the last week of October. I will be taking Iceland Air again through Iceland to Stockhom.
I am staying at the The Colonial Hotel (sorry you will have to click on the English link at the bottom on your own) which I reserved through Hotels.com for good or for ill. When I reserved the room I was pretty certain that the exchange rate was going to be horrible and I am probably losing money as we speak because the room is already paid for. In May when I reserved the room it was 5.9 SEK (Swedish Krona) for each USD. Now we are at about 6.6 SEK per USD and it still appears to be climbing. There is no telling whether that will hold out for 7 weeks but it would have probably saved me about $150 overall unless the hotel is raising its prices, which is unlikely because late October is very offseason. I am not going to sweat it all though because if it does hold up food and drink and gifts will be cheaper for me anyway.
I am leaving on Friday night after work to arrive Saturday early afternoon. I will be staying until the following sunday, so 8 days overall. I have planned a few excursions out of Stockholm and my first run will be to Bohus Fortess right on my first Sunday there because it is the last day of the year that the castle will be open to the public. I would assume the town can still be visited but getting inside isn't available. Either way, the fortress is actually Norwegian but was absorbed by the Swedes during some war or another. It is from the 12-1300s so represents a real working fortress more so than a palace type castle. The train/bus trip is going to take about 4 hours and change but I will have to deal. We did it in Japan and I figure I can do it in Sweden too. I bought a Eurail Sweden Pass that runs first class for 3 non-consecutive days. While some of what I have planned is dependent on whether George can visit Stockholm or not I have tentatively also planned a trip to Orebro for a day trip as well. It looks nice and has some good history in it and the train ride will be much more reasonably short. I also have planned to visit Skoklosters Slott on my last Saturday in Sweden with a train run as well. It is not very far from Stockholm.
Aside from those excursions I have planned to visit Visby which is on the island of Gotland and has a very nice medieval town. To get there I will be flying through a domestic Swedish flight I booked through Fly Gotland (again you may have to click on the English link). I am taking off early in the morning and returning in the early evening. Each flight will be about 1/2 hour long. The total same day round trip ticket cost me about $137USD (which could have been cheaper if I waited, darnit...) Also because Sweden is a large archipelago I couldn't have done the trip without some form of boating excursion. I have therefore also already booked a Dinner Cruise to Vaxholm which I did round trip. It will obviously be dark during the ride but I think I will have fun. That is my Friday night. The meal is ala carte, hopefully it won't be killer expensive...
Additionally I have a few things I want to do in Stockholm itself, such as: Skansen, The Royal Armory, The Museum of Medieval Stockholm, Stockholm's City Hall, The Royal Palace of Stockholm and probably a couple other places depending on time.
I have purchased a 72 hour Stockholm Card as well to get a good bit of the transport and museum fees out of the way ahead of time. I won't know if it was worth it until all is said and done (the same as the train pass).
More to come the closer it gets....
I am staying at the The Colonial Hotel (sorry you will have to click on the English link at the bottom on your own) which I reserved through Hotels.com for good or for ill. When I reserved the room I was pretty certain that the exchange rate was going to be horrible and I am probably losing money as we speak because the room is already paid for. In May when I reserved the room it was 5.9 SEK (Swedish Krona) for each USD. Now we are at about 6.6 SEK per USD and it still appears to be climbing. There is no telling whether that will hold out for 7 weeks but it would have probably saved me about $150 overall unless the hotel is raising its prices, which is unlikely because late October is very offseason. I am not going to sweat it all though because if it does hold up food and drink and gifts will be cheaper for me anyway.
