Nordic Adventure, Part 2: Stockholm

On June 19, 2014January 26, 2020 By StevenIn International Travel - The Nordics9 Comments

After spending a couple of days in Helsinki, I went on to the next stop in my trip: Stockholm, Sweden. Stockholm is a beautiful city, which may be why they have more gypsy beggars per square meter than any other city I’ve seen on this continent. As with Helsinki, my photographs in this post aren’t in chronological order.

The northern part of the old city in Stockholm is an island called Gamla Stan. The Royal Palace and Parliament are in Gamla Stan, along with lots of narrow streets and cobblestone. Much of it dates from the 1600s and 1700s. For example:

There are also Viking rune stones in various places around Stockholm. This one is actually embedded into the foundation of a building in Gamla Stan because someone in the distant past decided to relocate it from its original resting place. Rune stones are often memorials to the dead, but this is not always the case. This particular stone is a fragment; the part which is readable translates to “Torsten and Frögunn had this stone raised after their son.”

This is Tyska Kyrkan, the old German church. The section of Gamla Stan containing this church has streets named after German iron merchants and craftsmen who settled in the city

This is the narrowest street in Stockholm, at a width of 90 centimeters.

This is one of the metro stops in Stockholm near my hotel in Karlaplan. I just thought this was a really nifty looking metro station.

This building is the Town Hall. The thing at the top is three crowns, which is a commonly used logo for the city.

Of course you can climb the town hall. It’s a lot of steps, but it’s well worth it because you get a view like this.

Off in the distance, you can see the Ericsson Globe, which is a concert venue. It also has a nifty attraction attached called SkyView, which I visited later.

This is the SkyView at the Ericsson Globe. There are two spherical capsules on custom-built tracks which go up the side of the building to get a 360 degree view of Stockholm from the top. This is fabulous, but it’s pretty far outside the center of the city, so the view isn’t as nifty as I would have hoped. Still, this was worth it for me because: tall places!

Inside the Town Hall tower, there are artifacts from the history of the city. I especially liked the sculpture of the very tall warrior.

The Djurgården is an entire island which was once a royal hunting ground. In modern times, the Skansen open air park, the ABBA Museum, and the amusement park Gröna Lund are on this island, along with the Vasa Museum which I mention below. Sometime in the past, a king decided to open the park to visitors, and the Blue Gate was erected. It has been moved several times, but it is believed that the current location is near to the original one.

The amusement park Gröna Lund, as seen from the water. The park is seasonal, and I was in Stockholm too soon to go inside.

The Vasa Museum is one of the most popular tourist attractions in Sweden. Here’s why: The Vasa is a warship which set sail on her maiden voyage on August 10, 1628, and about a half hour into the trip, she sank into Stockholm Harbour. 333 years later, she was raised, restored, and a museum was built around her. The vessel is something like 98% original parts with a coat of sealant for the wood, but they had to redo all the rope bits.

There are models showing the process of raising the Vasa from the bottom of the harbor.

The ship is huge.

The original mainsail was not intact enough to stay on the displayed vessel, but they put it in an environmentally controlled glass case so you can still see it.

I did not actually go past the lobby of the Abba Museum because it was too late in the day, but I was sorely tempted to come back.

Meanwhile, back in Gamla Stan, the Nobel Museum contains details about the Nobel Prize and its founder, Alfred Nobel. I had no idea before this trip that Alfred Nobel invented dynamite and gelignite, or that he owned armament factories. He was once nicknamed the Merchant of Death, despite being a pacifist.

Each of the more than 800 Laureates who has been awarded a Nobel Prize so far is presented in a random order, with a portrait and a prize citation. The portraits move around the museum on a spiral track that loops back to the museum’s center.

This sculpture represents Orpheus going to hell to bring back Eurydice, surrounded by eight male and female figures. It stands in front of the Concert Hall at Hötorget in central Stockholm. One of the male figures has the facial features of Beethoven because the sculptor really liked Beethoven. I saw this sculpture briefly from a moving bus and I liked it so much that I went back on foot later so that I could get a good picture.

This sculpture, called Non-violence, is used in various places to represent peace. It was originally sculpted after John Lennon was assassinated, and there are sixteen of them around the world. Three of them are in different places around Stockholm.

This is a typical street in Gamla Stan. I don’t actually recall why I specifically took this photo.

This is the Swedish Parliament in Gamla Stan.

Sergel’s Tor is a popular meeting place. It’s connected to the main train station for Stockholm, along with shopping, dining, public transportation, and a really nifty tall sculpture thingie. Also, the building to the right is called the Kulturhuset- it has exhibitions, a children’s library, and several restaurants.

