Why be like the other sheep?
I had just one day to explore this small city in the north of Sweden.
I only had one day in Umeå and wanted to make the most of it. I’d arrived late the evening before and though I hadn’t had chance to really take it in, I’d liked what I’d seen. Continue reading “A Sunday in Umeå”
This museum is about everything Västerbotten
I was only in Umeå because that was where the bus ended up and it was where I could pick up the night train back to Stockholm. I’d spent the summer walking northern Sweden’s Kungsleden trail and now I was on my way home. Continue reading “Västerbottens Museum, Umeå”
The British in India Museum is hidden away in a warehouse in Nelson (Lancashire). It’s not signposted and is difficult to spot. We drove past it several times before we spotted the sign over a side door to the warehouse reception area. As it’s closed at the weekend I’d already waited a long time for the chance to see it and so was determined not to let its camouflaged location beat me. Hardly surprising really that it ranks at one of the top five least visited museums in Britain.
The museum started life as the private collection of Henry Nelson who had served in India in the 1940s. He came home with a suitcase of souvenirs and continued to develop his collection and his interest. By 1972 he had enough to open a museum.
The museum is as museums used to be. It smells musty and is crammed with artifacts and memorabilia; everything from a tiger (complete with black and white photo taken of the party who shot it) to medals, newspaper cuttings to weapons and clothes to model soldiers. There’s a lot of information to read and even more to see. We walked round several times, each time seeing things we hadn’t noticed first time round.
Originally the museum was housed in a building in Colne and it moved to its present location a few years ago after the death of its founder. His son now runs the museum, but it is a sideline to the warehouse. The entrance is shared with the warehouse reception. The man on reception walked us through to the museum and from then on we were left to our own devices. He told us that there are a lot more artifacts in storage, but it’s a massive job searching through everything and getting it all catalogued.
Although it seemed obvious that the museum could do with a full-time curator and a new roof, as well as a bigger space, part of me hopes it will never change. There aren’t many museums left like this and visiting it is an experience in itself. And I like that I’ve been to one of the least visited museums in the country.
I wonder what the number one least visited museum is? Maybe I could go there next?
Here’s a short clip of the museum I found online.
Can you recommend any unusual or little-visited museums?
My first Friday Flickr album is from Skansen Open-Air Museum in Stockholm. It was the world’s first open-air museum and is huge. AND it has bears!
As part of being super-organised with my new website (and being super-enthusiastic) I’ve decided to have a regular feature.
Yes, just like the real bloggers.
As I have an abundance of photos that I’m slowly trying to upload to Flickr, I thought I could do myself a favour and make my Flickr albums multi-functional by using them on here.
I’m also thinking that linking my social media accounts in this way might generate more readers and be good for my SEO. I sort of understand what SEO is and why it’s important, but actually I don’t really. Pearls of wisdom in the comments section below will be welcomed.
So, onto my first Friday Flickr (drummm rollll) …
It’s an album filled with the best of my photos from Skansen, a photogenic place if ever there was one.
Skansen can be found on the outskirts of Stockholm and was the world’s first open-air museum. It was opened in 1891 and has been growing ever since.
It showcases historic buildings from the full length of Sweden and also has a zoo and an aquarium. People dressed in periodic costume demonstrate crafts from times gone by like breadmaking and glass-blowing.
But best of all, I got to see bears. Real ones! They looked so cute and cuddly. Well, except for their huge claws. I think I’m probably glad I didn’t meet any in the wild when I walked the Kungsleden.
I spent a very long day wandering round and only stopped for one quick coffee (couldn’t miss out on fika, especially when it looked like this). I saw pretty much everything except the aquarium, but felt like I was rushing. I would have liked to have taken it slower and had more time to watch the animals. Two days would have been much better, but there were so many other things to see in Stockholm and my time was running out, so I couldn’t really justify it. I’d definitely go back again though.
Click on the image below to access the Flickr album.
The website for Skansen can be found here.
Following in the tracks of Selma Lagerlöf.
Selma Lagerlöf is one of Sweden’s classic authors. She lived from 1858 to 1940 and worked as a teacher until the Swedish royal family persuaded her to give up teaching and supported her financially so she could develop her writing career. (Note to self: write to Queen and ask her to support me to give up teaching so I can write full-time).
Although she’d been writing since childhood, she wasn’t published until 1890. Once published there was no stopping her and it was only five years later that the royals began supporting her along with the Swedish Academy.
