Great Scandinavian Road Trip: Day 19: The End

...Or at least the end aside from the drive home through Germany.

The last day of the trip started in Kalmar with a visit to the castle there. The castle seemed well preserved and, unlike the other castles during this trip, you could actually go out and walk along the walls.


From there it was on to Lund, where I had planned to visit the open air museum. Unfortunately, the parking system in the city was not being very cooperative, so I was only able to park long enough to take a quick look around without actually going inside anything.

The last stop was Malmo. Not too much to see in the center of Malmo, but on the outskirts there is the famous Turning Torso building. It's a strange name, but I guess they found it to be more interesting than calling in the twisty skyscraper building.


And lastly, one of the main items on the itinerary, the Copenhagen-Malmo bridge. The bridge is one of the longest in the world and links Denmark and Sweden, so that you don't have to take a ferry anymore. The bridge was nice and the view was great, but there wasn't a single area set aside for people to pull off and view it. Note to builders of major landmarks: Please include places for people to stop and view your landmark, maybe even put an information panel up to tell the story of it.

And so, the trip ends.

The last pics are here.

Great Scandinavian Road Trip: Day 18

Today started off with the Swedish royal residence at Drottningholm. The palace was a lot like Versailles in its appearance and layout. It was larger and more lavish than the palace in Stockholm. The drawback was that since it is the actual residence of the King, much of it was closed off, even on the grounds.


From there it was to Skokloster, another palace. This one was smaller, but almost all the rooms were open for viewing. This palace was very well preserved and much of it was in its original state from the 1600s.


The last stop was Gamla Uppsala, home of the burial mounds of the ancient Swedish kings. There is not much to see today besides the obvious mounds. I had thought that maybe you would be able to enter some of them. I also learned that the 19th century method for archaeological exploration of the site was to bulldoze the mounds down (effectively) and see what was underneath. I think a little more care could be shown when dealing with ancient artefacts.


The outside of my room is also a dock.


The rest of the pictures are here.

Great Scandinavian Road Trip: Day 17

Today was the first day in Sweden. The ferry arrived later than I had expected and then it took an hour to get out of the port because of the customs checks on all the cars in front of me. The arrival into Stockholm was nice; you sail for a couple hours through a zillion little islands dotted with weekend homes.

The first stop was the Vassa musuem since it was between the ferry terminal and the hotel. It's a museum that contains an almost perfectly preserved 17th Swedish warship that was discovered in the 1950s. I didn't expect the ship to be as well preserved as it was, it looked almost new. I also didn't expect it to be as big as it was, it was one of the largest wooden ships I have ever seen. I also didn't expect it to be as crowded as it was. The museum (a very large building) was packed, and the line to get in was quite long. Everyone it seems wants to see this ship, and I agree, it was definitely the highlight of Stockholm for me. Unfortunately, it was so dark that you couldn't really take pictures.


Next stop was the nearby Skansen open air museum. It contains houses and other buildings that have been relocated from across Sweden. I normally like going to this type of musuem, and have been to several on this trip, but so far I have been disappointed with the ones I've visited. This one was much better. In fact, it was a huge place, spread over a very considerable area and containing dozens of different buildings. Many of the buildings had craftsmen demonstrating different things like baking or glass blowing. Because of the vastness of the musuem, I had to rush through it a bit to leave time for the rest of the things in Stockholm I wanted to see. I'm sure I saw most of the museum, but it would take almost a full day to do this place justice. They also had some animals on display, including a moose, but like at the zoo, the moose was too lazy to stand up.


From there it was to the old center of Stockholm. It reminded me of the Ile St Louis in Paris, a little island with a maze of narrow streets, lined with gift shops and galleries.

At the end of it was the Swedish royal palace. It had all the usual royal palace things like thrones, and crowns, and waiting rooms, and palace guards.


There was one disappointement for the day. I had planned to go to the medieval musuem, which was supposed to be really good. But after spending half an hour walking around trying to figure out how to get around a bunch of construction to the museum, I found a sign saying the museum was closed for renovations. Too bad.

The rest of the pictures are here.

Great Scandinavian Road Trip: Day 16

This was the last day in Finlamd. Because I had to catch the ferry to Stockholm from Helsinki, instead of from Turku as originally planned, I had only a short amount of time to see Turku. The castle was quite good, the best I've seen during the trip so far.


