My Commentary to the Stockholm Photo Gallery :-)
I know last week I announced there will be a extra post about the Vasa (ship and museum) and there will be! Later this week, I hope. The cold really dragged me down a bit and then there was work. And the season opening event for my hockey team. And more work. In between I sorted through my Stockholm photos and the upload and tagging and such took so much more time than anticipated. But they are online now. Finally.
I didn't want to show them chronologically, because then I would have to explain much too much in this post (and I wrote a bit about the trip already, while I was there). So I ordered the photos more or less thematically and in this posts there are a written few explanantions in advance. About the order of the photos most of all. So you might either want to read this first and watch the slideshow afterwards. Or click through the gallery in an extra browser tab.
Slide Show | Gallery
It's starting with pix from my former dormitories and "my" Royal Institute of Technology. Then there are a few typical innercity sights: Places, Buildings, Parks. There are also a few (just very few unfortunately) photos of the artistic metro stations. A lot of the central metro stations in Stockholm have been designed by various artists all with a special theme. It's actually quite impressive, but I either rarely thought of taking a photos or I just haven't been to these stations this time. There are also just a few photos of the Bergianska Botanical Garden. I took a lot more, but it's basically a typical botanical garden. It's quite close to the university and the dorms where I was living in 1997 and I can't believe I've never been there in the six months I was living there.
Then there are photos of Södermalm, which is the innercity quarter south of the historic town centre Gamla Stan (which means old town). Södermalm basically means southern hill. Södermalm is on a cliff (and a bit hilly indeed) south of the old town centre and offers a great view of Gamla Stan and the surounding quarters. Parliament, Royal Palace, Change of Guards and historic statues in Gamla Stan are the next ones in the gallery, followed by a few from the thousands *g* of photos I took at Stadshuset, the town hall, which was only build in early 20th century.
The central hall of Stadshuset is the place of the Nobel Prize banquett and then the hall is filled with over a thousand seats and hundreds of tables. The hall is called "Blue Hall", even though it doesn't have anything blue in it. But the architect originally had planned to use blue decorations and the name stuck. The actual council hall is vastly decorated and the ceiling is quite impressive. It's designed like the ceilings of the viking halls in ancient times, with an opening for air (and to get the smoke out) which was called "vindöga". That's where the term "window" originates from. (Well, to be honest both terms originates from the old norse "vindaug", but I like the swedish story better *g*)
The most impressive room in the Town Hall, is the Golden Hall. Which unlike the Blue Hall, actually is golden. The walls are covered in mosaics of the most important figures and events of Swedish history. The design of the mosaic are typical for the 1920s, (at least to my artistically uneducated mind). And the gold is just really impressive. The mosaic pieces aren’t actually solid gold, just covered with a tiny layer of gold. But all in all it’s still around 20 kg of gold in the room, if I remember it correctly.
The center piece of the mosaic is Queen Mälaren (the queen of the huge lake west of Stockholm) who is seen as the center and ruler of the world. Left and right (west and east) of her tall figure are symbols of the rest of the world and all the details were really amazing.
Next in the photo gallery are the pictures from Gamla Stan: the Old German Church, the Great Church, the Marketplace and lots and lots of typical tiny streets and alleys. Märten Trotzigs Gränd, is the smallest alley/staircase/passage in this historic part of the town, just 90 cm wide.
Second to last there are a few photos from the open air museum Skansen, which has old farm and town buildings from all over Sweden. And farmyards and lots of nature. It was unusually crowded with visitors on the day I went, so I did spend less time there than I had originally planned. And last but not least there are a couple of moose photos. You know it’s my favourite animal so of course I had to take some pictures in the zoo part of the open air museum Skansen. And I took some photos of other moose too ;-)
The Vasa post will be up later this week. I promise!
Slide Show | Gallery