I am leaving on Friday night after work to arrive Saturday early afternoon. I will be staying until the following sunday, so 8 days overall. I have planned a few excursions out of Stockholm and my first run will be to Bohus Fortess right on my first Sunday there because it is the last day of the year that the castle will be open to the public. I would assume the town can still be visited but getting inside isn't available. Either way, the fortress is actually Norwegian but was absorbed by the Swedes during some war or another. It is from the 12-1300s so represents a real working fortress more so than a palace type castle. The train/bus trip is going to take about 4 hours and change but I will have to deal. We did it in Japan and I figure I can do it in Sweden too. I bought a Eurail Sweden Pass that runs first class for 3 non-consecutive days. While some of what I have planned is dependent on whether George can visit Stockholm or not I have tentatively also planned a trip to Orebro for a day trip as well. It looks nice and has some good history in it and the train ride will be much more reasonably short. I also have planned to visit Skoklosters Slott on my last Saturday in Sweden with a train run as well. It is not very far from Stockholm.
Aside from those excursions I have planned to visit Visby which is on the island of Gotland and has a very nice medieval town. To get there I will be flying through a domestic Swedish flight I booked through Fly Gotland (again you may have to click on the English link). I am taking off early in the morning and returning in the early evening. Each flight will be about 1/2 hour long. The total same day round trip ticket cost me about $137USD (which could have been cheaper if I waited, darnit...) Also because Sweden is a large archipelago I couldn't have done the trip without some form of boating excursion. I have therefore also already booked a Dinner Cruise to Vaxholm which I did round trip. It will obviously be dark during the ride but I think I will have fun. That is my Friday night. The meal is ala carte, hopefully it won't be killer expensive...
Additionally I have a few things I want to do in Stockholm itself, such as: Skansen, The Royal Armory, The Museum of Medieval Stockholm, Stockholm's City Hall, The Royal Palace of Stockholm and probably a couple other places depending on time.
I have purchased a 72 hour Stockholm Card as well to get a good bit of the transport and museum fees out of the way ahead of time. I won't know if it was worth it until all is said and done (the same as the train pass).
More to come the closer it gets....
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Dave's Jeep Jamboree Pics
I have posted Dave's Jeep Jamboree Pictures to kodakgallery. He and my nephew got a few that were much better than mine. It's hard to shoot pictures while driving.
Monday, July 21, 2008
Jeep Jamboree Pics
I have posted my Jeep Jamboree Pics to kodakgallery. I will try to get my brother's up if he doesn't mind my posting them.
Jeep Jamboree Killington, July 2008
This past weekend my brother David, my nephew William and I attended the Jeep Jamboree in Killington, VT. This was our first Jeep Jamboree (especially where I had not owned a Jeep until January of 2008). It was a 3 day event with a breakfast on Sunday that we skipped out on because we found out it was a continental breakfast and we figured we could grab a real breakfast on the way home.
The event was 2 days of Jeeps wheeling. We picked a trail for each day and then rode through them for the duration of the day. There appeared to be about 6 or 7 total trails available and there was also a concept called Pirate where a bunch of modded up Jeeps went through a tasting of all the trails that were officially being run. They were selected by the guides that were running Pirate pretty much walking through all the other lines and asking people to join up based on their rigs. It seemed like the people that did that had a lot of fun but I'll get back to them later.
We arrived on Thursday night and went through tech inspection where they made sure your Jeep was up to spec for the event. When we got there at about 5pm there was a big line already set up but it moved fairly quickly and we were able to get through registration without much ado. They gave a t-shirt and a few other knick knacks as swag for signing up. When we signed up I was trying to be on the rather wimpy side and talked my brother into signing up for Vertigo, a rating 3-4 trail for Friday and said I would be willing to step up to No Name, which was 5-6 on Saturday. The guide running No Name basically tried to scare me when I told her I had a stock 2008 Rubicon asking me if I minded being strapped (towed) or if I was worried about body damage. She did have me second guessing but we decided to try it anyway. After registration we drove a bit down the mountain and had dinner at Moguls, which appeared to be more a bar than a restaurant but served pretty decent burgers anyway.