She travelled and some of her novels are set in the places she visited such as Italy and Jerusalem. In 1909 she became the first woman to win the Nobel Prize for Literature.
I first came across her when I was researching my trip to Sweden and looking for books to read by Swedish authors who write outside of the Nordic-Noir genre (of which I’d already devoured massively).
The Wonderful Adventures of Nils, published in 1906, tells the story of a young boy who misbehaves and is rather nasty. He is shrunk by a passing elf and ends up on the back of his famly’s white goose just as it decides to join a flock of passing wild geese and migrate to the far north of Sweden.
The book is all about the adventures he has travelling the length and breadth of Sweden with the geese.
Lagerlöf was commissioned to write the book by the National Teachers’ Association and it was intended as a geography reader for schools. She spent three years researching wildlife, geography and folklore before eventually publishing the book in 1906.
Although the book was intended for children, its remit made it a useful resource for me. I learnt a lot from it, as well as enjoying the story and her style of writing. It was in this book that I first heard of Skansen, a place I made sure I visited and spent a wonderful day at when I was in Stockholm.
Selma moved to Falun in the Dalarna region of central Sweden in 1897. Consequently, the Dalarnas Museum in Falun has a permanent exhibition on her and her work, including a replica of her study.
How wonderful is this study? I want one just like it.
She lived on the hill overlooking the town on what just happened to be the street where the prison I was staying in was. I tried to find her house, but as far as I can make out it no longer exists. Which is probably why her study is in the museum.
As well as the exhibition on Selma Lagerlöf, the museum gave an interesting overview on the culture of the region.
Paintings pictured different aspects of the culture and daily life. There were some great ones of the mine in Falun.
The local traditional costume is so colourful and detailed.
Dala horses are iconic images of this region. They have been made and sold since the 17th century. Even today the genuine articles are still hand-carved and hand-painted in the traditional colours.
The horses are decorated in a folk art style known as kurbits. This style was used on material, walls, crockery … just about everything that could be painted or printed really.
But back to Selma … the more I learn about her, the more I think I have in common with her. I made a list:
So to continue following in her tracks, I just need to:
Don’t mock! It could happen!
A chance to nosey around the old home of one of Sweden’s most loved writers.
I didn’t know much about August Strindberg – I’d seen one of his plays, Miss Julie, performed last year – but that was about all I knew. So I can’t say I was going to visit his old apartment because I’m a big fan. The real reason was because I’m nosey and love seeing how other people live.
Over the years, August Strindberg occupied 24 homes in Stockholm. He moved into the Blue Tower shortly after it was built and stayed for four years. Even though he didn’t stay long, this is the home he’s probably most associated with as it’s the only one open to the public.
As a new-build, the apartment was full of mod-cons like a toilet and central heating. He didn’t have a kitchen, but his building did have a lift.
The original lift is still there and taking it is quite an experience. There are no automatic doors here. The passenger (is that what you call someone who takes a lift?) is responsible for sliding and locking into position the doors and gates. The dark wood panelling, pull down seat and gold mesh made me feel as though I was a character in an old film.
The rooms of his apartment are pretty much as they were in his day with most of the furniture having been his own.
As the apartment had no kitchen he either ate out or had food delivered.
My favourite room was his study. If I love noseying around people’s homes, I love even more seeing their desks. Unfortunately, this was the only part of the apartment behind glass. I still got a good look though.
Even though electricity was included amongst the mod cons in the apartment, Strinberg didn’t use electric lighting. His lamps were powered by kerosene and he was partial to candlesticks in the shape of naked female bodies.
He used the highest quality writing implements – his pen nibs were made from British steel, his ink was French and his paper hand-made.
As well as writing plays and novels, he was interested in science, astronomy, occultism, painting and photography.
The apartment adjoining his also forms part of the museum and this is set up like a ‘real’ museum with lots of artefacts and pictures and plenty of information about his life and work.
The street outside his apartment looked worth exploring too, but I had other places to be. I think this is an area well worth coming back to though.
Stuffed swans and seven types of biscuit. Those were the days.
I’m an anthropologist. I’ve even got a certificate to prove it.
I don’t use my anthropology officially in my day-t0-day life, but unofficially? I find it a great excuse for being nosey. I love finding out about how other people live and think, about their beliefs, culture and traditions. Learning about other cultures is one of reasons I love travel so much.
Whenever I’m in a city with a cultural museum I put it high on my list of must-see places.
The Nordiska Museet (Nordic Museum) in Stockholm is Sweden’s largest museum of cultural history, so of course I had to spend a few hours there.