Next was the ferry ride to Stockholm, all 17 hours of it. These are not ferries like the little ferries that take your car across a river. These are giant cruise ships that you happen to take your car on. Inside, they had made a sort of "Main Street" with duty free shops and restaurants lining it. There are also bars, clubs, and a casino. My ncabin, while small, was adequate and quiet enough. That said, it turned out to be a 4 person cabin and the other three berths were folded away, so who knows how it would be when full. I'd heard from others who have been on these ferries that they are really more like excuses for the locals to party and get really drunk while going from one city to the next. I was told to be prepared for wildness. Maybe that set my expectations to high, or maybe it was just because it was a Monday, but I didn't find it too exciting. I went to the pub where it was quiet (except for an awful guitar player). I went to the lounge where they had a live band and found it sedate. I went to the nightclub, but turned away before I got there because of the terrible singing comign from there. So, in short, I observed no kinds of craziness and went back to my cabin to watch videos and sleep.

One thing that was nice about the ferry, there was a good view of Helsinki as you left. I was able to see some of the islands and harbor forts that I didn't get a chance to see while there. In retrospect, I should have done the islands in the harbor rather than some of the more outlying things I did there.

Great Scandinavian Road Trip: Day 15

Today was spent touring around Helsinki. At first, I thought I'd try out the free city-bikes that are scattered around the city. First, they are hideous looking to the point you would be embarrassed to be seen on one. Second, the one I tried had a broken seat that made it unrideable. So I chose to walk all day instead. Truth be told, I didn't see anyone using the free bikes all day.

Helsinki is a very small city (the center at least) that is very manageable by foot. There's a harbor and lots of old buildings.

There are also a number of very nice churches, including one that is buried into rock.


I managed to see a number of the musuems in town, hoping mainly to see a variety of displays relating to finnish or nordic/scandinavian design that is so famous. Unfortunately, there was little of that on display. Mostly it was just a lot of modern, post-modern, and whatever comes after that art. But, it was good to get to a museum again since it has been a while.

The rest of the pictures are here.

Great Scandinavian Road Trip: Day 14: Jax lands in jail

It's true, well sort of. My hotel in Helsinki is a converted prision (though it's actually well located and quite nice inside). Today was a long drive to see a castle in Savonlinna, the fortified city of Hamina, and Porvoo. The castle was nice, though you could only go into a few rooms for some reason. Hamina was interesting, but not something you could really take a picture of except from the air. I did stay and watch a couple innings of finnish baseball. It's quite a bit different from what I'm used to. Porvoo was a bit of a let down. The old district was smaller than I expected and all the little shops there had closed by the time I arrived.

On a lighter note, I think the Finland tourism people made a slight mistake in naming their magazine.

Great Scandinavian Road Trip: Day 13

Today was a lot of driving through nearly identical looking woods. See a theme here? The first stop was at the zoo in Ranua. It was a pretty good zoo that walked you through the forest past a variety of animals such as bears and deer of different kinds.

Finally, a moose picture. It had to come from the zoo and Mr. Moose was too lazy to even stand up.


From there it was to Petajavesi to see the old church.

The old wooden churches here and in Norway are quite interesting for the complexity of the construction they did using only wood.

The pics are here.

Great Scandinavian Road Trip: Day 12: Finally Finland

Today started off by visiting a park. The park was supposed to contain various displays relating to Sami culture. Mostly it contained mosquitoes. I think the repellent was working, but there were so many of them that they couldn't help but land on me. I didn't stay long.

From there I entered Finland. This is what Finland looks like (at least what I've seen so far)

There were also plenty of reindeer to be found.


My first stop was a Sami museum in Inari. It was much better than the ones in Norway, it had extensive displays and a larger open air section. It was quite good. Then it was south to Rovaniemi. Just before Rovaniemi, I crossed back south of the Arctic Circle again. The location was much less dramatic than Norway; woods, a gas station, and a christmas-themed shopping village. I didn't even bother to stop. In Rovaniemi, I visited the musuem about the arctic, also a large and good museum. The other important thing, the mosquito problem has reduced to the point where the repellent can keep the bites down to an acceptable level. In the museum, it mentioned that reindeer can suffer life-threatening amounts of blood loss due to bites. That's a lot of mosquitoes.

The pictures are here.

