“It’s a big hole in the ground.” I think “underwhelmed” is a good word for my first impression of the Falun Copper Mine in eastern Sweden. We were on our way south on a road trip from the northernmost part of Norway back home to the Netherlands after our Hurtigruten cruise up the Norwegian coast….
Some UNESCO sites aren’t famous works of architecture like Himeji Castle in Japan or the 16th century canal ring of Amsterdam, for example, or ancient historical monuments like Petra in Jordan or Baalbek in Lebanon. Some are more modest, less showy, and exemplify local culture and crafts. The Decorated Farmhouses of Hälsingland, Sweden, are a…
Back in the 17th century, not long after the Reformation turned Sweden Protestant, a new law required church attendance, depending on one’s distance from the church. People up in the cold north of Sweden, despite living on widely-scattered farms far from the nearest church, still had to get to church. Disclosure: This article contain affiliate…
Admit it: You like ABBA. Okay, maybe you don’t like ABBA, but you catch yourself singing along when you hear an ABBA song on the radio. Disclosure: I received free admission to the ABBA museum as part of a TBEX conference in Stockholm. All opinions, however, are my own. A second disclosure: This article contains…
Öster Malma Castle and Wildlife Park, which I visited as part of a familiarization tour organized by Visit Sörmland and Visit Sweden, includes a beautiful estate house and a large wildlife park. It is more modest (read: smaller) than the others we visited, like Gripsholm, Nynäs and Sparreholms, but was nevertheless interesting. Built in the 1600s,…
As you’ve probably guessed from my posts about Sweden, my trip was a great success. I took part in two familiarization tours: one before and one after the TBEX conference. The first was an introduction to the Stockholm archipelago and Swedish military history. In the second, I visited several manor houses and castles in the southern province of Sörmland….
The very impressive Nynäs manor house (pronounced new-nahs) is about a 30 minute drive from Nyköping. What makes this manor house special is that it was occupied continuously from when it was completed in the 1680s until 1984. In that year, the Gripenstedt family, who had owned it since the 1850s, sold it and all…
Budget airlines seek out secondary airports because the landing fees are lower. Skavsta airport, an hour outside of Stockholm, is one of these: both Ryanair and Wizz Air fly to Skavsta. Most visitors get on the express bus to Stockholm straight from their plane. That is a mistake. While I had booked a cheap Ryanair…
Back in the 1970s, the Swedish Parliament planned to build a garage underground next to the Parliament building in Stockholm. As often happens in European cities, the construction stopped when excavation uncovered the remains of what turned out to be the original medieval center of Stockholm. For two years, archeologists excavated and studied the city wall, built by…
Or: Both of these statements are true. The fact is that most of us only have limited time when we travel, and, if you’re like me, you want to see as much as possible in that limited time. Open-air museums help us cut corners by letting us see buildings from a wide area assembled in…
Exploring the Nordic Museum in Stockholm reminded me of some of the small-town museums I’ve visited before. Often a seemingly random collection of objects donated by residents or local companies, they offer insight into the area’s culture and history. I enjoy them because their “smallness” is often quite amusing. The Nordic Museum struck me as…
It surprised me that the lovely town of Mariefred is only about 40 kilometers east of Stockholm, Sweden. It seems much further because it is so different. “Only” 40 kilometers is a bit misleading, however, given that most of what lies in between is water and islands. Traveling there by road, as I did recently on…
As part of a blogger familiarization tour in July, I visited a manor house called Sparreholms Slott, in the region called Sörmland, south of Stockholm, Sweden. Dating to the mid-1700s and renovated in the 1820s and again in the 1890s, it looks, inside as well as out, like a slice out of Downton Abbey’s world….
The old center of Stockholm, on the island of Gamla Stan, swarms with tourists—and probably a few locals too—in the months of July and August. Among the sights they visit is a medieval-era church called Storkyrkan. What few seem to know is that Storkyrkan also offers guided tours twice a day up its clock tower,…
In July, I was fortunate to participate in a short blogger trip on the theme of “Stockholm archipelago – close yet a world away.” We stayed on a relatively unknown island called Nässlingen, but also visited two fortresses to learn a bit about Swedish military history. Disclosure: I took part in this military history tour…
Ever notice how people love to hear about failed projects? I call it “epic fail tourism.” The most obvious example is the Titanic, about which there are numerous museums around the world (Belfast, Ireland, where the Titanic was built; Branson, Missouri; Pigeon Forge, Tennessee; Orlando, Florida; Southampton, England, where many victims were from; and many…
What if you could buy your own island? You’re probably picturing a palm-tree-lined beach on a tropical island, right? That’s not what Johan Pedersén wanted. Instead, he bought Nässlingen, one of the 30,000 islands in the Stockholm archipelago in Sweden. I was fortunate enough to be able to visit Nässlingen recently with a group of…
Things I like about Sweden, written on my first trip there, but they still apply!