The latest in my series of posts on my holiday in Sweden.
INTRODUCTION
Welcome to the latest installment in my series of posts about my recent holiday in Sweden. Having covered Gamla Stanin my previous post it is now time to cover the other area where I did some exploring, Kungstragarden, the city centre terminus of the blue line on Tunnelbana.
AT THE SURFACE
It was obvious as soon as I had exited the station building that I had made a good call. Here are the first couple of pictures..
THE KUNGSTRAGARDEN
On entering the Kungstragarden itself the first thing I saw was this:
Beyond this is a very decorative pool…
By this stage I was thinking about lunch, and one of the various beer and burger places caught my attention. I was lured in by the ‘Nick the Greek’ burger – lamb, feta cheese, salad. I subsequently identified an impressive looking local beer, and food ordered took my place at an outside table.
Avenyn Ale – it proved by excellent.When you place a food order you get one of these, and your food arrives is due course.The reverse shot.
Although I was well aware that a the general expectation is that one will not eat the top half of the bun in which a burger of this nature is served I was not about to leave anything uneaten. Lunch done I resumed my explorations, looking to take a circuitous route back to the station…
My nest port of call was a park…
I was then drawn towards a waterfront (Stockholm like most Swedish cities is well supplied with water)…
There were a few more things to photograph before I got back to the station and resumed my explorations of the Tunnelbana.
Kungstragarden well repaid the time I spent exploring it, and I would recommend anyone visiting to Stockholm to include it in their itinerary.
The latest installment in my series about my recent holiday in Sweden. This post covers the botanic gardens and Carolina Rediviva.
INTRODUCTION
Welcome to the next installment in my series of posts about my recent holiday in Sweden. This post deals with the start of the full day I had at my disposal in Uppsala.
PREPARATIONS
Although I was booked in for a second night in my dorm room I still had to do some sorting out before setting forth to continue my explorations of Uppsala – I stowed my larger bag in a recognized storage slot and put everything else I did not wish to carry with me, including most of my books, on my bed, which as I would be using it again the cleaning staff would not need access to. Having thus ensured that the staff would be able to do their jobs with no obstruction it was time to set off. My initial target was the Linnaeus Museum,the former home of Carolus Linnaeus, but that was closed when I got there.
My next target was the…
THE BOTANIC GARDENS
The Botanic Gardens in Uppsala have an entrance just opposite the Carolina Rediviva which features later in this post and at their other extremity abut on to the grounds of the Evolution Museet.
THE START: FORMAL GARDENS
If you enter the gardens (admission free) at the Carolina Rediviva end you are first greeted with a very formal looking and generously spaced garden which reveals nothing of what lies ahead.
The first two pictures were taken just before I entered the botanic gardens
The view from the entrace.
THE SECOND SECTION – A VARIETY OF GARDEN TYPES
The second section of the botanic gardens offers much more by way of variation. I did not venture into the greenhouse like building that houses the tropical plants, but everything else that was there to be seen I did see. Here are some photographs from this area…
Deep within this second section of the botanic gardens is a real treasure…
A SMALL EDUCATIONAL SECTION
I was drawn towards this subsection by the only indications of its existence to be visible at a distance – two information boards and a very distinctive sculpture. As I soon found out, these were just the tip of the iceberg…
The first two pictures show the information boards
This is the sculpture – a giant model of DNA, as revealed by the work of Watson, Crick AND Franklin (Rosalind Franklin’s work was shown to Watson & Crick without her consent even being sought, much less given, and enabled them to complete their own work, so at the time she did not receive the credit she was due).On the ground in front of the sculpture is this mosaic showing the chemical formula.
There are also several other mosaics.
Viewed from the outside this is what this little subsection looks like.
I concluded by visit to the botanic gardens with…
SOME FINAL PHOTOS
Here are the last of the photos I took in the botanic gardens…
THE EVOLUTION MUSEUM: A PLEASURE DENIED
I had been looking forward to seeing what the Evolution Museum had to offer (a natural history museum in the home town of Carolus Linnaeus – surely it must be good). Unfortunately, I discovered that it was closed for renovations, so I missed out on seeing exhibits that include the largest collection of dinosaur skeletons anywhere in the Nordic countries. Making my way back towards to the town centre to visit the old home of the aforementioned Linnaeus I paid a visit to…
THE GREAT LIBRARY OF UPPSALA
The Carolina Rediviva to give it its proper name is home to 5,000,000 volumes. On the ground floor is a small exhibit of its greatest treasures, the centre piece of which is the ‘Silver Bible’, a 1,500 year old bible which was captured by the Swedes from Prague in 1648. A 17th century Swedish goldsmith crafted the cover that now adorns it and gives it its name. I do not have a photograph of it because after I had taken three photographs of the exhibits I was told that photography is not allowed due to the potential damage done by flashes (I never use the flash anyway, but it was clear that I could not win the argument). However, while I fully accept the argument for banning flash photography in such a place, a blanket ban on photography seems excessive (the Uppsala University museum, which I covered in this post, takes the sensible course of banning flash photography but permitting photography without flash). Here are my photographs from the Carolina Rediviva…
These last three photos were the ones i took inside the Carolina Rediviva before being stopped from taking photographs.
The start of the story of my journey along Inlandsbanan, a sub-series within my series of posts about my recent holiday in Sweden.
INTRODUCTION
Welcome to the start of the story of my journey along the Inlandsbanan, a sub-series within my series of posts about my recent holiday in Sweden.
ROUGH GUIDE TO SWEDEN FAILS
Before getting into the main meat of this post, a few brief comments about The Rough Guide to Sweden, with which I had been equipped. My relationship with this tome got off to poor start when my very first attempt to locate information, about the town of Trosa, where one of my fellow bloggers lives drew a complete blank. Thus I was already less than impressed when I scanned the index for information about Inlandsbanan to see what they made of it and for the second straight time drew a blank. Although subsequent visits to the pages of this book were less marked by failure, there was no real chance that the book would recover in my estimation and at best in reviewers terms it merits one star.