Friday's trail was called Vertigo mainly because it would bring us up to to the top of Piko peak (I hope I have the spelling right). It honestly started out very simply by climbing up access roads used by the ski resort maintenance most likely and I know in the early going that David was very bored with the trail. After a bit we entered into some wooded areas and that's when things changed up a bit. There was 3 major wooded sections we drove through and it felt like it got tighter each one we tried. The JK is a wider Jeep than earlier models and I am not graced with a visual mind or good spacial perception so during the various parts I scraped up my fender flares a few times. Nothing serious and the parts are plastic so it wasn't too painful but all the same the more squishy the trail got the more tense I got. I am not normally a nervous person but I was wheeling with my daily driver and this was my first time trying anything off road that was like this. With the help of the guides, Steve, Scott and George I did manage to get through all of the obstacles of the day without having to be strapped through and pretty much on the second or third try for anything I had difficulty for. I know I held up the line at one point because Scott (who was by far my favorite guide when it came to knowledge and helpfulness overall) kept leaving the post when he saw Josh in front of me hit the obstacle. Josh had 2003 TJ with a 3 inch lift and 33 boggers that looked very capable but he also is fairly new to wheeling and kind of wanted the help as well. All the same he would get through the obstacles and there would be no guide for me. Two times I tried on my own at obstacles like that and both times got stuck and Scott came back and got me through. Overall I became more and more tense as the day went on. There were a lot of berms where the top had you turning hard to avoid roots or rocks or trees right at the crest. I was not able to determine when to turn correctly. I also got stuck on one obstacle because would keep catching a root and sliding along it. I managed to ding my front bumper a bit there, but not horribly. I didn't air down my tires because they said we didn't need to and David believed that caused me a lot of the trouble I had. It may be so but I am sure a lot of it was my inexperience. At one point there was a tight climb through a rock and tree that when we got through it turned into a long muddy drop. I watched the jeeps going through before and after me and anyone, in 4 lo and first gear, pretty much just slid down the hill. It had gotten torn up because Pirate had come through in the other direction not too long before we got there. All the same the drop was scary but fun. There was a landing shelf that saved us from crashing into anything at the bottom before we regained control. The tension of the day had me completely second guessing the decision to move up to No Name on Saturday. We ended up having to cut the trail a teeny bit short because a thunderstorm threatened not too far away and we raced off the mountain and got back to the base before anything bad happened. When we got back I spoke to David and decided I wanted to switch off to the other 3-4 trail called 5 corners because I was sure that with the rain and the Friday run it would be harder than it was scheduled to be and I would only end up with a damaged Jeep. I know he was disappointed but he decided to follow me to 5 Corners and at breakfast on Saturday we made the switch.
It was the best thing I could have done I think to switch over. Wendall the guide for 5 Corners who sorta looked like Neil Young said it wouldn't be a problem and that he only had 12 Jeeps scheduled. With us and a couple other trail jumpers we ended up with 16 in total. 5 corners was a lot more easy but it did have a bunch of fun obstacles in it. The first was a very sharp ledge climb. It was similar to some of what we had done on Friday but there was no need to turn sharp right at the top which made me more confident with it. I did make it on the first try but only because I gunned the engine and didn't let up until the top. After that were a few other water crossings and berms that had interesting challeges but the majority of it was class 4 public road with rocks and roots spaced so that it wasn't tense to get through. There was a long rocky stretch that was like a stream bed but that was fun. In all I managed to really enjoy myself on t5 corners and we got through the entire main run of the trail by 2:30pm. One of the guides monitoring the weather band found a severe thunderstorm warning was due for 3 and we took a vote and decided we would vacate the woods rather than attempt the extra hour and a half of trails and risk getting nailed by the storm. It turned out to be a decent decision as when we got to the highway the skies opened. I should mention David and I had windows out and doors off for this and the rain was fairly blinding as it was both inside and outside the windshield. We drove through the other side of it and got back to the cabin where we put windows and doors back in and got cleaned up. At dinner one of the guys who was on Vertigo the day before and did No Name on Saturday came over and sat with us and told us what kind of a disaster No Name turned out to be. He said he did learn a lot and he was very lucky as he got through the trails mainly unscathed but that more than half of the rigs had body damage by the end and a lot of it significant. Apparently their guides didn't know about the storm and they got trapped in it and everything turned to an oilslick for traction and pretty much all the Jeeps on the trail needed to be winched down to a safe point before they could get off the mountain. I am sure if I went through that I would not have been happy. I also wasn't really into the idea of paying a lot of money to repair significant damage to my Jeep if I didn't have to. The tradeoff of the day was that we had a fairly easy run that I found relaxing and fun instead of a nightmare that might have scared me out of wheeling forever.
