We arrived in London on a Friday.  That morning dawned quite early in York and, as with most of the days we have spent primarily on a train or indoors, brought with plenty of sunshine and cool temperatures.  We rode the LNER (London North Eastern Railway) from York to King’s Cross, wishing one final time that we could have ridden the Scotsman for this leg of our journey, but enjoying ourselves nonetheless.  Upon arrival in King’s Cross, we made our way via Tube (nickname for London’s underground metro system) to the Natural History Museum.  This museum is one of the many national museums in Britain and therefore is free to enter; however, it is recommended that you book a ticket online (still no cost) so that you can be assured entry on the day you desire.  There is always a vast number of people visiting the museum – lines can be quite lengthy with tourists, pickpockets, and school children – but only ticket holders are actually guaranteed entry.  It’s a common way to manage popular locations – particularly those in a city the size of London – in order to control crowds.  We later learned that the entire city of London is closed down on New Year’s Eve – no cars, no trains, no busses, no shops open, etc. – and the streets are completely opened to pedestrians.  The area where citizens can easily see the firework show (down on the banks of the Thames) has become so popular that the city has started issuing free tickets to limit the crowds.  They only issue 100,000 tickets for visitors to that particular area on the holiday evening.  Wow.  

Now is when I feel I should take a moment and talk about London just a little. You can skip this bit if you like. As you probably know, London is the biggest city and capital of England (and the United Kingdom). Before Brexit, it was the biggest metropolitan area in all Europe – but the English decided to leave the European Union so I don’t think it gets to have that title any longer. That said, it’s still a massive place that has been around for thousands of years and is now home to somewhere between 10 – 15 million people depending on who you ask. For Allita, who thinks Phoenix is large, London was like a NASCAR race – fascinating, exciting, disgusting, thrilling and a little bit horrifying all at the same time. London is made up of 32 different “boroughs” and each one is basically a district, village, neighborhood, suburb or town. There is, in short, nothing small about this place but it is fairly well-organized, all things considered. That said, if you do decide to visit London, I suggest you spend a little bit of time studying the transit system and familiarizing yourself with the layout of the city. The good news is there are plenty of very popular and famous landmarks you can use for orientation and, everyone does speak some form of English (for the most part). London is located on the Thames River, which runs almost entirely across the lower half of England from east to west, so it has lots of bridges and plenty of water-based activities. Because it’s so old, populated and important, London has lots of history and, honestly, if you want to know more about it, I suggest you read Peter Ackroyd’s London: the biography, which was so well written that the BBC made a documentary about it (I’m not kidding – google it). MOVING ON!

The Natural History Museum is a British tribute to all earthly things – those dead, those alive, and even those that never really lived.  We checked our luggage in the clock room then toured the museum in its entirety over a five hour period, stopping only once for a quick break and bite to eat.  The halls are filled with dinosaur skeletons and pre-historic exhibits, plant specimens and creatures from various biomes – such as marine, desert, savannah, rainforest, and plains, incredibly informative displays about the formation and behavior of the earth’s crust and atmosphere, and finally, an awesome and colorful array of stones, gems, and other minerals.  All her life, Allita has been an enthusiastic admirer of history in almost all forms: natural, world, ancient, imperial, mythological, aeronautical, etc.  To say that she enjoyed her visit to this London museum would be a gross understatement.

For our week-long stay in London, we reserved a one-bedroom flat in one of the new high-rise skyscrapers in the Docklands of Southwark, London, very near Elephant and Castle.  While I did a fair amount of research, including a cost-benefit analysis, on where best to stay, even I was surprised at just how fantastic this particularly location suited us.  We had easy access to TWO different Tube lines (Northern and Bakerloo), the network (commuter) rail line, the Thames link rail, and a plethora of busses.  In addition, the Thames was extremely close so many of the places we visited were only a quick walk down the road and over the river. Right around the corner was a market where we could purchase all our groceries and supplies and the building had a 24-hour concierge and keyless security system.  One point I will make is that this particular area of London remains in the process of being redeveloped (especially Canary Wharf) so it is not uncommon to find a beautiful new building next door to an absolute dive and a number of lots under various stages of ongoing construction.  Thankfully we were on the 12th floor, so none of the street or construction noise ever bothered us, and we had phenomenal views of the city skyline from our glass-paneled walls. 

DAY 2

To say “meet you at Victoria Station” is a tad inadequate.

Our second day in London took us completely out of London to Wiltshire, England and Stonehenge (prehistoric megalith about which I am certain you already know) for an all-day adventure hosted by Evan Evans Tours.  Sticking with the whirlwind pace of this trip, we chose the “express” visit.  We left Victoria Coach Station at 9am on a direct bus, stopped only at the site and had about 2 hours to visit the place, which was more than enough time really (even with listening to the entire audio guide, reading all the signs, taking a zillion photographs, and poking around the gift shop).  We returned to Victoria Train Station at 4pm and spent some time figuring out where we were and exploring the area a little before returning to our flat for a late dinner.  Allita and I are especially interested in British pubs – not for the purpose of eating or drinking as much as the entire idea of pubs, their age, unique history and decor, their significance in society, and, of course, their names.  Therefore, on this trip to London, we made a special effort to see as many pubs as possible and even toured inside a few of them. 

DAY 3

The last day I will tell you about in this post is also the last of our “least busy” days. We woke up a little later than normal – enjoying a British lie-in (a term I fully intend to add to my every day lingo) – and then walked about a mile from the flat to the London Eye Pier.  Do you know what the London Eye is?  It’s that relatively new and massive construction on the river Thames that is basically a modern ferris wheel with glass and steel pods for cars so that you share a confined space with around 12-15 strangers as you rotate in a vertical circle, snapping photos and pointing out the things you recognize in the distance.  Fun fact: the British Ministry of Defense is located immediately across the waterway from the London Eye and initially strongly opposed the construction of this attraction.  In court, the Ministry presented the strategic location of the wheel and the glass construction with clear views would allow some foreign intelligence member or potentially nefarious individuals to spy on the Ministry from across the water.  Supposedly, the judge threw the case out of court with a “you’re the ($%&@#!) Ministry of Defense – put up some curtains!” type of response.  We used binoculars provided as part of our London Eye fast-pass tickets but we weren’t even able to see the curtains, so I guess the judge had a point.  

That day, we took a cruise on the river Thames starting at the pier and drifting down and under Tower bridge so that we got a good look at Westminster (Parliament) and Elizabeth Tower (Big Ben), many of the museums along the Thames and the waterfront, Saint Pauls dome, almost all of the new financial district, Waterloo bridge (built entirely by women), Golden Jubilee walkways (pedestrian bridges built by Queen Elizabeth in honor of her golden jubilee and to promote walking in that area), London Bridge (the new one – as the old one is at Lake Havasu City, AZ and we’ve already seen it), the Tower of London, and the Tower bridge, of course.  From there, we had our London Eye experience – it was fun but not particularly exciting and honestly, not something I would recommend unless you have young children. Then we ate some fish and chips at a dockside restaurant, and toured Sea Life Aquarium, which is a large marine museum and zoological experience.  We don’t visit aquariums everywhere we go, although we both appreciate such experiences as a general rule.  However, there are a number of sharks – including rare freshwater sharks – that dwell in the River Thames and other U.K. waters, and are available for viewing at this particular aquarium, which necessitated our visit.  We were inundated with families – as anticipated and much like our trip to the Natural History Museum – but we had fun navigating the waters (so to speak) with everyone and learning about so many new and different fish and marine animals (including penguins!) on exhibit there. Afterwards, we made our way back under ground for a much-anticipated tour.  

The Leake Street Arches are a unique and grossly-overlooked London experience that Allita discovered quite by accident while researching the history of graffiti and urban art in her spare time. So, what are they?  Basically, there are eight pedestrian arches (subway entrances) connected to an old railway tunnel beneath the Waterloo station that have been turned into an ever-changing underground urban art canvas and gallery also known as London’s longest legal graffiti wall. The long “Banksy” (Leake Street) Tunnel now connects to the pedestrian walkway leading to Westminster bridge to create the entirety of the Leake Street Arches. The entrance is clearly marked and quite visible if you know what to look for and are aware of your surroundings.  We caught a faint whiff of spray paint on the breeze and knew we were in the right place.  The passageway is used by businessmen as an underground shortcut between offices, by pedestrian and bike tour guides as an easily accessible example of local London flair, by artists composing work or admiring the efforts of others, by entertainers demonstrating their musical or vocal skills with a vibrant backdrop, and even a couple pubs (of course!) that offer traditional British and American “light fare” such as: salads, sandwiches, burgers, and a good selection of beverages.  More importantly, this collection of old pedestrian tunnels is a place for freedom of artistic expression unlike any other we have previously seen. 