One of the tours I took while in Stockholm was the Free Tour with tour guide Ira. Free Tour Stockholm offers old city and regular city tours, and the whole thing is free- they work for tips. It was very informative. In retrospect, I don’t think the girl in the glasses wanted very much to be in my photograph.

Gustaf Dalén’s lighthouse. This little structure was set up in 1912. Dalén won a Nobel Prize in physics for his work on regulators in lighthouses and buoys. When this lighthouse was electrified in 1980, it was discovered that the sun valve had been working continuously since 1912 without the need for an overhaul.

If you have to have a permanent crane on your waterfront, why not paint it to look like a giraffe?

The Swedish Central Bank, Sveriges Riksbank, is the oldest central bank in the world. It was founded in 1668. This is not the original structure, though. They moved here in the 1990s, I believe.

The Monarchy in Sweden is just chockablock with Carls and Gustavs. This plaza is Gustav Adolfs Torg.

This quiet pleasant little circular area is offset from Gamla Stan- you have to walk through a passageway that looks a bit like a hallway to reach it. It’s the sort of thing you find if you’re willing to explore a tiny bit off side streets and alleys.

The Royal Palace in Gamla Stan is the “official” place of residence for the royal family, but they don’t really stay there. They do have official events there, and they do receive state visitors there. There are, naturally, Royal Guard members standing and marching in front of the Palace.

This is a big church that gets used for big events. After a few years in Europe, the Big Important Churches are kind of starting to run together.

This statue is called “Iron Boy.” It’s also called “Boy looking at the moon.” The statue is only fifteen centimeters tall, and is considered Stockholm’s smallest public monument. The Iron Boy is behind a church and is very easy to miss. People leave coins and rub his head for luck. There’s also a legend that he helps women become pregnant, but it’s entirely possible that our tour guide was just messing with us. I would not have seen this without Free Tour Stockholm’s guidance.

St. George and the Dragon.

These buildings are in the same square as the Nobel Prize museum, and they each have a pastry restaurant at their base.

Have you ever been to Stockholm?

Tiger & Turtle – Magic Mountain

On June 5, 2014May 30, 2020 By StevenIn International Travel - Inside Germany7 Comments

In Duisburg, Germany, there is an unusual structure called Tiger & Turtle – Magic Mountain. It looks for all the world like a roller coaster, but it’s actually stairs, and it’s considered a sculpture. You can climb on all parts of it except the inverted portion of the loop, for obvious reasons.

We never did figure out why they named it Tiger & Turtle.

Have you ever been to Tiger & Turtle? Why do you think it was given that name?

Scheveningen, The Hague

On June 2, 2014January 26, 2020 By StevenIn International Travel - Europe6 Comments

When we went to Keukenhof for the tulip festival and flower parade, we stayed in Scheveningen, a district of the Hague which borders the North Sea. It contains a nice seaside resort area.

Before we went, I was convinced that the name of the place sounded a little bit like a lawnmower starting up. I was wrong, though. Click play on the sound bar below to hear what it really sounds like.

The three of us stayed at a nice hotel called the Boulevard Hotel. We wanted to stay near the ocean, and it was one of the few places in our price range that had a room with three beds. My bed actually folded up into a console when not occupied. Jenny said I looked a little bit like Harry Potter under the stairs when I was on this.

As soon as we dropped our stuff off in the hotel room, we walked back out to check out the beach and boardwalk, and to find some dinner. It was windy, but amazing.

We stopped at ‘t Pannekoekenhuisje, a pancake house, for dinner. When we were walking in, this adorable little moppet was playing in an alligator and I couldn’t resist taking pictures. Cute, eh?

Anyway, back to the pancake house. In the Netherlands, pancake houses aren’t much like iHop or anything that most Americans are used to. For one thing, the pancakes are served as one ENORMOUS pancake that tends to be larger than the plate it’s served on. For another thing, not all pancakes are sweet; some are savory. Mine had mushrooms, garlic, and bacon.

After dinner, there was more walking around the boardwalk- this far north, the sun doesn’t set until pretty late, so we had plenty of daylight. I was tickled by some of the touristy stuff going on here.

I also think it’s kind of brilliant that spaced along the beach at intervals were poles with cartoon animals, the better to help children remember where their family is set up. The beach wasn’t very crowded when we were there, but I can imagine that on a warmer day it would be utterly slammed with people.

There’s a seaside trampoline park here! I was tempted to go for a bounce.