All in all I had a great time doing it and would consider doing it again. There were a lot of really good people there and everyone was very friendly and easy to get along with overall. The food was good enough for the buffet fare that it was and the cabin we stayed in was good with reasonably clean public bathrooms and showers. We also ate breakfast on Sunday at a place called Blanch and Bill's Pancake House. They had good food and I would recommend them. There were a few miles out of town on route 4. With the one dinner and the breakfast the only other thing that wasn't paid in advance was gasoline and I used 4.1 and 7.3 gallons respectively Friday and Saturday. So all in all it wasn't too expensive.
My last observations for wheeling: I got to use both the front and back lockers and the swaybar disconnect, so I've used all the toys the Jeep comes with officially now. I spent 2 days where for several hours I didn't get over 10 miles an hour and somehow I wasn't pissed. That's kind of cool.
The event was 2 days of Jeeps wheeling. We picked a trail for each day and then rode through them for the duration of the day. There appeared to be about 6 or 7 total trails available and there was also a concept called Pirate where a bunch of modded up Jeeps went through a tasting of all the trails that were officially being run. They were selected by the guides that were running Pirate pretty much walking through all the other lines and asking people to join up based on their rigs. It seemed like the people that did that had a lot of fun but I'll get back to them later.
We arrived on Thursday night and went through tech inspection where they made sure your Jeep was up to spec for the event. When we got there at about 5pm there was a big line already set up but it moved fairly quickly and we were able to get through registration without much ado. They gave a t-shirt and a few other knick knacks as swag for signing up. When we signed up I was trying to be on the rather wimpy side and talked my brother into signing up for Vertigo, a rating 3-4 trail for Friday and said I would be willing to step up to No Name, which was 5-6 on Saturday. The guide running No Name basically tried to scare me when I told her I had a stock 2008 Rubicon asking me if I minded being strapped (towed) or if I was worried about body damage. She did have me second guessing but we decided to try it anyway. After registration we drove a bit down the mountain and had dinner at Moguls, which appeared to be more a bar than a restaurant but served pretty decent burgers anyway.
Friday's trail was called Vertigo mainly because it would bring us up to to the top of Piko peak (I hope I have the spelling right). It honestly started out very simply by climbing up access roads used by the ski resort maintenance most likely and I know in the early going that David was very bored with the trail. After a bit we entered into some wooded areas and that's when things changed up a bit. There was 3 major wooded sections we drove through and it felt like it got tighter each one we tried. The JK is a wider Jeep than earlier models and I am not graced with a visual mind or good spacial perception so during the various parts I scraped up my fender flares a few times. Nothing serious and the parts are plastic so it wasn't too painful but all the same the more squishy the trail got the more tense I got. I am not normally a nervous person but I was wheeling with my daily driver and this was my first time trying anything off road that was like this. With the help of the guides, Steve, Scott and George I did manage to get through all of the obstacles of the day without having to be strapped through and pretty much on the second or third try for anything I had difficulty for. I know I held up the line at one point because Scott (who was by far my favorite guide when it came to knowledge and helpfulness overall) kept leaving the post when he saw Josh in front of me hit the obstacle. Josh had 2003 TJ with a 3 inch lift and 33 boggers that looked very capable but he also is fairly new to wheeling and kind of wanted the help as well. All the same he would get through the obstacles and there would be no guide for me. Two times I tried on my own at obstacles like that and both times got stuck and Scott came back and got me through. Overall I became more and more tense as the day went on. There were a lot of berms where the top had you turning hard to avoid roots or rocks or trees right at the crest. I was not able to determine when to turn correctly. I also got stuck on one obstacle because would keep catching a root and sliding along it. I managed to ding my front bumper a bit