Most of you know that Tucson is home to a wide variety of incredibly beautiful urban art – just about everywhere you look in the city, you can see different sizes of colorful, fantasical, graffiti-style, spray-painted art gleaming in the sunshine.  However, there is nothing in Tucson that even comes close to what you can see at Leake Street Arches.  Furthermore, during the daytime, this area is perfectly safe to visit and every visit will be unique since the walls of the tunnels are forever changing as more and more art is layered on them.  I was also happy to discover that regular air movement through these tunnels helps keep them constantly circulating so the fumes aren’t unsafe or overwhelming (although the faint smell of paint is unavoidable).  For my budding artist, this was an inspiring and encouraging experience, and for myself, a humbling one.  It is amazing to see what someone can create with a few cans of paint and their hands.  I marveled quite a bit watching an artist spray a portrait on the walls with such unbelievable skill and precision.  As someone who generally struggles to intentionally spray paint onto surfaces other than my hands, face, or the ground, I was heartily impressed.  But then, art has a way of doing that to you, doesn’t it?

From the moment we stepped foot in the city, we absolutely fell in love with York.  York is the second oldest city in England and, over time, has done an excellent job of preserving the city’s heritage and history.  With that in mind, the city is absolutely chocked full of character – narrow streets with overhanging shops, tiny passageways to other places, huge medieval structures, funky shops next door to very serious offices, and cobblestone everywhere. The city walls of York were constructed in medieval times and remain remarkably similar to their original design today.  The massive cathedral in York, appropriately titled, York Minster, is host to around 25% of England’s medieval stained glass collection and stands as a gothic beacon in the center of Old Town.  The city itself was founded by the Romans (although there was a tribe of native people living there when they arrived – they just ousted them and built a fort). In fact, many of the ancient Roman walls and roads still remain – all neat and tidy and straight. Then the Vikings came along and decided they liked that spot too, so they raided the place (on a catholic holiday too – the audacity!), built their own city there but it was a bit more carefree and curvacious (as Vikings tended to be). The Vikings named their city Jorvik (doesn’t that sound Viking?) and it grew to be the second largest settlement in Britian. They even minted money there. Then William came along, eventually conquered (and harried) everything, and it became a fortified Norman city with two castles (only one of two English cities with two castles) and a big old wall all around it. Turns out the British can’t say “Jorvik” so over time, the name changed to York. York is home to a lot of fascinating English history – the birthplace of Guy Fawkes (remember, remember?), York Castle is the site of a large Jewish massacre, it’s a major modern railway center and residence of a famous British legend (more on that later), home to the oldest surviving Catholic convent in all of Great Britian, and so very much more! Most importantly, for us anyway, York is also the location of the Jorvik Viking Center, created by the York Archaeological Trust and founded on a massive excavation site.

Our first tour of the city started late Tuesday evening in the area near the cathedral called “The Shambles” and was hosted by the delightful, and rather impressive, Mad Alice.  This was, in fact, the Bloody Tour of York.  We wound our way through the narrow streets and passageways, while Alice entertained us with scary and gruesome stories taken direclty from York’s colorful history.  She also gave us a lot of recommendations for things to do and places to visit while in York and we took her advice the next day when we visited the Bar Convent. 

The Bar Convent is the oldest surviving Catholic convent in Great Britian. It was established in the 1600s during a time when it was literally illegal to be Catholic. A group of nuns (now called “Congregation of Jesus”) opened this secret, hidden convent in a private residence they had purchased with a loan from the Catholic church. Mary Ward, the female founder of the church (is that foundress?), had this revolutionary idea that women should be educated equally to men and she believe that at some future point, women would contribute as much (or more) to society, science, education, discovery, technology, medicine, etc. After her death, which was particularly unpleasant, her convent started the first school for girls in the U.K. and now, there are 200+ coeducational schools worldwide in Mary’s name. Fun fact: Saint Margaret Clitherow, the Pearl of York, is a martyr for the Catholic church who was pressed to death because she was believed to have been hiding a priest and holding services in her home. Her hand, the only part of her that could be saved following her gruesome death, resides in the chapel of the Bar Convent (Mad Alice told us that story and we admit, it’s part of the reason why we wanted to go there).

Ok. So first thing you have to understand is: a gate is a street, a bar is a gate and a pub is a bar. Got it? Well, the City Walls Tour and Museum is located in Micklegate Bar. We stood on the street and looked around for literally 15 minutes before we realized the museum was actually IN the gate. (I would like add here that the Micklegate Pub being right there did not help us at all!) Remember? Bar = Gate. So you can hang around on Micklegate (Gate = street) all day long and never find the bar (gate; not pub!) unless you climb the stairs. Tourists! Anyway, first we explored the lovely little museum which is the entirety of the gate house structure that remains, and then, we took a lovely, and quite long, tour of the York city walls (City Wall Experience). It was nearly a private tour (I guess there were others who struggled with the gate/bar/pub thing and just gave up?) with only us and another family, Brits from Brighton. Here’s the deal: if you’re going to York and you can manage the stairs, we HIGHLY recommend this tour. You can literally see everything from the top of the walls and the very dry-humored and extremely well-informed, National Archives guide was absolutely fabulous.

That said, in my opinion, without question, the best museum we have visited so far is the National Railway Museum of York.  It’s a bit of an uncomfortable walk to get there now that the city is undergoing roadwork in the nearby area – but it’s absolutely worth it in the end.  It’s part of the Science Museum group in Britian and has an enormous collection (over 6,000 items) of everything even remotely related to the railway history (including a very large library and an archives you can tour). It is the largest museum of it’s type in all Great Britian and gets around half a million visitors per year. Coincidentally, this year is part of the 100th year anniversary celebration of the legendary Flying Scotsman, built in late 1923 for long-distance passenger service from London’s King’s Cross station to Edinburgh (Scotland). The Scotsman is perhaps one of the most famous steam engines in the world. Before her first retirement in 1963, she covered over 2 million miles on rail and set two world records: first steam engine to reach 100mph and longest non-stop run of a steam engine at 422 miles (in Australia – when she was on world tour). In addition, she has sailed the entire world! The Scotsman even spent time on tour in the U.S. before she finally was sold back to a British businessman in the 1970s.

The history of this amazing steam engine never fails to bring tears to my eyes. In 2004, afraid she would be sold for scrap or shipped off to some foreign land (again!), the National Railway Museum submitted their intention to bid for the Scotsman at auction. Unfortunately, they didn’t have enough money. So they started the “Save our Scotsman” campaign, which resulted in a massive outpouring of public donations (many with letters of heartfelt stories and pleas – still on display in the museum), incredible contributions by the wealthy, the peerage, and even the Yorkshire Post newspaper – such that the museum was able to aquire her for 2.3 million British Pounds Sterling. After several years of overhauls, repairs and refurbishments, the beautiful Scotsman was returned to service in January 2016 with a special trip from King’s Cross to York. Thousands of people lined the route, waving and shouting as she passed, and the train was forced to stop more than once due to members of the public trespassing on the line and crowding for a view. We knew the Scotsman, along with the Duchess of Hamilton, the Mallard and the only Japanese Bullet train outside of Japan, Shinkansen, was housed in York at the museum, but we also knew that the Scotsman was slated for new custodial service and not scheduled to tour again until late 2024. However, something absolutely unexpected and epic happened to us at the museum – following the VR experience about the Flying Scottsman, we exited the room to the outdoors and were just about to re-enter the museum when all of a sudden a giant blast of steam and a massive locomotive blasted past us.  It was the Flying Scottsman herself!  What unbelievable timing!  We were literally astounded (gobsmacked, as one lady said) to watch her steam out of the railway museum and to her place at the actual rail depot as she awaited a long journey the following morning. What a staggering and wonderous suprise! We could not have planned that any better and could do nothing but chatter excitedly about it all afternoon.  

As I mentioned earlier, our main purpose in visiting York was the Jorvik Viking Center. It’s really more of an experience than a museum but it does hold a number of artifacts that were recovered from the dig at that site and provides a very interesting history of the excavation and research, which remains ongoing. We didn’t really learn anything new about Vikings, but we did really enjoy the experience. One word of caution: if you do visit the Jorvik, be aware that the experience, which includes an automated tour of a recreated Viking village, comes complete with period-accurate smells. Having spent some time at the Forensic Anthropology Center (a.k.a. body farm) in Tennessee in my early college years, I can assure you that the odors at the Jorvik are pretty darn close to accurate. We also visited Clifford’s tower (one of the two remaining York castles built by William the Conqueror) and the nearby area including the Castle Museum and Army Museum, rode two 100+ year-old carousels, and spent hours touring and adventuring in Barley Hall, a reconstructed medieval townhouse built in the 1300s in the center of York.  