Not far from our hotel is a pretty amazing sculpture garden. We missed it on our first trip down the beach because it’s up on the sidewalk and we were down on the beach. On the way back to the hotel, however, it was impossible to miss. The first two visible statues are enormously tall.

This was one of my favorites: the traditional boy with his finger in a dike.

Most of these were based in fairy tales. In fact, the entire sculpture garden is called SprookjesBeelden aan Zee (Fairytale Sculptures by the Sea) and it contains 23 sculptures by American sculptor Tom Otterness.

The sculpture garden is part of the Museum Beelden aan Zee, which is dedicated to sculpture and contains roughly one thousand different sculptures. This one is called Crying Giant.

Some of them are tiny by comparison. This one was just a few inches tall.

The fable of the Lion and the Mouse. The lion had previously allowed the mouse to go free, and the mouse returned the favor later, after the lion had been captured by hunters.

The Herring Eater, a twelve meter tall statue.

I think we all know what this one is.

I’m not sure which fairy tale this represents.

These two are looking up at the Herring Eater. I love the tiny ones hanging out with the midsized ones.

Hansel and Gretel, trapped in a cage. The one in the background that I did not capture fully is also Hansel and Gretel, after they’ve been fattened up.

I really enjoyed these whimsical statues.

This one was my favorite.

Gulliver. I didn’t even notice the Lilliputian by his feet until Jenny pointed it out to me later.

I kept walking for a while after I finished looking at the sculpture garden. I thought this was quite colorful.

Further down the beach is a traditional lighthouse and a memorial statue. I haven’t been able to learn exactly what this is for, but the text on it says November 1813.

I’ll leave you with one last look out at the North Sea before I close up this post.

Have you ever been to Scheveningen?

Brussels, Belgium

On May 12, 2014January 26, 2020 By StevenIn International Travel - Europe8 Comments

My trip to Belgium included a bunch of time spent in Brussels, the de facto capital of the European Union. It’s a fascinating city. I arrived via high speed train to the city around 5:30 in the afternoon. Walking to my hotel from the station, I found something interesting in less than ten minutes- this building’s angel/demon stone-work was just fascinating to me.

After I dropped my stuff off at the hotel, I went back out with my camera to see a bit of the city. I also had a specific goal in mind, but I’ll get to that in a moment. On the walk into the city, I found this Pop-Up Restaurant. It was set up temporarily in front of the Le Monnaie De Munt, a rather nifty looking theater. The Pop-Up Restaurant was set up so they could film a television show, according to the signage. I briefly considered trying to get a table before moving on.

Walking further toward the Grand Place, I spotted this rather amusingly named restaurant. It had pretty typical food on the menu and I almost had dinner there one evening, but changed my mind at the last minute. Also, I thought the eggs were regular decoration, but they were just there because it was Easter weekend.

I wandered from there into the Grand Place. It’s pretty hard to miss this enormous square. The Town Hall has an enormous pointy bit. I did not climb the pointy bit, as you had to make a reservation in advance to do so.

I mentioned above that I had a specific goal in mind for my walk through the city on the first evening. Most everyone has heard of Manneken Pis, the famous statue of the little boy peeing. That statue is widely associated with Brussels, and is one of the symbols of the city. There are two more peeing statues, though: Jeanneke Pis, a little girl peeing, was put up in 1987, and Zinneke Pis, a dog peeing, was put up in 1998. I decided when I left the hotel that I wanted to find all three before sundown.

Zinneke Pis was the first one I found. The tile Space Invaders art drew my attention to the corner before I spotted the dog on the corner.

Someone asked me if it was a male or female dog. I can say with authority that it is most decidedly a male dog. You just can’t see it in this camera angle.

Next up is the Manneken Pis. This one is marked on sightseeing signs and tourist maps, because it’s the most famous of the three. This fountain was erected in 1619, and they dress it up in various costumes several times per week. There was no costume while I was there, which surprised me because it was Easter weekend.

This is not the only Manneken Pis; there are others in various cities in Belgium, and one in Tokushima, Japan which was a gift from the Belgian embassy.

I saw so many replicas while I was in the city, including one made all of chocolate, and this one dressed up for the World Cup later this year.

Moving on from the Manneken Pis, I found my way next to Jeanneke Pis, erected in 1987 very close to the Rue des Bouchers, which is a narrow street full of restaurants. Jeanneke Pis is not far from the Grand Place, and it is regrettably behind locked iron bars which makes getting a good picture of her somewhat difficult.

Jeanneke Pis is basically across the street from the Delirium Tremens Beer Bar and Cafe, which made this a perfect time to stop for a nice Belgian beer before dinner.