It’s situated next door to Sweden’s biggest tourist attraction, Vasa, so I combined the two on the same day. They were both included in the 3 day Stockholm Pass I’d bought as well, so I didn’t have worry about separate admission costs.
Here’s the blurb from the website:
The Nordic Museum has exhibitions about life and work, trends and traditions, in Sweden from the 16th century to today. Our collections include clothes and fashion, textiles, furniture and interiors, jewellery, photography, folk art, glass and china. The Museum was founded in 1873 by Artur Hazelius.
I wasn’t sure how interesting this was going to be from the description. Clothes, jewellery and china aren’t amongst the things I find most scintillating, but as I was already in the area and it wasn’t going to cost me anything, it was worth a look.
As it happened, I found it far more interesting than I’d hoped and I ended up staying until closing time.
Here’s some of what I found.
Around the turn of the last century it became more common to invite people round for coffee than for dinner. This wasn’t necesarily the easy option though, as it was expected that you would offer seven types of biscuits. And, get this, guests would be expected to try all seven types. It would be rude not to. With my love of all things fika, I’d have been in my element at one of these gatherings!
The upper echelons of society didn’t compeletely give up on their posh dinner parties though. Tables would glitter with gilt bronze, crystal, silver and mirrored glass. Each place setting was completed with a menu written in French (very posh) and a whole set of glasses. Each course was served with a different wine to accompany it and each wine was poured into a fresh glass. There were a lot of courses.
Dishes on a typical menu included chicken farce in broth, filled puff pastry, steamed turbot fillets, venison steak, ox-tongue farce, roasted hazel hen, goose-liver terrine, asparagus, English plum pudding, ice cream, cheese and fruit.
These weren’t choices; each dish was served as a separate course and everyone got a helping of everything. I don’t even know what half of them are, but it seems very meaty. I think I’d have stuck to the biscuits. And maybe the wine.
This dessert table had me salivating. I doubt I’d have been allowed to eat any of it though. Laws stated what the different classes could serve on their dessert tables. What? The poor were limited to nuts and honey-soaked fruit, whilst the rich could serve pretty much what they wanted.
For festive occassions the rich really went over the top. The centrepiece of this table is the roast swan that has been stuffed back into its plumage. The same plumage could be used over and again with a new roast sitting in it each time. Not sure I’d fancy that. Wouldn’t it get smelly?
The museum wasn’t all food. There were also displays on Swedish festivals which I found quite interesting. The displays on furniture, costume, and jewellery were ok, but it was the food through the ages that most caught my attention.
I did decide I wanted one of these chairs though.
This wasn’t my favourite part of Sweden
A young English woman was staying in my dorm in Jokkmokk. She was travelling with her Swedish mother who was staying in the same hostel, but had opted for a private room. As you do, I chatted to my room-mate and then later, in the kitchen, was introduced to Mum.
Mum had spent most of her adult life in England, returning to Sweden only for holidays and to visit family. On this trip, she and her daughter had been at a wedding and then decided to tag on some travelling time.
“Go to Luleå,” Mum said. “From there you can make a day-trip to Gammelstad, the old church village.”
“Church village?” My RE teacher ears perked up.
“Yes, in the old days when people would come together for church, many of them would have to travel from their farms miles away. They built tiny houses to stay in and these weekend communities built up around the church. Gammelstad is the biggest and best preserved of these church villages in Sweden.”
“And Luleå itself is a really nice city,” added her daughter.
I’d planned to head south by train the following morning, but after hearing this AND having the hostel owner also tell me how wonderful Luleå was, I changed my mind and decided to take a late-afternoon bus to Luleå instead.
I visited the tourist office in Jokkmokk to get help with sorting out accommodation. It wasn’t easy. The universities were starting back and all accommodation was filling up with students who tend to stay in hostels and guesthouses until they can find somewhere more permanent.
Eventually, the lady in the tourist office found me a bed in a hostel a couple of kilometres walk from the train and bus station.
She looked at me apologetically, “The only problem is that you’ll have to share a room with five young, male Swedish students.”
Hm, five young, male Swedish students? And that’s a problem because …?
Actually, I could see why it might be a problem, but it was only for two nights and I really had no other choice if I wanted to go to the wonderful city of Luleå and the amazing church village of Gammelstad.
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It was evening by the time I arrived in Luleå. I hoisted my pack and looked around the bus station for a clue as to which way I needed to walk. I had a map, I just needed to orientate it.