We ate a lot of very interesting and very British food while in York and are really looking forward to more of the same in London over the next week. Wild Boar burger from the food truck vendor, meat pie in a pub, alcohol-free cordial drink made from Black Current, lots of tea (of course), pulled duck croquettes, some kind of caramel biscuit torte, and lots of chips.  

By the way, we landed in Manchester on our way from Sweden to York and we spent a few hours that first day at a local entertainment house called “Virtual Experience”.  We played Virtual Reality (VR) games with the latest equipment and had an incredibly fun time dancing, destroying fictional things, pretending to be Vikings, shooting imaginary arrows, and playing phony table tennis.  If you ever have a chance to play some VR games, even if only for a short while, I highly recommend it. I didn’t think I would enjoy it nearly as much as I did and, since it poured rain outside while we were indoors having the time of our lives, it was a win-win. 

Sunday dawned early, if not bright, and we started another day in Stockholm with a 3-hour walking tour.  The tour began at the Opera House, which is convienently located right across the street from Parliament and, of course, across the canal from the Royal Palace.  Our guide was a delightful, older Swedish man who had lots of lovely tales to tell about Sweden, Stockholm, royalty, history, and even Vikings as we wandered through Old Town (Stora Nygatan) to Knight’s island and finally back to the palace.  

Finally, we took a cruise around the Djurgården – the museum island where we had spent the day prior touring various museums and riding streetcars, remember? – and some of the canals and rivers that wind their way through the city and gardens.  If 30% of Stockholm is water then another 30% is garden and park.  No kidding! The city is filled with lush greenery the likes of which these Arizonan eyes have not seen in a very long time.  I will say that Stockholm buildings are a bit blocky and appear to have always been this way – as evidence from the Old Town photos. Not many of the buildings have parts that overhang the street, porticos, balconies, or other ornamentation on their facades to relieve some of the stark flatness of that side. They all appear somewhat more modern and simple than I had anticipated. I did not necessarily notice it at the time, but got that impression while looking at photos afterwards.

The river cruise dropped us off perfectly at the palace where we wandered up the hill and over another of many bridges to find ourselves the “perfect” spot where we could wait impatiently for the Royal Guard.  July 14 is the birthday of Crowned Princess and heir apparant to the Swedish throne, Victoria, and a very important day for the changing of the guard ceremony.  This is one of the few days on the calendar when the guard performs a “gun salute” (and yes, it does include firing very loud weapons – repeatedly!) in honor of HRH.  While we listened to the noise of the gun fire fading away and bird twitter restarting, we noticed another unusual sound tinkling in the air: the military marching band procession!  We watched in delight from our perch atop the Royal Castle entrance gate as the marching band in all their pomp and circumstance tooted, honked, banged, and stomped across Norrbro bridge and into the outer courtyard of the palace grounds.  We followed the band and discovered the guard assembled in the courtyard (with about a zillion other tourists also gawking gleefully) and watched the continuation of the changing process.  Much to the surprise and delight of the crowd (myself included) the military band played “Dancing Queen” by ABBA as part of their tribute and many of us danced and sang along in accompaniment. 

What would a trip to Sweden be without an adventure to the northern lands where Vikings once lived and Sweden’s oldest city, Sigtuna?  So on Monday, we piled into a van for a full day (literally 9am – 6pm) Viking adventure with our lovely driver and guide, Urban.  

We rode north from Stockholm towards Vallentuna and stopped along the way to visit numerous runestones (Jarlabanke) and tour a bit of the countryside (Arkils tingstad).  Basically, we toured Runriket – the 3-4km zone just north of Stockholm that holds more of the world’s runestones than any other place. After a couple hours, we stopped at a lovely local farm to enjoy a Swedish “fika”.  A fika is just another one of the many things that should have always been a part of my life. Basically it’s a little break (maybe 30 minutes) you take during the day to drink coffee or tea or juice, eat cakes or other light snacks, and simply relax with other people around you (like your school mates, your work team or staff, your family, etc). You don’t have to eat or drink – just spending the time together – socializing and not working – is the most important part. Fikas happen in the morning and afternoon, at work or home or even school! The Swedish consider it the perfect time to collaborate, exchange knowledge and information, problem-solve, and bond with others. I read somewhere that the average Swede takes enough fikas in one year to add up to about 10 days worth of time. Fikas are believed to improve mental health and well-being in addition to promoting commaraderie and improving group communication. Our “fika” was entirely home made from farm items either grown on this farm or traded with nearby farms at the market or just directly family-to-family as they have done for centuries.  This farm, like many others, not only raises goats for milk and cheese and cows for meat, but also farms fields of rapeseed for oil, barley for hops, and has a small apple and pear orchard.  Also, this farm was home to the largest runestone we saw on our trip through Runriket – way up high in a cow pasture behind the farmhouse and barn.  Can you even imagine having such an awesome piece of history just lying in the backyard? 

We stopped a few more places along the way to Sigtuna for more runestones and old settlements, and eventually arrived there in time for lunch on the main and oldest street in Sweden, Stora gatan.  We ate at a traditional Swedish restaurant – Allita had a burger (eyeroll) and I enjoyed Raggmunk with Lingonberries (possibly gathered from the nearby forest where we had just seen them growing, but most likely purchased from IKEA).  Then we toured the lovely village from the waterfront to the old church.  Sigtuna was founded in the 10th century by either King Eric the victorious or King Olof the Swede (Eric’s son). Nobody is absolutely certain as records from that time are a bit sparse (apparantely there is not a runestone that is inscribed “here lies Sigtuna raised by Olof in memory of his father, Eric”). In any regard, at one point in Swedish history, Sigtuna was the royal and commercial capital and is credited as the place where the first Swedish coins were minted. While there, we had a complete tour of Saint Olof’s church (Olofs kyrkoruin), which is remarkably well-preserved, and Saint Mary’s church (Mariakyrkan), the earliest known brick church in this area (both Gothic and Romanesque). My favorite fun fact about Saint Mary’s is that one of the church bells is Russian! It was taken as loot during the Ingrian War when Sweden and Poland team up to kick Russian booty.

Finally, our last place to visit was Uppsala – home to the more wealthy or noble of the ancient citizens.  The city is quite large (4th largest in Sweden) with the Old Uppsala (Gamla Uppsala) area quite a distance from the city proper.  Gamla Uppsala is home to the massive burrial mounds – three of which stand far above the others and appear to have been for significantly important figures in Viking history.  As is common, there was also a church there built around the same time as the construction of the burial grounds.  Gamla Uppsala is widely considered by medieval historians to be one of the oldest and most important locations in Scandinavia – possibly even home to Odin, Freya and Frey.

From there, we drove to Uppsala proper and had a driving tour of the old city streets, castle (built by King Gustav Vasa – same family who built the famous ship), university (the oldest center for higher education in all Scandinavia), and museums.  We stopped at the massive Uppsala Cathedral, the largest in Scandinavia, and had a lenghtly tour of the interior and exterior where even more runestones are located.  Urban told us many stories about the saints, kings and queens of early Sweden and how they were featured in the cathedral interior.  He also pointed out that Anders Celsius (inventor of centigrade temperature scale) and Carl Linnaeus (creator of taxomony) were educated here. We had the opportunity to stand on Celsius’ grave in the church in Gamla Uppsala. Interestingly, just like in Denmark, there was not a single church we toured in Sweden that did not also have a ship of some kind on display (typically a Viking ship but sometimes a design from the 12-15 centuries around the same age as the church itself).

The people of Sweden are just as friendly and helpful as the Danes were.  Additionally, they all speak fluent English, even those you would least expect to, and are gracious hosts to the many tourists they must receive every year.  After our tour, Urban took us to the hotel to collect the luggage we stored there all day and then on to the correct train station – because he’s that kind of awesome – and we rode the express train to the airport in Arlanda where we stayed the night as we had a very early flight to Manchester the next morning!  On our way to the U.K.!

If Denmark is a country of islands, then Stockholm, Sweden is a city of islands.  The city of Stockholm is spread across 14 different islands with the exact center actually located in the water and about 1/3 of the city itself consisting of waterways.  In fact, the historical name for the city was Staten mellan broarna or “city between bridges”. Stockholm is the capital and biggest city in Sweden (by population and size) – in fact, it is the largest urban area (by size) in all the Scandinavian countries.  All told, there are about 2 and 1/2 million people living in or around the metropolitan area of Stockholm.  Further, this area is really old – there are artifacts here that show settlement since the Stone Age!  You may also recognize Stockholm as the location of the annual Nobel Prize ceremony.  Naturally, it is the location of the Swedish government, the high court of Sweden, and the official residence of the Swedish royal family and the Prime Minister.  Sweden and Finland have had a lasting relationship throughout history and, interestingly, the largest minority group in Stockholm (those people not Swedish) are Finns making Finnish the second most popular language spoken here.  That said, we are grateful that the third most popular language here is English.