I tried the Delirium Nocturnum, a strong delicious dark beer with an 8.50% alcohol by volume. Did I mention it was delicious?

After leaving Delirium, I decided to look for some dinner before retiring for the night. Passing by it, I saw the Beurs, the Brussels Stock Exchange, which is the location of the Art of the Brick Lego art exhibit. I’ll come back to this in another post, because I checked out this exhibit right before I left Brussels two days later.

The next day, it was time for my actual tour of Brussels, led by a professional tour guide. It started in the Grand Place, so here’s another view of that large plaza.

While I was waiting for the tour to start, I had a Belgian waffle covered in powdered sugar. The powdered sugar made me cough, which caused me to be completely enveloped in a cloud of white powder.

Delicious high comedy.

Moving on, we walked past the Cathédrale des Saints Michel et Gudule (Cathedral of St. Michael and St. Gudula,) which was completed in 1519.

This is a monument to King Leopold I, the first king of the Belgians. He ruled from 1831 to 1865.

This is at the base of a very tall monument, but none of my other pictures came out very well. The structure is the Colonne des Congrés (the Congress Column.) The four corners are statues representing the four freedoms of Belgium- Freedom of the press, of religion, of education, and of association.

The flame is atop a Belgian Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, from World War I.

Moving on, we visited the Parliamentarium’s visitor’s center, which is all about the European Union’s Parliament and how it governs. It was pretty neat, actually. This first section represents the main structures in the three governing cities of the EU- Brussels, Luxembourg, and Strasbourg.

How far is it to your home city? Vienna’s only 917 kilometers away…

The exhibit had a detailed model of the European Parliament’s seating arrangement. Interestingly, the seating is not by nation, it’s by political affiliation.

I missed all but the last three minutes of this film about how the Parliament makes decisions because I was fascinated by shiny objects on the other side of the hall. It looked interesting, though.

On the way back from the Parliamentarium, we passed the Triumphal Arch in the Parc du Cinquantenaire, but alas, we didn’t actually go into the Jubilee Park, so this is the best photograph I took of the Arch.

This… this is just an enormously large flower pot that amused me.

I ate at two different restaurant chains that I quite enjoyed while I was in Brussels. The first was called Quick. The face of the restaurant was emblazoned with a giant lit up sign that said “Quality Burger Restaurant,” and the sign made me skeptical enough to try it. (“Challenge accepted!“) It turns out that it’s got all the soul that McDonald’s has given up over the years, and the burgers were delicious beyond all reason. The other restaurant that I tried was a healthy chain called Exki. This place was utterly delicious- it was a little like the Pret a Manger and Eat chains that are all over London, but with more hot prepared foods and a few other interesting choices like the Ubuntu cola in the picture below. (It was decent, but Coke is still better.) They name their sandwiches with people names, so my lunch as pictured below was John. The chocolate brownie in the background was so delicious.

I am excited beyond reason that they’re opening an Exki in New York City. You have no idea.

My next-door neighbor Lori sent me a link before I left for Brussels with a list of the top ten places to get a great view of Brussels. One of those places was a parking garage called Park 58. Entrance is free (because it’s a parking garage, not a tourist attraction,) and the elevator will take you right to the tenth floor. From there, you have a fantastic view in almost all directions. This is the view looking back toward the Grand Place.

On the other side, you can see clearly all the way to the Atomium. The Atomium is really cool, and I’ll talk about my visit there in another post.

This statue is near Grasmarkt. I didn’t remember to catch the plaque that explains it, but I quite dig the man’s mustache and his friendly dog.

Don Quixote and Sancho Panza? Yup! I’m not sure why it’s in Brussels, but it’s in Place D’Espagne, and it’s a replica of the original statue in Madrid.

Last, but certainly not least, Brussels is another city full of art. I kept noticing that the exposed sides of buildings were painted all over the city. I only snapped pictures of these four, and there was one more of a swashbuckler that I wanted to go back for, but I didn’t have time. I love that the buildings have this much character. These four are in different places all over the city:

Have you ever been to Brussels? What was your favorite thing about the city?

In Bruges

On May 5, 2014May 5, 2014 By StevenIn Life At Home10 Comments

I’ll be breaking up my Belgium and Luxembourg posts into smaller chunks and posting them out of sequence, because I took almost a thousand photographs in four days. I’m not going to post more than 20-30 pictures for any one post, but I still want to space it out a bit so that it’s not too overloading. So, onward!

