Caliban – Opinion and Righteous Anger

It’s spelt Gothenburg in English, but pronounced yuh-te-bory in Swedish; just so you know.

In the end, we took a slight variation on my alternative route and travelled 480 km today. We’re now a mere 1093 km from home.

It was a pleasant enough drive from Stockholm, though with a few too many single lane 90 kmh stretches for my liking.

We rolled into town just after five, so it was dark by the time we’d unloaded the bags, checked in, parked the car and headed out for dinner. Already, though, one can sense that this city has a very different feel to it than Stockholm. My first impression is that the old town has been much less well preserved.

It was several degrees warmer today than yesterday. Although still cold, it felt like the beginning of spring when compared to the last few days.

We really have only tomorrow to look around this city before heading to Hamburg on Saturday, so we aim to get up on time, eat breakfast and get out on the streets.

Time to grab some kip.

Today was another Icelandic jumper day. Happily, I had mine with me, so got another day’s wear out of it.

We spent the entire day at Skansen, although a good chunk of the morning was spent walking over to Djurgården, which entailed waiting for Eloïse as she climbed on pretty much every bench and other obstacle along the way.

The weather was glorious sunshine again, with just a few wisps of cloud overhead. Beautiful.

Skansen is the original open air museum, i.e. the one that put the word skansen in the English language. Being the first, it’s naturally also the oldest open air museum in the world.

Various buildings from different ages and parts of Sweden have been moved intact to this museum, so that we, today, may gain a better understanding of how our Swedish predecessors lived.

It’s not just a collection of old buildings, though; Skansen is also home to a zoo, which includes ponies that the children can ride. Eloïse confidently climbed onto a pony and was led around the paths for several minutes, while Papa scurried to take photos. I think that was probably the high point of the day for all of us.

By the end of the day, we were pretty knackered, so instead of walking home, we took the ferry from Allmänna grand back to Slussen.

Dinner was at the excellent Fyra Knop crêperie. Twice before, we’d tried to get in there, but it had been fully booked. Today, we had the presence of mind to call it from Skansen and make a reservation. We weren’t disappointed. The place is already packed out by 18:00 every day of the week, so be sure to reserve if you want to eat there. I highly recommend it.

It’s with quite some sadness that we leave Stockholm behind us tomorrow. We could fill another day here with no trouble, but we’ve done most of what we set out to and, in any case, feel sure we’ll return. We want to spend time in the archipelago and then head north to see some more of this huge country. And then there’s the ABBA museum opening next year, too.

So, tomorrow we drive to Göteborg. We’re not sure yet whether we’ll take the obvious route or a slightly longer one, which avoids retracing our steps along the E4 to Jönköping. Let’s see what time we can get out of here tomorrow.

I’m not sure if we’ll have any Internet access at the next hotel, so this could well be the last entry until we get home on Sunday.

We spend Thursday and Friday night in Göteborg, then have a very long drive on Saturday through Denmark to Hamburg in Germany. That will involve us taking the Rødby to Puttgarden ferry once more.

Then, on Sunday, we’ll drive the final leg of our journey from Hamburg back to Amsterdam.

So, that’s a lot of driving over the next four days; about 1450 km’ worth. The same distance on the outward journey was driven in two days out of twelve, which was a much nicer pace. Still, as long as the roads aren’t congested, it’ll be a largely enjoyable drive.

Yesterday’s brief glimpse of the sun during the last vestiges of daylight proved predictive of today’s weather: blue skies and glorious sun, all day long! The temperature was sub-zero, but who cares? It was fantastic weather.

This was the day we’d been waiting for to take to the water for the winter sightseeing tour. Unfortunately, this has been the mildest winter that Stockholm has seen since records began in 1760, so there was no ice for our boat to plough a path through, but the setting was a gorgeous one all the same.

The boat excursion took us as far as the closest island in the bewilderingly extensive Stockholm archipelago, namely the island of Fjäderholmarna. There, we turned and headed back to port.

They say that, if you took the Stockholm archipelago’s 2400 islands and laid their coastline out end to end, it would stretch 1/4 of the way around the world. You may not have heard much if anything about the Stockholm archipelago, but it’s apparently one of the biggest in the world. It’s supposed to be a thing of incredible beauty.