there, but not horribly. I didn't air down my tires because they said we didn't need to and David believed that caused me a lot of the trouble I had. It may be so but I am sure a lot of it was my inexperience. At one point there was a tight climb through a rock and tree that when we got through it turned into a long muddy drop. I watched the jeeps going through before and after me and anyone, in 4 lo and first gear, pretty much just slid down the hill. It had gotten torn up because Pirate had come through in the other direction not too long before we got there. All the same the drop was scary but fun. There was a landing shelf that saved us from crashing into anything at the bottom before we regained control. The tension of the day had me completely second guessing the decision to move up to No Name on Saturday. We ended up having to cut the trail a teeny bit short because a thunderstorm threatened not too far away and we raced off the mountain and got back to the base before anything bad happened. When we got back I spoke to David and decided I wanted to switch off to the other 3-4 trail called 5 corners because I was sure that with the rain and the Friday run it would be harder than it was scheduled to be and I would only end up with a damaged Jeep. I know he was disappointed but he decided to follow me to 5 Corners and at breakfast on Saturday we made the switch.
It was the best thing I could have done I think to switch over. Wendall the guide for 5 Corners who sorta looked like Neil Young said it wouldn't be a problem and that he only had 12 Jeeps scheduled. With us and a couple other trail jumpers we ended up with 16 in total. 5 corners was a lot more easy but it did have a bunch of fun obstacles in it. The first was a very sharp ledge climb. It was similar to some of what we had done on Friday but there was no need to turn sharp right at the top which made me more confident with it. I did make it on the first try but only because I gunned the engine and didn't let up until the top. After that were a few other water crossings and berms that had interesting challeges but the majority of it was class 4 public road with rocks and roots spaced so that it wasn't tense to get through. There was a long rocky stretch that was like a stream bed but that was fun. In all I managed to really enjoy myself on t5 corners and we got through the entire main run of the trail by 2:30pm. One of the guides monitoring the weather band found a severe thunderstorm warning was due for 3 and we took a vote and decided we would vacate the woods rather than attempt the extra hour and a half of trails and risk getting nailed by the storm. It turned out to be a decent decision as when we got to the highway the skies opened. I should mention David and I had windows out and doors off for this and the rain was fairly blinding as it was both inside and outside the windshield. We drove through the other side of it and got back to the cabin where we put windows and doors back in and got cleaned up. At dinner one of the guys who was on Vertigo the day before and did No Name on Saturday came over and sat with us and told us what kind of a disaster No Name turned out to be. He said he did learn a lot and he was very lucky as he got through the trails mainly unscathed but that more than half of the rigs had body damage by the end and a lot of it significant. Apparently their guides didn't know about the storm and they got trapped in it and everything turned to an oilslick for traction and pretty much all the Jeeps on the trail needed to be winched down to a safe point before they could get off the mountain. I am sure if I went through that I would not have been happy. I also wasn't really into the idea of paying a lot of money to repair significant damage to my Jeep if I didn't have to. The tradeoff of the day was that we had a fairly easy run that I found relaxing and fun instead of a nightmare that might have scared me out of wheeling forever.
All in all I had a great time doing it and would consider doing it again. There were a lot of really good people there and everyone was very friendly and easy to get along with overall. The food was good enough for the buffet fare that it was and the cabin we stayed in was good with reasonably clean public bathrooms and showers. We also ate breakfast on Sunday at a place called Blanch and Bill's Pancake House. They had good food and I would recommend them. There were a few miles out of town on route 4. With the one dinner and the breakfast the only other thing that wasn't paid in advance was gasoline and I used 4.1 and 7.3 gallons respectively Friday and Saturday. So all in all it wasn't too expensive.
