The Art of Sightseeing - by Laurie

In our 3 days in Copenhagen we got to the Danish Design Museum (fabulous!) and Tivoli (what Disneyland should be: charming, happy, fun). The rest of the time we slept, walked, and ate. The high point of our time there was a visit over coffee with Carol, a friend of Ellen's and an American expat who has lived in Denmark more than 40 years. It's much more satisfying to make a new friend than see a palace or castle.

Carol in Copenhagen

Now, in Stockholm, my expectations have changed. I still make my list but it's shorter and simpler, and if we accomplish one thing I'm very happy. And today we struck another Tivoli-level jackpot: Skansen. I knew Skansen was an open-air museum with old buildings but that description is such an understatement that it's an insult. 

Skansen is a place that buzzes with energy, history, children, music, activities, you name it. Today was a folk music festival and there were hundreds of people of all ages playing instruments in large and small groups, groups of people bursting into song, folk dancing, and people wearing their homeland costumes. Little impromptu groups seemed to be in every corner. In addition there is a small zoo of Northern animals--lynx, wolves, brown bears, eagle owl, European bison, reindeer, and a few others--with beautifully written interpretive panels explaining their brushes with extinction. In fact, the bison were extinct in northern Europe and animals from Skansen were some of the first to be relocated to establish new populations in Russia. The discussion of the wolf conservation program got Dale very excited--he hasn't retired from his interest in endangered species. There were old buildings from all over Sweden including a Sami village, a working farm that preserves heritage domestic animals, a children's zoo, a few rides, some amazing food (reindeer wraps anyone?), even children's activities such as helping the post office deliver the mail. I could go on and on. This is living history of the highest caliber. Dale and I stayed all day and missed much more than we saw. 

Dale with a Sami dwelling. Just like in the Elle Kari book. 

Even if we do little else in Stockholm our visit has been full. Anything else is just greediness. But we're greedy. We're going to try to see the archipelago tomorrow (haven't made arrangements yet so that might not work) and go out to the largest Ikea in the world. We're staying in a hotel in Gamla Stan, the old city, so hopefully we'll have time to do the walking tour (we have walked it over and over; it would just be nice to know what we're seeing).

We've also come up with a new plan. We were supposed to go to Oslo on Monday, then spend some time on the fjords, possibly to Bergen, then take the train down to the Netherlands for a few days. It was feeling too complicated so we came up with an even more complicated simple solution. We're going to take a train as far north as we can go and then drift our way around and down. Hurray for Eurail passes! There's a night train from Stockholm to Narvik (never heard of it) and maybe we can get up above the arctic circle, then head down to Trondheim and Oslo and who knows where in between. That's my kind of traveling (thanks, mom and dad)!

Lynx. There was a mama, papa, and three babies. 

An old Swedish home with gorgeous paintings on the wall. 

A storehouse from the 14th century. 

Folk dancing.