Great Scandinavian Road Trip: Day 11

Today started out heading north and ended heading south, thus marking the figurative halfway point of the trip. In the morning, I drove from Alta up to Nordkapp, the most northerly point of europe.

The scenery leading there was much more of what I imagined the north of Norway to be like, few trees, rocky hills, water, little traffic,

and reindeer.


From there I, obviously, turned south. The next stop from there was Karasjok, the Sami capital. There they had a couple of museums showing how their peopled used to live and how they lived today. It was interesting, though the displays were smaller than I had imagined.


There was one small problem today, the mosquito. The area around Karasjok definitely has a big mosquito problem, and I in turn have a big problem with the mosquitoes. I have bug spray, but lets hope this problem doesn't continue as I head into Finland. I'm afraid that it will.

The pics are here.

Great Scandinavian Road Trip: Day 10: Finally a reindeer

Today was a long drive from Harstad to Tromso and then to Alta. The drive to Tromso was mostly rainy, so there wasn't much to report from that. The two main attractions were the Arctic cathedral, which was a bit of a disappointment, and the cable car, which provided a good view over the area. From there, I took a couple of ferries and more driving to get to Alta. Along the way I finally saw a few reindeer alongside the road (sorry no pictures). In Alta, I saw the museum of prehistoric rock carvings. I thought the museum would be inside, but instead it was outside with paths leading you past the different rocks with carvings on them. It must be one of the largest concentrations of rock art in one place anywhere. It had the usual drawings you would expect: stick figures, moose, boats, fish, etc. Again, the scenery today continued to be quite formidable, jagged peaks jutting out of water that is now green instead of the deep blue farther south.


Pictures are here.

Great Scandinavian Road Trip: Day 9

After taking a long ferry from Bodo, today was spent touring the Lofoten islands. The weather was very overcast, in fact, hardly any of the mountiains were visible because of the low ceilings. The islands themselves look like some sort of secret fantasty island. They just jut out of the water and are extremely tall, steep, and jagged, with patches of vegetation covering them. Hugging the narrow coast are fishing village after fishing village with little red houses, many on stilts. It was all very nice to look at, I just wonder how it would have been on a clear day.



The rest of the pics are here.

Great Scandinavian Road Trip: Day 8: Jax drives across Arctic Circle

Today was mostly another transfer between places day. There was a brief (too brief) stop at the Svartisen glacier, which I could only see off in the distance because I had to catch the next ferry otherwise I;d be stuck there for 3 hours. The highlight of the day, and half the purpose of the whole trip, was driving across the Arctic Circle. Now, I know I've been north of the circle before, but there's something about being able to say that you've driven to the Arctic Circle and beyond that seems kinda cool. Where the Arctic Circle crosses through Norway is a bleak and desolate plateau with patches of snow around. That seems quite appropriate. Two things, however, surprised me: first, that the visitor center/monument didn't seem to be on what my GPS thought was circle, or on the rounded off latitude they referred to as the circle. We're only talking about a few hundred meters though. The second surprising thing was the amount of traffic. There is only one road in the area and it is the main north-south road to the north of Norway, so it was actually quite busy. I had visions of not seeing any cars for hours at a time, not so.




The pics are here.

Great Scandinavian Road Trip: Day 7

Today was mostly a get from one place to another day starting from Trondheim and going to Bronnoysund. There were a few interesting minor fjords and valleys along the way, but the view was largely blocked by trees. The main sight of the day was Torghatten rock. A famous mountain in Norway with a hole in the middle of it

and a decent view of the area.



Not many photos today, but they can be found here.

Great Scandinavian Road Trip: Day 6

Today was a pretty easy day with a lot of driving. I started by taking ferry along a fjord and then driving over another mountain pass.



Along the way there were some nice rapids rushing through a narrow gorge.


After that, it was many, many ferries until reaching Trondheim. Trondheim is a difficult city to give an opinion on. There are some wonderful old buildings and wooden harbor area like in Bergen.

But one street over and everything looks decrepit and abandoned. It looks like they are trying to fix this, but there's a ways to go yet. It actually reminds me a lot of Amsterdam: area surrounding water, some pedestrian areas and squares, and some forgettable stuff. But I think I would choose Trondheim over Amsterdam, just.

The usual pictures are here.

