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 20th 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" 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
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 17th century
to rival the digs of other European monarchs. A fire devastated most of the premises in the 19th
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
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