My last observations for wheeling: I got to use both the front and back lockers and the swaybar disconnect, so I've used all the toys the Jeep comes with officially now. I spent 2 days where for several hours I didn't get over 10 miles an hour and somehow I wasn't pissed. That's kind of cool.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Jeep Jamboree - Killington, VT
I am heading up to Killington, VT tonight for the Jeep Jamboree being held there this weekend. I doubt I will have connection to the internet but will take pictures and eventually post them and will try to write up the events of the day to post after the fact. I supposed it is not as glamorous as international travel but it is travel nonetheless...
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Day 4 Pictures and George's Pictures.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Denmark Day 5
I am in the airport right now. They haven't announced my gate yet so I am wasting a bit of time. The airport very strangely does not have any sort of concentrated "I visited Denmark" type gift shops which sorta surprised me. I thought maybe I could get a last minute thing or two, but apparently in their arrogance they think people visiting Denmark will never leave so they don't need to buy souvenirs in an airport. In any event I figured I'd mention I am going to clean up the pictures and set up all the links all over again as soon as I can after I get home. There is one more day of pictures to be posted.
This morning I did hit the touristy gift shops in Copenhagen and we even managed to get a cup of coffee when Copenhagen finally opened. It is apparent that people do not rise before, say, 9am around here. The cab ride to the airport was uneventful and CPH security didn't make me take off my shoes, which is nice. Anyway the internet connection I paid for is going to run out soon so I am posting this now.
This morning I did hit the touristy gift shops in Copenhagen and we even managed to get a cup of coffee when Copenhagen finally opened. It is apparent that people do not rise before, say, 9am around here. The cab ride to the airport was uneventful and CPH security didn't make me take off my shoes, which is nice. Anyway the internet connection I paid for is going to run out soon so I am posting this now.
Denmark Day 4
Small misadventure with the train system, but we managed to get out to Roskilde at about the time they opened up what was going to open on a White Monday holiday. As the Danes are a very religious people they take off every semblance of a holy day they can and even make up a few to have some more days off. The good news is that the places we wanted to go in Roskilde were open but just about everything else was closed due to the holiday. Try to think about a tourist town with all the shops closed on a holiday in the US...
In any event, we visited the viking ship museum and went out on a viking boat recreation. Due to the activity involved in rowing the boat and getting the sails up and in George's case steering we did not get any pictures from the boat. It was a lot of fun and I would do it again in a heartbeat. After the boat we went to Roskilde Cathedral then got lunch and eventually returned to Copenhagen. After a short rest back at the house we went out and had dinner and a couple beers before returning for the night.
In any event, we visited the viking ship museum and went out on a viking boat recreation. Due to the activity involved in rowing the boat and getting the sails up and in George's case steering we did not get any pictures from the boat. It was a lot of fun and I would do it again in a heartbeat. After the boat we went to Roskilde Cathedral then got lunch and eventually returned to Copenhagen. After a short rest back at the house we went out and had dinner and a couple beers before returning for the night.
Monday, May 12, 2008
Images note
Sorry, still uploading pics. I messed up Day 2 and they will have to be resent at some point but I will have links to what I have up currently later on today.
Denmark Day 3
We got up early and took the local to a longer train to Helsingor (which appears to be pronounced Elsinor). We got there sort of early and it was a Sunday after all and at 9am nothing appeared to be open. We took a walk all the way around Kronborg castle which is most famously known for being the setting of Hamlet, which is pretty cool. It burned down several times and the current representation is only a couple centuries old and most of the treasures that used to reside in it are currently in Swedish possession due to the numerous wars between the two nations (most of which were won by the Swedes apparently). In any event we waited until the castle was finally open and then did the full tour setup. We took 2 guided tours, one through the old sections and one through the newer sections. The first one was a good tour but our guide for the second was really good and had several jokes regarding the above subject that really made us laugh. I don't think she was Danish. In any event we probably spent about 4 hours in the castle and then we dragged ourselves into the Helsingor downtown area. There appeared to be a shopping district that was closed for Sunday but we did find a nice place to grab some beer and a snack and then we headed back home.