Today was our first full day in Sweden.  We arrived by train in early evening yesterday, did some brief exploration walking around the area and learning the metro system which includes trains, trams (streetcars) and busses, and made some purchases before settling in to our hotel for the night.  Because of the global position of this city and how close we are still to the summer solstice, there are about 17-18 daylight hours in Stockholm.  We had to shut the window blinds in order to actually fall asleep.  In any regard, after a lovely breakfast that included, of all things, Swedish meatballs, pickled herring, and a salad bar(?) as options, we started our museum tour of the city.  I want to point out two important things about this day: 1. It was our first full day of sunshine since we arrived in Europe 16 days ago on June 28 (think about that for a moment), and 2. The museums we visited were all located on the Kungliga Djurgården (Royal Game Park) in Stockholm, which is an island in the center of the city.  

The Vasa museum is a nautical museum with an entire collection of exhibits – displayed on 7 different levels! – from one single massive war ship.  The Vasa is the only whole (well, almost whole) 17th century ship that has ever been salvaged. No other place in the world can you see such a massive salvaged vessel.  She is a 64-cannon warship who sank on her maiden voyage in 1628 and 98% of her is intact and original.  Yes, there are older ships in other museums (the Mary Rose from the 16th Century in the U.K., for example) but none of them are entirely whole (well, almost whole) with 98% of the ORIGINAL remains preserved.  Can you even imagine the amount of work and the cost involved in salvaging this beast in the 1960s?  The Vasa was the largest ship in the Swedish fleet at that time – she weighed 1,200 tons, contained 120 tons of stone ballast and had 10 sails that were 164 feet tall at their highest point!  In addition, King Gustavus Adolphus, who commissioned her, insisted that she be designed by Dutch master ship builders, have TWO gun decks, and hold a massive array of highly visible decoration – including over 500 statues and ornaments created by German sculptors and a high transom for even more lavishness – to demonstrate his greatness and power.  In a nutshell, the young Swedish King was flexing his muscles at his cousin, the King of Poland, and the end result was a huge, expensive ship that needed a wider hull and heavier ballast to counterweight the excess guns and decorations that caused her to be unbalanced.  Because she was so top-heavy, after about 20 minutes and less than one mile at sea, a strong wind came along and knocked her over; causing water to pour into the cannon ports on the lower gun deck and flooding the whole ship.  Fortunately, the people of Stockholm were standing nearby on the shore watching her set sail and they got into fishing boats and saved all but 30 of the people on board.  Interestingly, for her maiden voyage, the sailors AND THEIR FAMILIES were on board so some of the casualties were women and children.  Research of the Vasa remains ongoing and the types of items recovered range from weapons (cannons with various ball designs, muskets, halberds, swords, mullets) to coins and anchors to skeletons. The most impressive thing for us – aside from just the absolute massive size of the Vasa herself – is that she spent 333 years in the Baltic Sea and has so little visible damage.  

Nearby the Vasa is the Viking Museum, which, of course, was our second destination.  We are sticking with a theme here people, remember?  The Viking Museum in Stockholm was both different from and similar to those we visited in Denmark.  It is an interactive museum filled with myths and facts about Vikings – particularly those in Swedish history.  Swedish Vikings were very similar to Danish and Norwegian Vikings.  They carried axes, spears and swords, they wore helmets to protect their faces (not ones with horns, Herr Wagner) and chain mail armor to protect their torso, and they also used round shields with a raised dome in the center to help deflect arrows.  Swedish Vikings appear to have preferred axes – like Thor’s hammer – and spears – like Odin’s Gungnir.  Also, Swedish women were considerably powerful in the Viking era – head of the household, warriors, and seers.  Viking women warriors, like Brynhild, were called Shield Maidens.  At their wedding, Viking wives were presented the keys to the house, the outbuildings and the coffins, and, like English women, they carried them around the waist on a ribbon or chain.  It was an important status symbol at the time.  Slaves, often depicted as being mistreated or abused, were in-fact well cared-for.  Vikings treated their thralls (slaves) quite well because they knew if they treated their workers well, they would work harder. A lesson some modern employers appear to have forgotten.  The Viking Museum provided us with a lot of information about Sigtuna, the original capital of Sweden and where the first Swedish coins were minted, Vals Gärde and Uppsala – however, since we are headed to all three of those places in the coming days, I won’t go into great detail in this post.  We greatly enjoyed the section of the museum that was dedicated to Norse mythology (you will recall it is a favorite of Allita’s) and, although we didn’t learn anything particularly new, we did like reading about the gods and seeing their images depicted by Swedish artists.  

Our next museum to visit was the Vrak or Museum of Wrecks.  The Vrak is a joint effort in maritime exhibitions and collaborative research partnerships with multiple Baltic countries.  It is also a truly immersive, interactive experience.  We spent over an hour there learning more about the science of maritime archaeology than we ever knew existed.  We also learned a lot about a variety of wrecks and salvage operations that occurred and remain ongoing in the Baltic area.  There were VR experiences, hands-on archeological testing, archival research, recorded interviews and recreations, and a huge number of exhibits detailing a variety of shipwrecks throughout history, including the Estonia ferry that sank in 1994 and is the worst peacetime naval disaster since the Titanic in 1912.  There are literally hundreds of sunken vessels in the Baltic area and research remains ongoing on many of them, like the Kronan, a massive ship in the Swedish navy that was mishandled, exploded and then sank killing nearly all 800 sailors on board.  Some, like the Resande Man, were discovered as recently as 2012, and others are still mysteries with their fates unknown and wrecks never located.  Sweden’s Heritage Conservation Act is the world’s oldest law governing the protection of ancient monuments and relics, including those in or under water, and there is a diving ban in all areas where wrecks that have unique cultural heritage value exist.  That said, there are plenty of places to scuba dive in Swedish waters, but there are also a lot of places that are banned – centuries of cultural heritage remain undiscovered and unexplored at the bottom of the Baltic Sea.  

We had a picnic lunch of nutella sandwiches at the marina overlooking a bay full of sailboats and surrounded by children eating gelato and playing in the sunshine.  We wrapped up our day on the island of museums with a walk through the Skogskyrkogården (Woodland cemetery) next door to the massive and gorgeous Nordiska Museet (Nordic Museum).  We rode the Djurgårdslinjen (old, historical streetcar – our tram #24 was built in 1904) back to Normalmstorg and caught the T7, newer tram (street car) to the central station and then walked back to our hotel from there.  

Did you know that prior to 1967, Swedish traffic drove on the left-hand side of the street – like the U.K. currently does?  The street cars (trams) were all taken out of service after that date, Högertrafikomläggningen, which honest-to-God actually means “right-hand traffic reorganization” and is remembered as the biggest logistical event in Swedish history.  Think about it – they had to move bus stops, deal with one-way streets, change the side of their cars where the steering wheel was located, learn how to make right turns without head-on collisions, change all the trams (street cars) and their tracks, change how vehicle headlights were angled, repaint the streets especially at intersections, replace or retrofit the busses (because the doors didn’t open on the correct side!), and they had to STOP TRAFFIC to do it.  It went something like this, “Ok everyone.  Tomorrow you aren’t allowed to drive between 1pm and 6pm.  If you are essential traffic and must be driving (emergencies, etc.), then at 4pm, you have to pull off the road and switch to the right hand side.”  Allita and I have gleefully enjoyed mentally recreating this logistical nightmare most of the day and we giggled even harder when we learned that the Swedish never fully changed their train system, so most of their trains still run on the left-hand side.  Tomorrow, we will ride the Stockholm metro – the only metro in Sweden – which hosts over 100 stations and 90 of those contain some formal artwork (sculptures, mosaics, paintings, engravings, etc.) and is considered the “world’s longest art gallery” (according to the Swedish, naturally).  We will meet our 3-hour WALKING tour of Stockholm at the Opera House.  If I survive the experience, I will tell you all about it.    