My first Belgium post was the city of Bruges in Flanders, the northern part of Belgium. I haven’t seen the movie by the same name yet, but I’m pretty sure that referencing the movie’s title in a blog post about Bruges is a requirement in the Expat Blogger Bylaws. Bruges is the capital of West Flanders, where Ghent is the capital of East Flanders. For a country with relatively small geographic boundaries, there are an awful lot of subsections of Belgium. There are also a great many languages, since Belgium is officially bi-lingual. The northern parts speak Flemish, which is a bit like Dutch, and the southern parts speak French. There’s also a small German-speaking community on the eastern side of Belgium, and English is prevalent as well.

The main export of Bruges seems to be pretty photographs from tourists. If you arrive on a bus from Brussels, as I did, you might start out near Minnewater, or “Lake of Love.” The story goes that you will experience eternal love if you walk over the lake bridge with your partner. There’s a legend attached, and it’s explained in great detail on this site. Regardless of its efficacy as an aphrodisiac, I can’t argue that it’s a really pretty lake.

Also seen in Bruges: A very large swan and duck community. I took other pictures of large quantities of lounging swans, but this picture just looked nicer.

Not all of my pictures have important captions or details. Some were chosen just because it shows how nice the city is, and how nice a day we were having.

This is a “House of God” where a bunch of nuns used to live. This is a fairly common thing in Bruges. There was a lot of detail about this from the tour guide which I missed.

This is the courtyard inside the House of God.

…and this is why I missed what the tour guide was saying. I was too busy stalking a bee with my camera, because that’s how I roll. I quite like bees.

We took a boat tour later in the day, because it covers three or four kilometers of city canal and it’s quite pretty. This was not the boat I was on, but it’s a good shot of the type of boat- they really pack people onto these things. They offer life vests, but most of the canals are only a meter or two deep, so if you fell in you would probably survive quite easily.

I don’t really know why there’s a random Bogey statue here, but I thought it was kinda neat.

Picturesque street, walking in the direction of the Markt, the main market square.

One side of the Markt.

The opposite side of the Markt. This is the Stadthuis, or City Hall. In Germany, they’d call this a Rathaus.

Flag time! The one in the center is the flag of Belgium. It has the same colors as the German flag, but vertically and in a different sequence than Germany’s horizontally barred flag. The flag on the left is the flag of Flanders, and the one on the right, not really clearly visible in this picture, is the flag of the city.

Ever seen a hang drum? They’re kind of amazing if played well. This dude was set up in the courtyard behind the Belfry, the Markt’s big tower visible a few pictures further down.

This video is not the same hang drum player as the one in Bruges, but you can get a sense of what the instrument sounds like.

This is also in the Markt.

Throughout the day, I kept seeing people on tandem bicycles. I’ve never seen so many two-person bikes as I did in Belgium.

This is a picture from across the Markt. It’s the only shot where I managed to get the entire Belfry tower into the picture because most of my other photographs were taken from the base of the Belfry. I did not get to climb this one- the line to get in was longer than the amount of time I had.

I did some wandering from square to square. The pointy buildings in the center of this shot are typical of Bruges architecture.

Many of the cities have these metal relief maps, with braille on them. It’s rather ingenious, even though I can’t even imagine how a blind person would find their way through the maze of the city to find the braille map without assistance.

In other news, the facial expression on the blonde girl eating in the background is hilarious. I didn’t realize she was making that face until I was sorting my photos.

City squares always seem to have “floating” dudes trying to make some cash. This one was a little different though- normally they’re seated. They all have the giant weighted base and the staff going up to the left arm- I’m positive that’s what’s supporting his weight. This one was different in that he kept swinging his legs back and forth. He may have had stirrups or something. In any case, it’s a pretty striking illusion. If I hadn’t seen this five different ways in five different cities, I might not have spent so much time thinking about how it’s done.

This dog was so very happy. They kept feeding him!

There were displays of lace all over the city and I didn’t make the connection to Brussels Lace until I saw this woman actually sitting in her doorway making lace in real time.

In hindsight, I should have gotten some video- she was moving her hands incredibly fast.

Of all the pictures I took from the canal boat cruise part of the day, this is the very best one. This dog was snoozing in a window that was canal adjacent. It looked like the perfect place to have a nap.

On the walk back to the bus, we passed through a sculpture garden containing sculptures of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, by sculptor Rik Poot.

I’ll give you a moment to stop giggling about the man’s name.

So the one in the upper right is obviously Death, but I’m not certain of which is which on the others. Clockwise from Death, I believe it’s War, Famine, and Pestilence. I could easily be wrong though, and I didn’t think to photograph their labels while I was there.