After that we got cleaned up and headed back into town where we went to an Italian restaurant where I had penne arrabiata and eventually tiramisu. It was all very good. I asked them to spice up the penne and they seemed to because I got some heat out of it. After that we headed in because it was already 11pm.
After that we got cleaned up and headed back into town where we went to an Italian restaurant where I had penne arrabiata and eventually tiramisu. It was all very good. I asked them to spice up the penne and they seemed to because I got some heat out of it. After that we headed in because it was already 11pm.
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Denmark Day 2
We started off early for Danes, which if I mentioned the time the people that went to Japan with me would recognize as very late. We basically ran around Copenhagen and saw a few sites. I used my 1 day CPH Card and we got into town around 8ish. We got a cup of coffee and I had a Danish that was actually listed as a Danish at the shop. From there we walked around a bit. Not in the correct order probably we went to the National Museum. We saw the Parliament building and the ruins of the previous castles underneath. We took a canal tour. Somewhere we had lunch at a place named the Peder Oxe. They served me a hamburger that looked like I cooked it it was so rare. I loved it. After the canal tour I believe we went to the Round Tower and got to the top of that. Then we came back home and got cleaned up and then headed out to dinner with George's coworker Patrick who is from Jersey (and it showed). We had very good chinese food at a place named Hings Cuisine. I got spicy beef with peppers and it was actually spicy, which is surprising for Denmark. From there we walked back into town and went through Tivoli for the rest of the night until a fairly late return after midnight.
Saturday, May 10, 2008
Denmark Day 1
The day actually started the night before in Boston. My flight took off at 9:30pm on time. We had a 4 hour and 40 minute flight that was uneventful until I landed in Iceland. The landing was interesting because we found the runway then couldn't decide which direction it faced for a couple moments. Iceland was pouring rain and dismal. The couple I was sitting next to was spending 6 days there. I wished them luck, but they said the forecast didn't look great.
The airport was odd. There are no places to sit and they don't board planes by area. People just lined up and pushed onto the plane when they started to board. The second flight was 2 hours and 45 minutes. It left a teeny bit late. It also was uneventful until the landing where the pilot figured that we should take the last 100 feet down in as short a time as possible.
George met me at the airport and we took a cab into his place. His place is sorta small but there's enough room for one person easily and a second can survive for short burts there as well. After getting cleaned up we went out to downtown Copenhagen and walked around. He showed me a lot of the various sights that are quick to see and I picked up a CPH card to use on Saturday. We went to a restaurant called Reef N Beef which is an Australian styled chain and I had some VB and bacon wrapped kangaroo filets. The food was excellent.
I'll post my first set of pictures tonight as we are about to head out.
The airport was odd. There are no places to sit and they don't board planes by area. People just lined up and pushed onto the plane when they started to board. The second flight was 2 hours and 45 minutes. It left a teeny bit late. It also was uneventful until the landing where the pilot figured that we should take the last 100 feet down in as short a time as possible.
George met me at the airport and we took a cab into his place. His place is sorta small but there's enough room for one person easily and a second can survive for short burts there as well. After getting cleaned up we went out to downtown Copenhagen and walked around. He showed me a lot of the various sights that are quick to see and I picked up a CPH card to use on Saturday. We went to a restaurant called Reef N Beef which is an Australian styled chain and I had some VB and bacon wrapped kangaroo filets. The food was excellent.
I'll post my first set of pictures tonight as we are about to head out.
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Next Up: Denmark
I will be doing a short long weekend trip to Denmark in early May. I will be visiting George who has moved there for his company. I am fortunately staying at his new place so it is only costing me the flight and whatever I buy, eat/drink there. I am flying Iceland Air for the first time and the flight will take me through Iceland for a stopover then on to Denmark.
We have a rough idea of what we want to do but some of that will depend on the weather. I will post more as I get a bit closer. I will also be taking pics and linking to them when I have the chance.
We have a rough idea of what we want to do but some of that will depend on the weather. I will post more as I get a bit closer. I will also be taking pics and linking to them when I have the chance.
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