A BRIEF NOTE ON THE PHOTOGRAPHS
Many of the photographs you will see in this series of posts were taken through the windows of moving trains, and for both the second and third legs of the trip my seat was facing against the direction of travel. Therefore, remember when viewing these pictures that I was not able to capture by any means all of the things I wanted to.
THE JOURNEY
I was making two trips this day, first the subject of this post, and then after half an hour at Mora the journey onwards to Ostersund. The journey from Kristinehamn to Mora is part of the official Inlandsbanan route, but not run by Inlandsbanan stock – for this leg we travelled in an ordinary multi-carriage Sveriges Jarnvag train.
I settled into my very comfortable window seat (even second class on a Swedish train is quite luxurious to one used to British public transport) with my camera at the ready to take whatever pictures I could and other than my attempts to capture interesting sights the journey was uneventful until precisely at the scheduled time the train pulled into the platform at Mora to conclude its journey…
The long-awaited resumption of my series of posts about Sweden. This one sets the scene for a number of posts about my travels on Inlandsbanan.
INTRODUCTION
It has been a long while since I last created a post, but I am now ready to go again with my accounts of my trip to beautiful Sweden. Having spent a very enjoyable few days in the company of my cousin and his fiance (see here for more details) it was time for me to make use of my one-country inter-rail pass, allowing up to eight days worth of rail travel in Sweden.
THE PROLOGUE TO INLANDSBANAN
My first journey on my inter-rail pass was a short hop of just over two hours from Stockholm to Kristinehamn where I would stay overnight before experiencing Inlandsbanan on days two and three of this part of the holiday (the distance from Kristinehman to the northern outpost of Gallivare, pronounced yell-ee-vara, is 1,364km which converts to roughly 850 miles).
At this stage I had not booked anything in advance, a mistake that I learned from after the experiences both on the train and at Kristinehamn, where I paid far more for a room than I ought to have done. Indeed one of the things I did in my room in Kristinehamn was make use of the wifi to book seats on three legs of Inlandsbanan and rooms in Ostersund fot the following night and then for two nights in Gallivare, although this latter did not work out, of which more anon.
The difficulties caused by my failure to reserve a seat on the train notwithstanding, I did get some pictures on the journey…
KRISTINEHAMN
I did some exploring in this pretty little town once I was settled. Here are my pictures from Kristinehamn…
Many Swedish stations feature this kind of diagram somewhere.
Having produced this little post I will start, probably tomorrow, on a succession of posts detailing the Inlandsbanan experience…
No pics today, though I have a vast and ever-growing number on my camera to edit. A combination of factors puts me in a position where the next time I will be able to be on he computer long enough for serious posting will not be before Gothenburg, where I overnight between the 10th and 11 (I am currently in Uppsala and will travel to Malmo for two night stay at a cheap hostel there tomorrow).
To look forward to you have the following:
Kristinehamn – one post
Inlandsbanan (one of the world’s great railway experiences) – multiple posts
Gallivare – the story of a night spent outside in the arctic circle
Lulea – several posts
Uppsala – several posts (pos. including a special on that city’s most famous son Carolus Linnaeus also known as Carl Von Linne)
I expect Malmo and Gothenburg to yield at least a post a piece, and my last full day in Sweden, in Stockholm to yield another.
The first post about my travels in Sweden, with lots of photographs.
INTRODUCTION
This is the first in what will be a series of posts about Sweden, where I am currently on holiday. If you enjoy this post I recommend that you make Anna’s blog your next port of call.
AN EMBARRASSMENT OF RICHES
Although I have only been in Sweden since Friday night, I already have a huge number of stunning pictures to share. For this first part of my stay I have been in the company of a cousin and his Swedish fiancee Ida. My cousin met me at Stockholm central bus station (Skavsta airport, where my flight landed is too far out of town for him to meet me there, so I got the Flygbussarna into town on Friday night. On Saturday we travelled to an island that has been owned by Ida’s family for some time. This journey entailed a bus to Stavsnas, a boat out to the nearest island reachable by commercial boat, and a walk across said island, on the other side of which we met Ida who rowed us across the sound to the island on which we would be staying. Here are a few pictures from this part of the stay…
These first couple of pictures were taken through the window of an aeroplane from high above.
The remainder were taken either from the bus to Stavsnas or the ferry.
The Island
This Island has no flushing toilets, and save for the main house no running water. It only got electricity in the 1940s. The sea is lovely to swim in, as I can attest from personal experience. We start with the house itself…
Here some pictures from inside the house…
I will be looking at more detail at the insect life I have encountered in a future post, but to whet the appetite here is a rare butterfly whose English name is Apollo…
Now, some general pictures taken while on the island…
As a lead up to the next section, here is a map of the Stockholm Archipelago.
SAILINGTHE STOCKHOLM ARCHIPELAGO IN AN OPEN BOAT
Richard and Ida had too much stuff to take back to their flat in Stockholm for the way we had reached the island to be appropriate, so we were escorted by private boat, along with Ida’s brother and his daughter. Here are some pictures from the Stockholm Archipelago…
Lars (skipper of the boat), setting off on his return journey to the island from Stavsnas
Stavsnas to Stockholm
The last stage of the journey to the flat in which I write this, before heading off later today to catch a train to Kristinehamn, southern terminal of Inlandsbanan was by bus and tunnelbahn (the Stockholm Undergound, which I will be covering in a later post) yielded a few more pictures…
These last six pictures feature central Stockholm, as seen from the bus as it approached Slussen.
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