We finally arrived in Copenhagen early Monday evening, a little wet and worn but still excitedly, optimistic for our capsule hotel, CityHub.  What’s a capsule hotel, you ask?  Developed in Japan where space is limited but people are numerous, this style of hotel is a combination hostel, hotel and B&B where guests share a common bathroom with multiple toilets, showers, and sinks, and a lovely common area called “The Hang Out” complete with a full kitchen with plenty of cookware, disposable dishes and utensils and a neat system for storing perishables in the community refrigerator, a cocktail and juice bar, a mini market with prepared meals and vending machines as well as beer and soda on tap, fresh coffee, tea and water, and plenty of cozy little sitting areas that create a welcoming and relaxing environment.  CityHub Copenhagen also rents guests bicycles, offers a lovely sauna (albeit a shared experience allowing co-mingling of men and women), sells bathrobes and house slippers, and provides a 24/7 concierge service.  The entire experience is 100% automated so that check-in and check-out is completely flexible and your key is actually a reprogrammable chip sewn into an elastic wristband that you can wear anywhere and everywhere and use to automatically charge purchases on your bill or access your personal pod.  Oh yeah, your pod is basically a sleeping chamber that is roughly the size of the bed you reserve with only enough room for two people to stand in one spot, then climb into and sit on the bed. The pod we reserved was a double bed “upstairs” so required the use of three small wooden platform steps (like a bunk bed) to enter the bed, and included a small luggage storage/closet/shelf area where items could be placed or stored.  There was another pod below ours (our door on left and their door on right in photos below) so we basically slept on top of them.  Again – imagine a bunk bed scenario.  Our pod also came with a kimono-style robe we could use for the shower or sauna which was just down the hall and around the bend (so to speak).  Another interesting feature was the environmental system which includes surround sound music and programmable “mood” lighting that could be adjusted using an app or the lobby computers. We found the ambient temperature of our pod suitable for us and quite pleasant, so we never made any changes, but you can modify it, if needed, with help from your CityHost.  They were also kind enough to provide us with two separate blankets as someone is a bit of a blanket hog and I have no desire to engage in war in the middle of the night. 

Copenhagen is both Denmark’s biggest city and capital, with 600,000 or so inside the city limits and a little over a million people in the entire metropolitan area.  The name of the city is derived from the Old Norse, Kaupmannahǫfn, which means “merchant harbor” (Remember the Vikings sank ships in Roskilde to protect the royal city by preventing large ships from entering the harbor so merchant vessels came to Copenhagen instead) and over time has evolved into the current Danish version “København”.  Copenhagen is a city rich in Danish history, home to more Danish royals and rich merchants than any other, and therefore is also a place where incredible architecture and museums abound.  There are SIX castles in Copenhagen: Christiansborg Palace, Amalienborg Palace (the royal palace and home to the King and Queen in the city center), Rosenborg (built as a “pleasure palace”), Frederiksborg (now home to the Danish National Museum – previously mentioned in Jelling post), Kronborg (also known as Hamlet’s Castle as it is the setting for the play), and Hermitage Palace. Copenhagen is also home to the world famous, Tivoli Gardens, the third oldest operating amusement park – and still one of the most visited – in the world (long before Disney was even Disney). Also, interestingly, Copenhagen is literally part land and part water – with 8 rivers flowing through the city itself as well as various streams and canals, and bordered on two sides by the Baltic Sea through the Øresund Strait. 

Did you know, during WWII, Denmark was occupied by the Nazis but the Danish resistance was MASSIVE.  In fact, thanks to action taken by the governments of Denmark and Sweden, over 7,200 of Denmark’s 7,800 Jews and nearly 1,000 non-Jewish spouses were smuggled out of the country by boat to Sweden – many leaving from tiny coastal villages in Denmark and traveling across the Øresund Strait in fishing boats to Sweden. This organized rescue mission is one of the largest actions of collective resistance in any occupied country during the Second World War and is the reason why 99% of Denmark’s Jewish citizen survived the Holocaust.  It is such an important part of war history that the U.S. Holocaust museum in Washington, D.C. even has an authentic Danish rescue boat on permanent exhibit.  

After the second world war, Israel formally recognized Denmark’s resistance as “Righteous Among Nations” and gifted them a massive rock (among many other things) which is today located in a large, centralized, public square the Danish have named “Israels Plads”. The northern half of the square is home to a massive covered market hall that spans two buildings and is called Torvehallerne and the southern half was converted into a modern, outdoor, public park designed by a Copenhagen-based architectural firm in 2014. Following our bike tour of the city of Copenhagen on Tuesday, we wandered through both of the 13,000+ square foot market halls mainly in pursuit of lunch but with the added benefit of avoiding the rain.

While in Copenhagen for three full days, we took a 3-hour (who even knows how many miles?!?) bike tour of the entire city, went shopping at the mercado, Torvehallerne, where we found plenty of lovely gluten-free options, explored both the Tube (an active visual experience in the Central Train Station) and the Museum of Illusions (fascinating and absolutely worth a visit), visited the Round Tower and nearby Frederik’s church (The Marble Church), watched the changing of the Danish royal guard in front of Amalienborg place (guard entered through the columns), spent hours strolling through Strøget, one of Europe’s longest pedestrian streets in a massive shopping area filled with stores ranging from budget bazaar’s to designer brand names, and finally, spent nearly half a day at Tivoli Gardens.  It rained on us every single day, but our last day at Tivoli was eventually quite sunny in the afternoon, which was such a surprise and treasure that we giggled in glee as we rode all the rides we could find – many twice!  

Friday morning obscenely early, we travel by rail across the Øresund Bridge, the second longest bridge in Europe that spans the strait between Denmark and Sweden, to Malmø, Sweden and then, on to Stockholm!  

After 11 straight days of rain, on Monday morning, I found myself in a generally-unfit-for-human-consumption mood. It is challenging to remain cheerful and optimistic when you are never quite dry, keep a constant chill, all you packed was a thin rain coat, short sleeved shirts and summer 3/4 pants but the locals are wearing sweaters, puffer jackets, and jeans, the train you rushed to the station to catch is cancelled and you are over an hour delayed and re-routed twice(!), and you are absolutely unable to understand the native language at all (can’t even read it) so loudspeaker announcements and lighted information boards are useless. Thankfully, and I will say it again, the locals are very nice and helpful and they speak English very well. Another nice bonus is: if you already have tickets but your train is cancelled, you simply take the next train(s) and all associated connections and don’t worry about it. As long as you are still headed in the same direction, your tickets are good and you should hopefully, eventually, get there. Don’t pay to reserve a specific seat though, because in the event of re-routing, you don’t get an assigned seat and may have to change at every stop. Although challenging, navigating the rail system wasn’t as troublesome as simply walking. Honestly, I expected to have difficulty navigating the cobblestone streets with roller bags, but I did not anticipate slogging through the mud on mostly unpaved pathways and grassy fields in my new summer walking sandals while carrying my heavy bags. Still, we somehow made it to Roskilde and the Viking Ship Museum a couple hours before it closed.

In any regard, Roskilde is a small town located on the island of Sjælland (Zealand) about 45 minutes to the south and west of Copenhagen. 

(NOTE: In case you didn’t know, Denmark is made up of about 1400 different islands; of which only about 400 are actually named.)

Roskilde is one of Denmark’s oldest cities and was very important during the Viking Era (8-11 centuries). Harald Bluetooth proclaimed Roskilde the capital of Denmark when he founded it around 980 AD.  He moved the location from Jelling when he realized he needed a more strategic position in the kingdom of islands, and he built both a royal residence and a church there.  Until the early 20th century, Roskilde was part of the main trade route leading to Copenhagen, but when ships got too big to navigate the Roskilde fjord, industry started moving to other harbors.  Then in the 1960s, there was considerable excitement in Roskilde when marine archaeologists discovered the remains of Viking ships dating back to 1030 AD.  Turns out the Vikings had sunk at least five of their fleet, the Skuldelev ships, in the fjord that leads to Roskilde harbor as a way of defending the city.  The sunken ships rendered the waters very shallow and difficult to navigate so that all except the low-riding Viking boats would have been prevented from entering port. These five ships became the start of the Viking Ship museum in Roskilde and the reason why we were visiting the little city. 

Birgitte from our B&B in Jelling had suggested we visit the cathedral in Roskilde and see where Harald is buried. It’s such a massive structure central to the town that you would have a difficult time NOT seeing it and the Roskilde Palace next door. We were in a bit of a rush to get to the museum so we only cruised by the outside as we bounced our luggage across the cobblestoned square. Afterwards, we were so exhausted, and it was, again, raining, so we did not go back to it. Neither of us are passionate church-tour enthusiasts, but this was definitely a miss. The cathedral of Roskilde is arguably the most important church in Denmark.  It has long been the Royal family burial site and almost every generation has added something significant to the church building itself.  As such, it is a masterpiece of 800 years worth of architecture and one of the earliest examples of Gothic style in brick in all Scandinavia.  I would have liked to have seen the rooms that were added by previous monarchs, if nothing else.

