We are now on a small ship heading for Gallno, which is one of the islands of the Stockholm Archipelego.
A cute seal just appeared moments ago.
I forgot to mention 2 days ago in Gamla Stan, on the main square we heard some music and went to check it out and the Swedish army orchestra of pipes and drums played (in full uniform) in the square next to the Nobel center. So we sat listening to them playing Michael Jackson! (bad and other songs), not what you expect to hear from an army orchestra. Between each section, the conductor saluted the crowed, a very nice performance.
2 nights ago we reached camp at 1 am, found our tent in the dark and crashed, we woke up and got to work.
We started with the royal armory which had a floor of fashion and old dresses for Alla and armor and weapons for me with splendid craftsmanship (I am sure Alla thought the same on the dresses, though I don’t know why) and a floor of the amazing royal chariots for both of us. From there we went to see the royal changing of the gourds, a fun display of shouts, helmets, swords and foot soldiers hopping around, this was accompanied by the same band playing marching tunes and followed by pirates of the Caribbean’s tune and the look by Roxette (Swedish band) . after that we toured the magnificent royal apartments with its impressive art and watched the royal crown jewels (less impressive than the Norwegian ones). We went after to check on our future plans (unexpected destinations…) then went to Skansen the 1st and largest open air museum; we went a bit after and some of the displays were closed but we still got to experience a lot of it and spent time in the zoo part of it watching foxes and fun climbing brown bears, but also elk, rain dear, wolverine, wolves (finally got to see some), seals and the ferocious peacock.
We walked more in the gardens then after yet another salad for dinner (I must be going mad) we went to the ice bar. A very cool placeJ. So you get to wear these big coats and go in to a world of ice with ice sculpture (1 or 2) and light blue lights for the ambiance, ok music and 1 free drink (that comes with the overpriced entry fee) so I got an icemopolitan and Alla tried a snow leaf. All the drinks are vodka based since this is the absolute vodka bar.
The ship is now having a moment of silence for the terror attacks in Norway. Shhh…
Minute later… we sent some photos later, then returned to camp
We left the camp this morning and now heading for the archipelago, we will be on gallon and grinda islands then tomorrow we head back through waxholm.
Then we catch a night ferry to… a new unplanned country…
Cheers from the waxholm pier
Ok, the ship just left waxholm with its big fort so I will continue (I owe some past events), so a week ago
We drove north on the malmo oslo highway passing green hills and argircultural lands and listening to radio music, we drove till the evening than arrived at our camp on the outskirts of Oslo,
We went down town and tried a secondary self tour the book told us about but we didn’t like it, too many foreigners and we felt unsafe, but we walked around for a while and returned to camp.
Next morning we got our Oslo card (awesome thing, all the museums included so you don’t have to debate yourself what to do and how much to spend you just do everything, and we did)
We started with a city hall tour with its impressive fresco’s and nice flowery gardens followed by a visit to the Nobel museum. From there we hopped on the ferry to the museums area and seen the raft that went from Africa to Barbados (to proof than ancient Egyptians could have discovered America, they didn’t, but could have) and the 1st ship that reached both poles, followed by the maritime museum.
From there we walked to the Viking ship museum to see some ancient relics and the lovely Norwegian open air museum where we walked around the woods filled with 155 actual homes taken from all over Norway displaying various ancient times (farm houses, smithies, manor house, old banks, old pharmacies, pottery work display and various crafts) we also watched an old game displayed by locals, all performers are wearing attire from the period they display so it’s very authentic looking, and you can speak to the performers and ask questions and learn about the old world.
After that we hopped on the bus to the train where we asked a lady where is the next bus; she didn’t just point us, she actually walked out of the station all the way out and showed us which bus to take (very friendly folks) and we seen our bus leave , we missed it by a few seconds. Lucky the bus behind it (another line) told us to hop onboard, we did and after 10 minutes of shared line he passed the other bus and we swapped, after a few more minutes, we walked up a steep hill to the Oslo ski jump center for amazing Oslo and fjord views and the new impressive ski jump (you will see it next winter in action for the upcoming ski jump world championship). We took the elevator to the top of the ski jump for better views, and looked down. We visited the ski museum and did a ski-simulator of a ski jump and ski slalom (total stomach churn, but fun).
After that we hopped on the bus again after seeing 2 crazy guys going head first on a skateboard on a hill too steep to walk on (with traffic, and they also had helmet cameras , so maybe it’s on YouTube) , we reach a restaurant at the top of the hill and had some desert, then took the bus down, walked by the royal castle , then went back to camp.
On the train station back (same station as before) we asked a guy how to get somewhere, so again he took us under the bride, to the other side, to the street nearby to point us the way, so kind! We proceeded to the Oslo sculpture park with its many many nude sculptures , flowers and trees for an hour of more of quite, this park is very impressive and it’s the life’s work of this one nude loving artist
A nice relaxing day ended
Next morning we headed north for the fjords
Cheers from Grinda isle
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