Street names would have been helpful. A ‘this way into town’ sign would have been useful. Even a bus station map with a ‘you are here’ dot would have assisted me to hold my map the right way up. Did any of these exist? No.
Eventually I found the train station and with my back to it, was able to orientate my map. I set off walking in the direction of the city centre. The hostel was on the far side. I now knew I was going in the right direction, but had no way of knowing which street I was on. I wanted to be sure, so I didn’t walk right past the hostel on a parallel street.
The streets were quite busy with young people heading out for Friday night. I tried to stop a few to ask if they could tell me exactly where I was. The first couple of times, people just looked terrified, put their heads down and scurried past. When I did get anyone to stop, they would shrug and tell me they were newly-arrived students and they didn’t have a clue where they were either.
How could this be so difficult? I’d just spent the best part of a month walking several hundred kilometres in the Arctic wilderness and not got lost once. Finding my way round a city should be easy-peasy.
Eventually, I found a street sign, located myself on the map, made a slight adjustment and got to my hostel.
It was on a busy road leading out of town in an area that was starting to look quite industrial. I rang the bell at street level and the stooped manager came down in the lift to let me in. He complained about his chronic back pain that was causing him to walk doubled over as we went upstairs so he could check me in.
The hostel was a bit grubby and definitely in need of a bit of loving refurbishment, but it was good enough for a couple of nights. Clothes strewn around the dorm floor were the only evidence of my five young, male, Swedish student room-mates. Of course, it being Friday night and Freshers’ Week they were out on the town. In fact, apart from one young guy watching TV in the common room, I had the whole hostel to myself for the evening.
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Next morning, the beds in my dorm were filled with zonked out young men. I got myself ready and studied the big map on the hostel wall to check where the tourist office was.
It wasn’t far, so I headed there first. I walked round in circles several times before I accepted that the tourist office was not where the map claimed it would be.
Back in the town centre, I found a street map that showed the tourist office was now located at the train station. I walked all the way down to the station, only to find it pretty much deserted and definitely no tourist office. I finally found it in the middle of town, in the same building as the library, theatre and art gallery. It was closed.
Saturday. Lots of new people in town. The tourist office was closed.
All I wanted was to know how to get to Gammelstad. I asked the lady in the box office and she thought the buses might go from the end of the street. Only thought, mind you.
Checking out the bus timetable, I decided she was probably right. As I was studying the timetable and trying to figure things out, I must have looked a lot more knowledgeable than I felt because people asked me for help.
“We’re students,” they told me, “we’ve just arrived and don’t know where anywhere is.” Then again, maybe they were just desperate.
The bus eventually arrived. Yes, it was the right one. Could I go to Gammelstad? No. Why? Because the buses in Luleå don’t accept cash. I could’ve paid with my debit card, but by the time I’d paid all the bank charges I’d incur for using my card outside of the UK, that would have been one very expensive bus journey.
I needed to find a newsagent that sold bus tickets and buy my tickets from there. Once I’d done this and had my bus tickets I realised I had to wait an hour for another bus. Rather than hanging around the bus stop, I took myself off to the art gallery.
It was surprisingly interesting AND it was free. At last, I’d found something positive about Luleå.
Finally, I made it onto a bus and headed for Gammelstad. So much for my early start, it was now the afternoon. Gammelstad had better be worth it!
Luleå is a city in the far north of Sweden on the Baltic coast. Its large port means of lot of Swedish steel is shipped through here. It’s also an important hub for the technology industry. Even Facebook has located its first data hub outside of the US here. They apparently chose Luleå for its cheap electricity, political stability and cool climate (less money needs to be spent on keeping the systems cool). The large, popular technology university sees an influx of new young people every August. The student population of Luleå is around 13,500. As the entire population is only 47,000 this explains why so many of the people I saw seemed to be young students.
I didn’t particularly like Luleå, mainly because I found it frustrating. And probably because it was the first big place I’d been to after my time in the Arctic wilderness and the small empty town of Jokkmokk. It did have a bit of a buzz about it though, and I imagine if you’re young and involved in the student scene it would be a great place to study and live for a few years.
I’d gone to Dorotea to visit the caravan museum which turned out to be closed. But I still found plenty to do.
I’d gone to Dorotea specifically to visit the caravan museum. As the owner of a tiny campervan I’d thought I’d be able to pick up lots of ideas and tips that I could adapt.