The five Viking ships removed from the Roskilde fjord over 60 years ago, preserved with propylene glycol, and eventually re-assembled, are on display in the massive “Ship Hall” at the museum.  The ships range from the famous Longship and Warship (as long as 50 feet) to smaller fishing vessels and ferry boats (as short as 10 feet).  The museum actively undertakes experimental marine archaeology and is globally renown for their work in this area.  Each ship has been carefully studied and models have been recreated by the museum.  It was an exacting process that involved measuring, photographing, sketching, modeling and then manually reproducing each piece of wood using hand tools from the 11th century.  Keep in mind, this process started in the 1960s before computer-modeling, 3D graphics and animation were available for these type of projects.  Repeated detailed testing of the finished reproductions- including multiple voyages in the recreated ships – has been conducted by expert sailers and museum researchers, and in some cases, they have discovered the Viking ship designs actually out perform modern ships in some areas!  Part of our tour of the museum included the fascinating “Boat Yard” where the reconstruction work is ongoing even now.  Master ship builders use tools from the Viking era to reconstruct these ships based on the data taken from the salvaged ships from the fjord.  

In the 1990s, ongoing marine archaeological research in the Roskilde fjord found the remains from another NINE ships, many from the medieval period, which is the largest find of this type in northern Europe. One of the ships found at that time is named Roskilde 6 (scientists are so creative), made in 1025 in the Viking Era, and is the longest Viking ship ever discovered.  Fully re-assembled, it is 121 feet long and is believed to be the style of ship the Vikings would have used for transAtlantic voyages.  All told, there are over 40 ships at the Viking Ship Museum shipyard, plus a wealth of other information, recovered artifacts, and fascinating photographs (as well as lots of things for kids to enjoy related to being a Viking, of course).  

Naturally, as fate would have it, when it was time to go outside, it started raining again. Since we were still mostly damp, we just powered on with our rain coats. A sudden downpour came so we stopped in the little museum cafe to enjoy a couple warm drinks and dry shelter. Iben, our server, called us a taxi (seriously friendly and helpful people!) and we rode back to the train station. From there, we took the train to Copenhagen, and finally, to our hub hotel in the city.

My main take-away from Denmark so far is this: if you plan to venture outside of Copenhagen, either rent a car or allow for some flexibility in your travel schedule (trains come and go). Also, when outside the city, wear proper water-proof hiking boots and carry a backpack instead of a suitcase. If you are only visiting Copenhagen, then you will be fine without a vehicle and with any luggage you want to bring. Further, I recommend disregarding the historical weather information as the instability of current global climate seems to be rendering that useless. Instead, pack a small selection of a variety of clothing – inclusive a jacket and scarf, rain gear, shorts, short and long sleeved shirts, a hat, plenty of bug spray or cream, versatile shoes without any holes, and lots of socks. Layering continues to be a common Scandinavian fashion so pack accordingly. The locals we meet everywhere we go tell us the same thing: it always rains in Denmark. That’s something else to keep in mind.

When we first started planning this trip through Europe, we had very little idea of where we might go and what we might see.  Allita knew she wanted to go to  København (Copenhagen) from northern Germany.  She also knew she wanted to visit some of the important historical sites – particularly those that relate to Vikings.  Norse mythology has long been a favorite of hers; although she has studied many other types including Roman, Greek, Japanese, Mayan, and Egyptian. I feel like most people know from history that the Vikings were incredibly well-traveled sailors; being credited for the original discovery of North America as well as Greenland and Iceland.  In fact, on a recent trip to Chichen Itza, we even discovered evidence the Vikings might have wandered as far south as the Yucatán in their voyages! That said, Vikings were probably the first global, international, marine traders, and a Caliph’s coin found in Jelling certainly supports that theory.  All that said, I have to admit, we were both quite ignorant about Vikings themselves and pretty much anything related to Danish history.  So, to begin our exploration of Danish Vikings, I reached out to the National Museum of Denmark in Copenhagen, the country’s largest history museum, which houses over 14,000 years of Danish history.  I mean, if they don’t know, who does?

The Danish are, in general, extremely helpful, friendly, and nice people.  Almost every single person in Denmark speaks some amount of English and they are usually pretty happy to tell you this when you ask them.  The museum in Copenhagen provided me with a MASSIVE amount of information related to my questions and in sorting through it all, I discovered some fascinating facts.  Jelling, generally considered the “birthplace of Denmark”, is hugely important historically and, naturally, very old.  When the Vikings ruled Denmark (this is the time when it was actually named Danmark), Jelling was the royal seat or capital.  Outside the ancient church in Jelling are two massive carved runestones from 950-ish AD: the oldest dedicated by King Gorm to his wife, Thyra, which also makes the first documented reference to “Danmark”, and the largest dedicated by King Gorm’s son, Harald Bluetooth, in memory of his parents and proclaiming him the King and big man in charge.  Directly translated it reads:  “King Harald ordered this monument made in memory of Gormr, his father, and in memory of Thyra, his mother; that Haraldr who won for himself all of Denmark and Norway and made the Danes Christian.” The inscriptions on Bluetooth’s stone are so popular and important in Denmark that the Danish added them to their official passport!  

As I am sure you can imagine, the little village of Jelling is home to a number of festivals, including the Jelling Music Festival, which is the third largest festival in Denmark.  In email discussion with the Jelling branch of the National Museum of Denmark, I discovered that Jelling also hosts a Viking Market once per year – the weekend of July 6-7.  Holy smokes!  That’s when we will be in Denmark!  So, now you know how we ended up here.  

If you look at an aerial view (see below from Google) of the town of Jelling, you can see the outline of a diamond (tilted square, parallelogram, whatever you want to call it) shape in white.  These pillars recreate what once was the massive wooden palisade that Harald created at Jelling around 968 AD (determined by counting the year-rings in the tree trunks recovered from the remains of the wall).  There were over 3,000 trees used to make this wall.  It stood around 10 feet tall and each side was about 1200 feet long creating an internal space equivalent to 20 football fields.  Historians believe the wall was designed to allow soldiers to patrol along the inside using a narrow walkway that was added near the top. It was made by hand using tools and ox-drawn carts with wooden wheels – think about that!

There are two burial grounds located inside what was once the walled city of Jelling.  Artifacts have been recovered from one the burial chambers (north mound); although no remains have been found so no-one knows for certain who was buried there (perhaps Queen Thyra or King Gorm the old).  This burial mound is located in the exact center of the area and also the exact center of the world’s largest stone “ship setting”.  Today, there are large flat, white stone markers that outline near where the entire stone ship lies so that it is easier to see – since the massive ship structure is around 1200 feet long!  According to Viking mythology, the dead could sail by ship to the gods in Valhalla, so it was not unusual to find stone ships near Viking villages as that is where their dead were buried.  Coincidentally, the church in Jelling also sits in the middle of this massive stone setting as does most of the current cemetery. Wonder if you now choose Valhalla or Heaven?

The church in Jelling is actually the fourth (known) church on this same site. The first was a wooden church that King Harald had built not long after he converted to Christianity around 960 AD.  After he killed his father, Harald’s son, Svein, burned down the palisade and the city of Jelling, including the wooden church, in 987 AD.  Interestingly, Svein named his son, Harald the second, so I’m not sure what that was all about – power hungry? Honestly, the Danish royal history makes Game of Thrones look like a Disney movie.  The second church built here was constructed around 1050 AD in romanesque style using travertine stone.  Unbeknownst until the mid 1800s when renovations were being conducted, at the time of original construction some 700-odd years prior, frescoes were painted in the choir section of the church (specifically on the east wall with the orange-yellow-red window).  These paintings are considered the oldest in Denmark.  Newer paintings have been added to the church in the late 1800s (on the north wall to the left of the window) and again in 1926 (on the south wall to the right of the window) so that every wall in the choir area is now covered in frescoes.  Two things we found interesting about the church: on August 30, 2000, King Gorm the old, under the watchful eye of his granddaughter twenty-something-times removed, Queen Margrethe II, was re-interred here, and there is a model of a ship that hangs from the ceiling near the center of the church close to where Gormr is buried.  

Yesterday, we left Hamburg Central Station VERY early by DB train to Copenhagen.  We departed that train at Kolding Station, took another to Veijle Station, and finally arrived at Jelling station around 1:30pm.  All told, we rode on four trains just to get here and it was no easy feat, I promise you.  It was a cold and rainy day, for the most part, and it drizzled on us as we walked from the train station to our B&B dragging our “rolling” bags across the cobblestone walkways.  Remember how I said the Danish are super helpful and friendly?  Well, when I was trying to plan this trip to Jelling, I could not find a single place nearby to stay.  Jelling is a very popular tourist location and the Viking Market this weekend only increases the demand.  I was starting to get a bit discouraged when I casually mentioned my problem to my museum contact.  She immediately sent me a link to a local B&B only accessible via Air B&B DENMARK (not on Air B&B US! so I had to change my VPN to Denmark to open the link) and connected me with a lovely retired school teacher and grandmother who rents her attic which includes two bedrooms, a bathroom, and a small kitchen.  I mean, is that fantastic or what?  Plus, on the train, we had some difficulty with our connection as it had changed mid-route and then finding the correct seats, but a local Danish couple were extremely helpful and chatted with us almost the entire route to Veijle!  All this delightful human compassion just wraps me in a much-needed blanket of spiritual comfort – a feeling that I admittedly do not experience often enough these days. 

