Viking and Vasa Museums

Pinky up cause I'm fancy!

Yesterday and today we went to two Stockholm museums, The Viking museum and The Vasa Museum. 

The Viking Museum is a fun touristy museum with a dark ride at the end!  You can imagine why we went. 

The museum is filled with artifact reproductions, which means you can touch a lot of things!  We entered and ended up in an English guided tour right away.  The guide was dressed like a Viking, talked like a Viking, and gave us a history lesson on Vikings. 

He told us how Vikings spread out from Scandinavia (Sweden, Norway, and Denmark) to Iceland, Greenland, many areas in mainland Europe, Scotland, and even North America. He told us that many were farmers but also there were pillaging pirate types. He also threw Viking shade at the Netflix Viking series which I wasn't aware of. 

The Big Takeaway was that you didn't necessarily have to die in battle to get into Valhalla. He said we could get into Valhalla, with the free flowing mead from a goat, by just spreading the truth about Vikings. The big truth he wanted me to share is that only a few Vikings wore helmets, and none of them had horns!  So I guess if you tell someone this we can meet in Valhalla and drink unlimited mead forever. Sounds kind of fun. 

Turns out this isn't a real Viking. 

After the guided tour we checked out the museum. There were cool video screens with actors dressed like different classes of Viking telling you about their daily lives. I felt it was really well done. 

The loom they used to weave was vertical. 

I took another opportunity to dress up. Donna got a great photo. 

I enjoyed the section devoted to Vikings in pop culture. 

The dark ride was at the end of the museum. Donna and I speculated on how we could ride the ride more than once. We love a good dark ride so this was exiting!  

This is my, "heading to the dark ride" face. 

The ride is called, 'Ragnfrids Saga'. 

This may or may not be Ragnfrid. 

This is the ride operator. 

Our Carriage Awaits 

Infogram on how to and how not to ride. 

The ride is a series of static dioramas and screens. Your trackless Multi Mover Vehicle  moves you through the story of Ragnfrid, a Viking needing to provide for his family so he doesn't have to sell his daughter off to a slob of a man. He does this by taking slaves to the big city to sell off to slobs. He gets robbed and loses everything and then his friend gets killed and then he fights in a war as a hired fighter and takes barrels of silver back to his family that almost died while he was gone and they lived happily ever after. 

Near the end of the ride we decided we didn't need to ride it again. 

We were hoping for an old dark ride. This ride was built in 2017. 

The ride lets you off in the restaurant and then you exit through the gift shop. 

It was a good museum but not great. 

The following day we went to The Vasa Museum. The Vasa was a Swedish battle ship that was launched in 1628. It immediately sank because it was top heavy. For about 24 minutes it was the most powerful battleship in the world. It quickly ended up at the bottom of the polluted brackish Stockholm Harbor where it sat preserved for 333 years. The brackish water and the heavy pollution prevented decay and in 1961 the ship was salvaged and preserved.  It's very impressive. 

Its really hard to think of it as real after working at Disneyland. 

There were also preserved artifacts like this hat in a hat box. 

Preservation continues today. They are replacing wooden shims with rubber feet that can move with the ship. They hope to keep the ship intact for another couple hundred years. 

They had many interactive elements. 

Its so huge, it's hard to capture. 

The Vasa Museum is amazing and you should go. The Viking Museum is pretty cool and you should go if you have time. 

On a Train to Scavanger NO - Oslo Wrap Up

This morning we set our alarms for 7:30am instead of the usual 8am. We have woken up to an alarm every day but one day so far on this trip and that's uncommon for us now that we don't work. We went down and ate breakfast and then packed some sliced meat, cheese, bread, pickles, and some mustard on a plate and took it upstairs to make train sandwiches. The train food is more expensive than the regular food and our trip is 8 hours so we need food and snacks for sustenance and entertainment. 

We arrived at Olso Central quite early and explored it as well as checked on our trip. 

We looked at The Big Board and it said our train was cancelled between 2 places we didn't recognize. We went to the help desk and they seemed confused about what we were reporting. It took the attendant a few minutes and 2 phone calls to determine that a fire was blocking our original route and that we would be diverted south to avoid it. We would still be on a train, but the trip would be 9.25 hrs now. Oh well, it's considered an epic train trip so we just get to see more epicness. 

Walking to Track 3

Our train arrived and we excitedly boarded. We were looking forward to seeing just how great our upgraded seats would be!

Sad Trombone!

We asked the conductor if we could switch seats and he said the train is fully booked. Today is the start of a 3 day weekend so everyone is taking advantage. 

The seat ain't great but it's better than this photo makes it look. 

Oslo was a great week long stay. We rode a ferry to the small islands in the fjord for the price of public transportation. 

We got off on Greasholmen Island, which doesn't have people living on it, and did some hiking. 

We hiked for an hour or so and then got back on the ferry and enjoyed the rest of the ride. 

When we hit dry land, we used our transit pass to have a hot dog with a little blanket on it. 

Donna got the potato salad hot dog, which is exactly what you think, a hot dog with potato salad on it   I got the jalapeno hot dog. The jalapeno was actually pickled jalapenos in a creamy sauce, like a potato salad without the potatoes. They were both delicious and the little blanket was a potato bread made out of potatoes, so you could eat it!

The next day we went to The Munch Museum, the largest museum in the world dedicated to one artist. It was amazing. There were so many great paintings and they had an awesome collection of paintings by painters that were inspired by Munch. 

We did see The Scream but didn't take photos. There are enough photos of it. 

The top floor of the museum has great views. 

The following day we walked to the Botanical Gardens 

It was really cool hiking around the gardens. 

We also visited Oslo City Hall. 

Another day we hiked Ekebergparken Sculpture Park. It's a giant nature area with sculptures throughout. It was really cool and there were good views of the city from the top. 

This marks the place where they think Munch had his, I guess panic attack, at sunset and painted The Scream depicting the feeling of existential dread. 

I, however, was not feeling existential dread. 

We saw stones set in the shape of a boat, to signify a Viking burial ground. 

These crystals glowed with led lights. It's supposed to be amazing at night. It was amazing during the day!

The views from near the top were awesome. 

This gnome has something for you!

The next day we walked around near the waterfront some more. 

We went to a fish shop and I got some freshly caught and cooked shrimp and ate them in the bed. 

That might we had tickets for the Orchestra. It was a great show. 

And that catches us up to this train ride to Stavanger. While I was typing this I noticed the lady behinde airing out her feet. 

I tried to ignore them and continued enjoying the train ride. I do find myself thinking that it's just Americans that are gross and have no sense of others, and that all Europeans are fancy, but I guess that's not the case. 

Now we are in Stavanger for 4 nights. It's a 3 day weekend and the younger generation has found enough money to get plastered at the bars here in Norway. It ain't easy to get throw up drunk on $16 4.5% beers, but they are doing it. 

The sun setting on our hotel room view.  See you in the morning Stavanger!