Although it was still August, the summer season was over, leaves were just starting to turn golden and the caravan museum had closed for the winter. In fact it’s only open for about three weeks, so chances of catching it open are always going to be pretty slim.
I chatted to the Dutch couple who ran the campsite and they said they didn’t understand why the season finished so early either. This wasn’t just the caravan museum that was closed, but many other places in northern and central Sweden. Yes, the weather was turning autumnal, children were back at school and students were back at university, but for foreign tourists it was still the height of their summer holidays and there still seemed to be plenty around. Okay, maybe not in Dorotea, but certainly in other places.
As I didn’t have a caravan museum to go to, I had plenty of time to do visit the other tourist attraction in Dorotea – the Open Air Museum.
First, I headed up the hill past the museum to the small church to find Björn Martinius’ large sculpture ‘The Last Supper’. I’d read that this was a set of life-size wooden carvings, but was still taken aback when I pushed open the door to the small chapel by the church’s graveyard.
My first thought was that I’d walked in on someone. A second later I noticed the people sat beside him and a second after that I realised these were the carvings.
On closer inspection they were obviously wooden. That they appear so realistic at first glance has, I think, a lot to do with their size and the way they fill the space. As soon as you slip inside the doorway, rather than standing back as with most sculptures, with The Last Supper you could be an extra guest.
The church itself dates from 1934 and was designed by Evert Milles, brother of sculptor Carl Milles. It was built to replace the original 1799 church after it burnt down in 1932. I wanted to have a look inside as it holds some sculptures by Carl Milles. However, the church was locked and I couldn’t see through the windows. I had to wait until I got back to Stockholm to get my fill of Carl Milles’ work.
I plodded back down Kulerbacken hill to the open air museum. There was no-one about and I had a quick wander before finding the curator in her office. She told me she was waiting for the police because they’d had a break-in the night before. Several of the buildings had been broken into and because each building is stuffed with so many artifacts it wasn’t an easy job working out what had actually gone missing.
She took the time to wander round with me though, explaining about the ways of life in days gone by. Once the police arrived she left me to wander on my own.
Once I’d finished, I called back into the office to thank her and say goodbye. As we’d walked round she’d told me I’d missed the traditional bread baking display earlier in the day. Now, as I was about to leave, she presented me with a bag of the traditional bread as a gift.
I hadn’t got to see the caravan museum, which had been my sole reason for coming to Dorotea, but I’d still enjoyed my day and like that I still have a reason to come back one day. Though I’ll check that the caravan museum is actually open first.
Arriving in Jokkmokk felt a bit like entering a ghost town.
Jokkmokk (pronounced ‘Yokkmokk’) lies just 7km inside the Arctic Circle in the far north of Sweden and is one of the main centres for the indigenous Sámi population.
I’d met a few Sámi people and seen some of their villages whilst I was walking the Kungsleden. When I left the path, Jokkmokk was the first place I headed to. I planned to stay overnight to give me plenty of time to visit the Sámi museum as well as have a look round the town.
Arriving at the bus station, I hoisted my backpack and headed straight down the main road to the museum.
The main road was very wide and very quiet.
2,786 people live in Jokkmokk, but I guess most of them were out of town the day I was there. Many of the Sámi spend time in the mountains with their reindeer during the summer and only move into the towns during the winter months, so maybe they really were all out of town.
The museum – called Ájtte – was quite large and rather spacious with a good bookshop and a restaurant selling tradtional food. As this was heavily meat based (reindeer), I settled for coffee and cake.
The museum itself, was quite informative and had some good exhibits, but there wasn’t as much to see as I’d expected.
I liked this mural on the wall near the entrance. It’s a modern day work of art, but is based on the rock paintings from thousands of years ago that can still be seen today in some places.
There was a replica traditional home inside the museum as well as several different examples in the grounds outside.
There were also examples of traditional costume. The colours decorating the costume all have meaning, as do the patterns. A person can tell where another comes from by looking at their costume.
This man was wearing a bird on his head.
This tilted globe shows the Arctic. I found myself feeling quite disoriented as I tried to pick out the different countries from this angle.
Leaving the museum, I had a look in the church which seemed very white.
The inside was beautiful and there was a wood planted in the grounds around the church.
I had planned on walking a little way out of town and camping, but after a visit to the tourist office to use the free internet and find out about onward trains and buses, I had a change of heart and decided I wanted a bit of luxury.
So instead I checked into the very homely youth hostel.
The town was still just as quiet when I came to leave. This is what should have been rush hour at the bus station. About 5pm on a Friday evening!