Anyway, we found our B&B easily, our hostess had left us a key in the mailbox (clearly crime is of little concern here), and she gave us the grand tour. We only reserved one of the two bedrooms so we are sharing space with a nice young lady from Germany who is currently working nearby at Legoland Denmark.  We made our way to town almost immediately so we could experience the Viking Market.  The rain didn’t allow us to stay long but we came back today (Sunday) and had an amazing time experiencing Jelling as it might have been in Viking times: shooting arrows, wielding swords, knitting and baking, watching wood carving and blacksmithing, and tromping around in the mud.  We visited the lovely Jelling Church (there was a wedding there the first day we arrived!), the burial mounds, the massive stone ship setting and runestones, and spent hours in the interactive National Museum right across from the Viking Market encampment.  We also wandered a mile or so down steep, forested hills to Fårup Sø (small lake to the south) where the National Museum of Denmark has a VIKING SHIP moored – it’s a small boat but you get the general feel for what they once looked like on the local waters. For lunch, we ate some very interesting local fare, including some kind of cake ball (Romkugler), and, for the first time in my life, a gluten free wafer cone for my ice cream!!  FYI: The Danish eat something that sounds like “Guf” on top of their ice cream – it tastes like marshmallow cream – made from egg whites and powdered sugar (the salesgirl actually said it is “like raw meringue”).  I can’t recommend the Guf personally, but Allita had some and she said it was yummy.  Then again, she likes frozen processed chicken blobs (nuggets) and once ate chocolate-covered ants, so probably you should take her culinary recommendations with caution.

You might recognized the name “Bluetooth” as it is currently associated with technology; specifically the ability to wirelessly connect one device to another.  The short version of the story here is that the company who created this technology (Intel) needed a project name and someone suggested “Bluetooth” because they were knowledgable of Harald who united the Vikings of Denmark and Norway and the runestones with the original Viking Danish inscriptions.  Thus, the symbol for “Bluetooth” comes from combining the H and B in the Nordic Viking alphabet and it stands for “Harald Bluetooth”, the great Viking King of Denmark and Norway.  How cool is that?

Next stop: Roskilde and then Copenhagen!  More Vikings to come!! 

Hamburg is the second largest city in Germany.  Berlin is first, then comes Hamburg.  It is also 8th largest in the European Union (or something like that) with a little over 5 million inhabitants in the entire metropolitan area. Like Schwerin, Hamburg is centered around a considerable amount of water – only this water comes in the form of rivers and not lakes.  There is the Elbe, the Alster and the Bille, to name a few, and a huge number of canals moving through the sprawling city. Because of the rivers and canals running through the city, Hamburg is also home to the most number of bridges in Europe at an astounding 2,500 in the whole city!  

Considering it has a direct connection to the North Sea, Hamburg has a massive port – the largest in Germany and the third largest in the EU after Rotterdam, Netherlands, and Antwerp, Belgium.  The Speicherstadt (City of Warehouses) is the largest warehouse district in the world.  Warehouse buildings stand on wood-pile foundations made from oak logs and can be accessed from the canals or from the street.  Here you will find the Miniature Wunderland (model trains) and Hamburg Dungeon – which we passed today on our way to the Alte Elbe Tunnel.  Don’t break anything in the Miniature museum because the Dungeon is literally directly below and still in use!  (Ha ha)

To say this is a big city would be a gross understatement.  The Hamburg Central Train Station alone handles well over half a million people per day and is the second busiest main train station after Paris, France.  We will head there tomorrow morning so today we did a practice run to make sure we knew where to go, etc.  If you are ever traveling through Hamburg by rail, I highly recommend pre-trip reconnaissance at this massive train station.  I have a lot of rail travel experience (off and on my whole life) and this station was tricky even for me to navigate.  Several blog sites I have read describe it as “active” and “full of information” – let me translate that for you: it is hectic, confusing and nearly impossible to navigate (until you learn it a little), and you can end up lost, with sensory overload, and stolen luggage, if you aren’t careful.  With all that is going on here, this is a prime location for theft and crime, so you have to be alert to that at the same time you are struggling to find your train.  Yeah – reconnaissance highly recommended. 

There is also a tremendous amount of money moving through Hamburg – home of Germany’s oldest stock exchanges and the world’s oldest merchant bank, Berenberg Bank – and you can see the influence of wealth all over the city (sport, entertainment, architecture, infrastructure, etc.).  It hosts 5 of the world’s tallest churches and has more churches taller than 300 feet than any city in the world (over 100 actually)  Interestingly, the Emperor Charlemagne (arguably the father of Europe and certainly hugely important in European history) is credited with founding and naming Hamburg in 808 AD.  Given that he was a devout Christian, perhaps that explains the large number of tall churches everywhere?  

Allita and I decided we would spend the entirety of one day in Hamburg.  Maybe that sounds surprising given how large it is and how much there is to explore, but there are a number of factors that we considered.  First: our next stop is the Viking Market in Jelling, Denmark which is ONLY this Saturday and Sunday (only held two days per year) and requires not less than three trains to travel to from Hamburg, Second: Euro 2024 kicked off in Hamburg and it remains a huge site for football (soccer) fans to gather and celebrate (tonight, for example, Germany plays Spain), and Third: Olympic hopefuls have already begun descending on Hamburg for the World Triathlon Series (July 13-14).  So, this already massive, populated city is literally bursting at the border with people from all over the world.  For us, that means long lines, lots of crowded public transportation, sold out events, and unusual traffic to navigate.  Furthermore, there is an increase in police and security activity because of the great number of people and events here, which sadly tempt terrorists (ISIS) and other extremists (even climate change activists who lately have been quite active publicly and not in good ways).  All of that means, we don’t want to linger in this city any longer than we have to.  Too bad really as I am sure Hamburg ordinarily is quite a lovely place to be.  I would like to return to this region when we could spend more time having a relaxing visit and doing some exploration without concern for our schedule.  Maybe, one day, I will.

We started today with a tour of the Chocoversum, Hamburg’s Chocolate Museum, located very near the Speicherstadt.  They offer a 90-minute guided tour of the museum and we purchased tickets for 10:30 so our tour would be in English.  Although we both can manage the German, it’s sometimes nice not to have to, you know?  We were early so we killed some time in the gift shop before the tour.  The first step of the tour – literally immediately after you scan your ticket – is to taste some chocolate from the massive chocolate fountain.  For this, you are provided with a sweet wafer cookie and you manually apply the liquid chocolate from small ports on the side of the fountain basin.  

Then, we moved into a tropical-themed room for a lesson on the cocoa bean, fruit and tree.  Two of our fellow tour mates volunteered to taste the fruit seeds (containing the bean).  Allita advised me not to volunteer.  She had recently been on a school trip to Belize where they visited a similar set-up at a cocoa plantation and she tried the fruit – only to discover that it is not particularly pleasant.  The outside is kind of fuzzy like lichee and the inside is bitter.  We moved on to the chocolate manufacturing plant after a brief lecture on the chocolate revenue stream and how that relates to the plantation workers (barely better than slave labor, they make about 1/2 what they need to survive – yikes!).  Then we made our own chocolate bars in little plastic trays.  We were allowed to add any of the available toppings we wanted – Allita went a little wild with hers but I kept mine simple with only hazelnut brittle.  We chose our chocolate type: Allita – white and Me – milk.  Then, we refrigerated our bars until we finished the tour.

In the next rooms, we tasted dried cocoa beans which we also shelled ourselves.  Allita ate her shell but I tossed mine.  Should have tossed the bean too as that thing was horrible – beyond bitter.  I am not a fan of the cocoa until you add sugar to it, thanks. We learned about processing the beans: drying, shelling, milling, and mixing the crushed bean paste with sugar, and sometimes cocoa butter, to make the rich creamy chocolate we all know and love.  We got to taste everything at every stage – even after packaging (as if the little foil wrapper makes a difference) – and were advised to attempt the “full sensory experience”, which means looking, smelling, listening to how the bar breaks, and finally tasting.   Then, we packaged our own bars and departed before we developed diabetes.