One thing’s for certain: we definitely intend to come back in warmer weather and see the archipelago at its best.

After the excellent boat tour, we had lunch and then took Eloïse to Junibacken, a children’s house on Djurgården. Here, the worlds of many Swedish children’s characters are recreated, including Pippi Longstocking’s Villa Villekulla.

Eloïse had a great time at the Junibacken, including attending a children’s theatrical performance at the end of the day. She didn’t seem to mind that it was all in Swedish and sat glued to her seat, watching the story unfold on stage.

Incidentally, I mentioned a few days ago in my blog entry about the Music Museum that ABBA really deserve a museum in their own right. Well, I learned today that such a museum will be opening its doors in 2009.

I’m sad to say that tomorrow will mark our last day in Stockholm. It’s been a tremendous first visit and we’re eager to come back again soon. Eloïse apparently spontaneously announced to Sarah today that she’s going to move her, so she’s evidently enjoyed herself here, too.

What Americans call Thousand Island dressing is known in Sweden as Rhode Island dressing. That’s a conversation stopper for your next party, if ever there was one.

I forgot to preface this entry by saying that the content would be of interest only to those who hail from Rhode Island (or one of those in the Thousand Island group, wherever that may be).

Light drizzle, followed by snow, leading into a cloudy dry spell, culminating in the sun peeking through scant patches of blue at the very end of the day. That was today’s weather in a nutshell. The temperature hovered around zero all day.

The day started with a walk to the neighbourhood of Norrmalm, which was quite distinct from Södermalm and obviously completely different to Gamla Stan. Norrmalm is full of big department stores and clothes shops, such as H&M. (I hadn’t even realised that H&M was of Swedish origin until this trip.)

Norrmalm didn’t hold much for us. The area is much the same as any other large European shopping area. On the other hand, it’s certainly not an ugly part of town.

We stopped at the Hästens shop on Regeringsgatan. Well, how can you come to Sweden and not visit Hästens? That was our thought, at least. We left with a new sheet and a pair of pyjamas for Eloïse., but not before admiring the 462,000 kr. (about €49,500: slighly cheaper than back home!) costing Vividus.

We then walked east to the neighbourhood of Östermalm, which again, was very distinct from Stockholm’s other neighbourhoods.

After lunch, we briefly stopped at the hotel to drop off a few things and then went back to Södermalm for a walking tour. This took in some fantastic views of the city and later carried us through the newer residential areas of this neighbourhood.

I absolutely adore Stockholm; it bears repeating.

If I were 24 again, sick to death of life in England, and ready to move away, would I still choose Amsterdam? As poorly travelled as I was, it was the obvious choice at the time, but Stockholm could give Amsterdam a run for its money on many counts.

I love Reykjavík, too, and have often wondered how life might have turned out if I’d moved there in my twenties instead, but Stockholm has Reykjavík beaten in several significant ways. It’s a far more beautiful city, for one thing.

One thing’s for certain: If I were 24 again and living in England today, I’d still be packing my bags and getting ready to leave. That country seems bleaker today — if that’s possible — than it did even in 1991.

But, armed with the knowledge I have now, would I still move to lovely Amsterdam? It’s an intriguing question, complicated by the fact that The Netherlands today is not the same country, either socially or politically, that it was in 1991; and I have no idea in which significant ways Sweden has changed during the same period.

Travel always evokes these ponderous moods in me.

It’s not all good news here, of course. There are fewer bikers, for example, and I have yet to see a single bakfiets. Incidentally, that was one thing the otherwise lacklustre Copenhagen had right: even the postmen there rode bakfietsen, which makes perfect sense in their profession.

Stockholm has hills, too, a notion that is a real novelty to me these days. They really add character, although they also go some way towards explaining the lesser number of cyclists.

Anyway, while five days in Copenhagen were more than enough, after three days here we already find ourselves wondering how we’re going to cram everything into the next and last couple of days. One comforting thought is that it’s so easy to return, either by car or plane.

Life on the northern European mainland is good, wherever you happen to be.