Sweden and Denmark, June 24 - 29, 2014

We drove off the “Baltic Queen” in Stockholm harbor on Tuesday and, after Todd passed the obligatory “welcome-to-Sweden” breathalyzer test, proceeded toward the city.  At the port gate we were greeted by Lars and Torun Stålberg, good friends of Todd’s from his GATT days in Geneva, whom he had scarcely seen during the intervening 40 years.  Lars and Torun were fantastic hosts, giving us an orientation tour of downtown Stockholm, inviting us for dinner at their beautiful apartment, taking us to their “country place” (family compound) south of Stockholm for a taste of rural Sweden, and booking a fantastic smörgåsbord dinner for the four of us at the waterfront Grand Hotel.  As someone said, one thing you can’t make is old friends.

Stockholm waterfront

St. George slaying dragon in Stockholm Cathedral close to Palace

Inner Harbor with Grand Hotel, where we enjoyed smörgåsbord dinner

Early 20th century city hall, where Nobel prize winners are feted

Lars and Torun at their country place

With Torun enjoying the delights of smörgåsbord

With Lars at smörgåsbord plus alcoholic enhancements

We toured the huge royal palace and the city hall (considered early 20^th century “national romantic”), but neither held a candle to the Vasa Museum.  There we viewed the “Vasa,” a (too) early warship with twin cannon decks, which was intended for hostilities with Poland before Sweden entered the Thirty Years War.  Unfortunately, the builders had not compensated for the weight of the extra cannon deck, leaving the “Vasa” top-heavy.  Within a few hundred meters of its launch site, a gust of wind pushed the ship onto its side, water rushed into the open gun ports, and within 20 minutes the “Vasa” sank in Stockholm’s harbor.  (You may recall several early U.S. space rocket launches.)  Some 300 years later the “Vasa” was raised and a museum was built around her, where one can view the ship in great detail.  This is a must for anyone visiting Stockholm.

Prow of "Vasa" with lion holding the Vasa dynasty coat of arms

"Vasa" amidships

"Vasa" stern

Our charming Stockholm hotel was located on the edge of a large park, featuring both a lake and the residence of the crown princess, but still only 20 minutes from downtown by bus.  One evening we strolled along the lake to watch hot air balloons float across the city.

Our hotel "Stallmästaregården" in Stockholm

Evening in Stockholm

Arriving in Copenhagen on Friday, we checked into a funky, fun hotel on the edge of the central city.  We toured the Christianborg, the city palace that also serves as the prime minister’s office, and other traditional sites.  Among these was, of course, the Little Mermaid, which clearly had great appeal for Japanese tourists.

Downtown Copenhagen with cathedral tower

Copenhagen city hall

The Little Mermaid

Tivoli Gardens was—far and away—the best thing we saw in downtown Copenhagen.  First time visitors to the city, we had been expecting a tourist trap, but inside the gates Danish was clearly the dominant language.  The best way we can describe Tivoli is “Disneyland with alcohol and high-end shops,” including Georg Jensen and Royal Copenhagen porcelain.   We dined in a Danish-cuisine restaurant surrounded by Danes and then toured the stomach-wrenching rides.  Despite Georgia’s pleading, Todd refused to let her go on one apparatus that took passengers straight up 75 meters and then spun them around a central pole.

Tivoli entrance

Our Tivoli restaurant

Fun in the Tivoli sky

On Sunday we drove north of Copenhagen to Fredericksborg, a renaissance castle built in the early 17^th century to rival the digs of other European monarchs.  A fire devastated most of the premises in the 19^th century, thankfully sparing the ornate chapel, but the Carlsberg Beer family financed the restoration of the damaged portion, turning it into a museum of Danish history.

Fredericksborg

Fredericksborg Chapel with Eisenhower's coat-of-arms as member of the Order of the Elephant

Despite the grandeur of Fredericksborg, we loved our visit nearby to Karen Blixen’s home, which she endowed as a museum before her death in 1962.  As we had visited her house in Nairobi, it was fascinating to see her from a Danish perspective.  She never returned to Africa after her departure in 1931, but Kenya never really left her soul.   As the exhibits demonstrated, she wrote in English but then wrote (not really translated) in Danish above the English original.

Blixen (aka Isak Dinesen) at home north of Copenhagen

We were (maybe) fortunate to be in Denmark during graduation week, when students finishing their university-preparatory or trade school courses celebrate.  Our hotel desk clerk, clearly nostalgic, remembered her celebration 20 year before when she and her classmates drove through their small town in a horse-drawn carriage to greet their parents.  Sad to say, things have changed a bit, at least in Copenhagen.  There we saw graduates riding through the city in military-style trucks celebrating their academic achievements with air horns and whistles—even under our window at 1:00 a.m.  In the old days only “gymnasium” (i.e., university preparatory school) graduates wore the distinctive caps, but in democratic 2014 the caps are sported by the graduates of trade schools as well.

Graduates flaunting their proficiency in idiomatic English

Todd purchasing snack from new graduate wearing her cap