Great Scandinavian Road Trip: Day 5

Today was a pretty easy day aided by good weather. It started by visiting the glaciers just outside Fjaerland. I'm sure that at some point they were proper glaciers, but today they were just piles of ice at the bottom of a cliff with the real glacier somewhere up above.

Next stop was the Briksdalbreen glacier. There's a little bit of a hike involved to get to it, but it's a more proper glacier.



From there I took the old mountain road over the mountain (instead of through the new tunnel) to Geiranger. The road went through some really beautiful scenery, with greens and blues, and whites popping out boldly. There was also a ski resort that still had people skiing at it.



Lastly it was to Dalsnibba, which I guess is a bit like a Norwegian Pikes Peak. It's a steep twisting, mostly dirt road up to the top of a mountain that gives you a clear view in all directions. It was definitely worth the drive and the toll.



Then down into Geiranger proper. The village doesn't inspire me much. It's filled with campers and tour buses and hotels catering to people in tour buses. I don't think you'd want to spend much time in the village itself. I did have another surprise with the hotel. I booked a single (meaning cheap) room. When I checked in, the girl at reception was a little surprised it was just me staying. It turns out the room has a dining table that seats 10, two sitting areas, two bathrooms, a balcony, more windows than I can count, and a bathroom with TV and bathtub for two.


I've never actually seen a purpose built bathtub for two in person before. Though I'm not sure what good having the TV over the toilet does... So I guess my luck on this trip is a bit of a mixed bag. I guess that just keeps it all interesting.

Pictures are here.

Great Scandinavian Road Trip: Day 4: Jax gets lost in a fjord

Today started out by finishing off a few museums in Bergen that closed before I could get to them yesterday. They gave a good idea of what Bergen used to look like and what life would have been like in the Hanseatic times.

From there I went to Stalheim, because I heard there was a decent view there.


The next stop was Hopperstad stave church, but a couple of things surprised me about the drive there. First was the road construction. Because of some major works, the road I needed was closed for half of every hour. I had just missed the closing, so I had to sit for half an hour. When they started letting cars through again, I was under the impression that they had stopped work and were letting one direction go at a time through the construction. That turned out to be wrong on both counts. About halfway into the work zone I had to stop and wait for a big truck to be loaded with rocks. At the same point, I could see all the cars coming from the other direction were waiting too. So for some reason they thought it would be a good idea to let two way traffic go through a one lane dirt road surrounded by construction machines that weren't going to wait for them to pass. Interesting. The second surprising thing I came across was this

I didn't expect this high snowy plateau that I came across. It was really scenic and at the end of the section you came to this

At the bottom of which was this

Hopperstad stave church, unfortunately covered in scaffolding. Smaller than the church in Heddal, it is still a pretty amazing piece of wood construction.

From there, I had to make it to my hotel in time for check-in and the fixed dinner time. I was short on time and to get there I had to take a ferry to the other side of the fjord. Of course, I get on the wrong ferry that goes to a different branch of the fjord. It's a powerless feeling when you realize that you've gotten two city names mixed up and gone the wrong direction by boat. So I had to turn around at the other side and take yet another ferry to get me back to where I wanted to be. Somehow, I made it with just a few minutes to spare before dinner at the hotel. The hotel itself is old and really nice. The owner told me about how her grandfather built the hotel back in 1891 and some of the history. She was also nice enough to bump me up to a better room with a view of the fjord.

Not so bad, eh?


Of course, the rest of the pictures can be found here.

Great Scandinavian Road Trip: Day 3: Jax drowns in mineral water (not really)

Today I learned an important lesson, that the still mineral water and the fizzy mineral water don't come in blue and red bottles like they do in many other parts of europe. The result was that when I went to refill my sports bottle from a new large bottle I'd bought, it sprayed me with water after having rattled around in the back of the car for a while. I also learned that fizzy mineral water doesn't come with sports tops for a reason. I still refilled my bottle using it, but later when I went to get a drink, the pressure popped the top open and sprayed me in the face with water...again...not a stellar day for me.

On the other hand, quite a good bit of scenery was seen. First to Eidfjord to see the Voringfossen waterfalls, and the nature center & nearby valley that the hotel insisted I must go see.


Then on to Steindalsfossen,


and Bergen.

Bergen is a pretty nice city; it has a lot of character. The downtown area around the harbor is very attractive and the historic area contains a lot of old, brightly colored wooden buildings. Made for a nice area to just walk and explore.



The rest of the pics from today are here.