Our next stop was a walking tour of Speicherstadt.  Then we walked the piers from Landungsbrücken to Saint Pauli, where we passed the museums I mentioned previously as well as the Hamburg Port Authority, the Elbphilharmonie (Concert Hall), the Hamburg Rathaus (City Hall), Saint Catherine’s Church, the delightful Fischmarkt (Fish Market), and eventually made our way through the Alter ElbTunnel (Old Elbe Tunnel).  

The Old Elbe Tunnel was really Allita’s main place to visit in Hamburg, after the Chocolate museum, of course.  Another feat of German engineering, finished in 1911, this tunnel was once considered a technological marvel – with four massive shafts, some containing cage elevators that carry people (and bikes, buggies, carts, etc. – and prior to October 2023, even CARS!) down nearly 80 feet to the 20 feet wide tunnel, which is tiled in white and decorated with glazed terracotta marine images all along the 1400 feet it travels BENEATH the Elbe river to the other side of Hamburg.  This was the first under river tunnel on the entire European continent.  During World War II, its strategic location beneath the Elbe River made it part of the main circuit for transportation and communication across Hamburg – remember at that time even vehicles could pass through the tunnel – it was hidden so far underground and connected the city center with the southern neighborhoods. The tunnel sustained only minor, periodic damage during the war so it could continue to be used even during the post-war reconstruction of the city.  Hamburg citizens tell of using the tunnel as a shelter from Allied aerial bombing, as well as for transporting goods, supplies and people even as the rest of the city was being pummeled. For many locals, the Old Elbe Tunnel is a symbol of the unbeatable and unwavering spirit of the city of Hamburg.  

After our long walking tour, we took the U-bahn to the Central Station and executed our previously discussed recon of the coming morning’s railway adventure that will take us from lovely Germany into Denmark, home of the Vikings!

In northwest Poland, in a tiny village called Nowe Czarnowo, very near the town of Gryfino, you will find a cluster – a grove, really – of unusual pine trees.  The locals call this place Krzywy Las, which in English means “crooked forest”. I recently learned they also call it the “Fairy Tale Forest”, and with Hansel and Gretel in mind, I can absolutely see how that name suits. At one time, there were about 400 of these mysteriously curved pines growing together in an unusual manner that has never been fully explained.  How’s that for creepy? Eat your heart out Brother’s Grimm.  Anyway, Allita learned of this unique conifer forest while reading a National Geographic magazine in the third grade.  Since late 2015, she has wanted to witness the beauty and wonder of this treasured Polish natural monument.  So, the next step on our Sweet 16 summer trip through Europe was Poland.

The Crooked Forest is actually the main reason why we took possession of a rental vehicle in Frankfurt.  Having the vehicle also made it easier for us to get to our B&B from Frankfurt since we could just drive there without any connections or train changes and could save having to figure out the Berlin train system for another day. Also, Berlin is not a city easily traversed by foot while dragging multiple suitcases – remember how big I said it was? Having a car is sometimes a good idea; however, parking is always a factor and, lots of personal automobile driving in Germany is not exactly stress-free – let’s face it, most Germans are better drivers than most Americans (myself included – particularly since this is not my native country or language, and the international traffic signs are also foreign).  Further, as a general rule, we prefer to use mass transit such as trains, busses, streetcars, subways, etc.  Personally, I enjoy being able to look away from the road and enjoy the sights we pass.  Allita enjoys not having to navigate.  That said, this trip to the wilds of Poland somewhat mandated a personal vehicle as you simply “can’t get there from here” using public transportation.  

I’m not going to go into great detail about how we traveled from Berlin to the Polish forest except to say this: if Allita and I had not already spent hours studying various maps and reading as much as we could in advance, we would still be driving around rural West Pomerania.  First, there is only a tiny road sign visible barely 10 meters from the turn into the maximum 3-car, unpaved parking lot that also doubles as a maintenance road for the Dolan Odra Power Plant.  Parking there gave us great confidence, I promise you.  Second: Have you ever been to rural Poland? I’ve not seen anything like it. Literally, one town stops when another one begins. Seriously! It’s mind-boggling. Blink and you miss the name of the town where you currently are located and there is absolutely no way a GPS is going to find you on these roads. Fuhgeddaboudit. Third:  Even after we parked in the tiny clearing in the woods off the side of the road (see previous comment re: parking lot), we were not fully convinced we were in the correct place until we looked way up high in the trees, far over our heads, and found some tiny, camouflaged signs with directional arrows.  Photos below show some of what I am trying to explain to you – Allita is a tall girl, you can see where the signs are – it’s like “Who are you targeting here? Giants?”  Anyway, somehow, miraculously, we spent about an hour hiking around and exploring the extremely lush, green area, and enjoyed a morning snack in the cool woods before moving along back to Gryfino and, eventually, Szczecin.  

I loved these two signs depicting the various theories on how this forest came to exist.  Whatever you may believe, it is fascinating to observe.  Further, Allita and I noted a large number of other pines in the same wooded area that are very curved near the middle or top instead of the bottom so it made us wonder if that phenomenon was not still occurring periodically.  Good thing it was a cold, overcast day – I mean, I would not have been at all surprised to see a fairy, goblin or unicorn just pop out of the trees.  Allita said she was looking for wolves.

Szczecin, Poland is massive.  I didn’t know that.  Did you know that?  It feels like I should have known that before I attempted to drive around the city.  In fact, it is the 7th largest city in Poland.  Surprise, surprise.  We saw Bazylika archikatedralna św. Jakuba Apostoła (Saint James the Apostle Archcathedral Basilica), a bit of the  Szczecin Castle (Pomeranian Duke’s Castle), the Muzeum Narodowe w Szczecinie (National Museum of Szczecin), the Red Town hall, a lot of bodies of water of which I can not remember the names, and, the one place I wanted to visit in person, Stare Miasto (Old Town) with the famous old market square called the Rynek.  Most of what we saw of Szczecin was from the car and I’m not sure I could recreate the tour as it was somewhat haphazard and may have involved some profanity (sorry, Mom).  We did finally find a parking lot (this time maybe 10 cars big?) with a meter that used a credit card – as we do not own any Zloty (Polish currency – I feel like I could have a rant about the EU countries that don’t use the Euro but I’m going to skip that for now) – and we explored all of Old Town on foot.  That was lovely.  My own little personal reward for the torture of driving in this country.  

After a lot of discussion with the British-accented, female voice of our rental car’s GPS, we finally returned to the sanity of Germany and made our way to the nearest interesting Gasthaus on the route to Hamburg.  Wouldn’t you know, it was a castle?  Schloss-Hotel Bredenfelde, built in 1850, appeared quite lovely in the evening light and the management were surprised and delighted to host us for the evening.  They are so far off the beaten path (the ideal place for us blue-roaders) that by 7pm, they had cleaned up Abendessen (evening meal) and were starting to call it a day.  We parked our rental car in another unpaved parking lot, this time somewhat bigger and next door to a barn full of cows, trouped in to register and get the grand tour (15 guest room apartments, banquet hall, fireplace room, wine vault, breakfast room in the garden kitchens, variety of interesting architecture, decorations and furniture throughout), eventually finished our travel snacks for which we were utterly grateful by that time, and fell asleep. 

The next morning, we stayed true to our countryside route and slowly made our way to Hamburg, stopping only once in the absolutely lovely town of Schwerin, which is also the capital of the German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.  The city itself has around a dozen lakes IN it.  So, yes, we spent most of our time there oogling the massive bodies of water so foreign to our Arizonan eyes.  On an island in the Schweriner See (Lake Schwerin), the largest of the lakes in the city, sits the massive castle, Schweriner Schloss (Schwerin Castle), once home to the Grand Duke himself.  This absolutely phenomenal architectural construct was our main reason for detouring slightly into the city.  Records of this castle go back as far as 973 A.D.  Makes sense when you see how it is situation on the water – the ideal place to set up defendable headquarters really. In some of the photos Allita took, you can see the golden dome and other golden ornamentation on the castle.  I will mention here that when I lived in Germany in the 1980s, Schwerin was in East Germany and not accessible.  Neither was Schloss-Hotel Bredenfelde or any of the little villages (dorfs) through which we traveled in the periodic rainfall today as we made our way gradually to Hamburg from Poland.  It was a fabulous journey and, even after all this time, you can still see how different this Eastern region, once in the Soviet Occupied Zone, is from those rural areas outside Frankfurt and Berlin that remained in the West. 

Tonight, we turned in our rental car (finally!) and made our way to another lovely B&B in southern portion of the quiet, family-friendly, Hamburg-Nord (Northern Hamburg) neighborhood.  Tomorrow, we explore Hamburg!  And yes, we did have a bit of a giggle about Frankfurters, Berliners, and Hamburgers – I admit it.