The night I left Stockholm was Swedish Meatball night

"At least you'll be well fed for your trip," the girl behind the counter said

Meatballs with baked potatoes, brown sauce and lindenberry sauce

I was. I really was.

Something to prove

A little explanation at the start of this post; I had no intention of going to Uppsala when I planned this trip. In fact, I wasn't going to visit Sweden at all, but a number of people recommended I visit Stockholm (to see the Vasa!) while I was in the area and I could see the wisdom in that. Then my supervisor suggested that, if I had time, I make the trip out to have a look at Uppsala.

"It used to be the capital," he said. "It's relevant to you, and I think you'll like it."

He was right, of course. This always happens to me. I went to the USA expecting to be an east-coast person and fell madly in love with the west. Now it looks like Sweden is doing everything it can to win me over before Norway gets a look-in.

Uppsala suffers from Picturesque European Town disorder

Today Sweden put on a show like it wanted to marry my daughter. Uppsala is about 40 minutes from Stockholm by train. A quick walk to the river and I found the tourist bureau. I had no idea what I could see or do in Uppsala, just the vague knowledge that it was pretty and had something to do with vikings.

I was right on both counts.

The lady at the bureau recommended getting the bus out to Gamla Uppsala (old Uppsala) about seven kilometers from the city center. But first, there were some items near the cathedral she thought might interest me.

Holmfast had the stone erected in memory of his father and brother

 Mother.

Bjorn had the stone erected in memory of __ soul

 Flippin.

Gilliog had the stone erected in memory of her daughter Gilliog

Runestones.

The park by the cathedral had eight runestones on display. These are the first runestones I have ever seen. I was blown away.

Then it was lunch time. The tourist bureau had recommended a bunch of Swedish restaurants, but they all had fish-only menus and cost a lot of money. So I found a cute cafe.

Lunch round one

That sandwich was incredible. Fresh salad, cheese, sundried tomatoes, pesto. I was too hot for a coffee, but after watching the river for a while I thought a coffee would be just the thing. Also I had made the mistake of seeing the cake cabinet.

Lunch round two

German coffee and Austrian coffee had been so awful I have become wary of European coffee in general. In Austria in especially this was confusing; they were so proud of their coffee. I asked the girl at the cafe why Swedish coffee was so good.

"We're not proud," she said. "We just love our coffee."

The view at lunch time.

I got on the wrong bus. Well, the right bus, but going the wrong way. I got to tour the Uppsala number 2 route. But eventually I made it out to Gamla Uppsala.

Are those... are those barrows?

Gamla Uppsala was the bronze-age and Viking age capital of Uppland. The area is now full of excavation sites. There are going to be 30 archaeologists working there this year and 20 next year, preparing for the new train tunnel that's going in. There used to be somewhere between 200 and 2,000 burial sites in the area, along with halls and homes and such. Supposedly a pagan temple (though no evidence has been found). Most of it has been ploughed over as farmland and the landscape has changed considerably.

There's a museum. It's full of stuff excavated from the three primary burial sites and a handful of boat burials from nearby.

Swords and spears and helmets and jewelry and just so much stuff

An archaeologist gave us a tour of the exhibits and some history of the area. There were, he explained, two sources who provided information about whose remains were in the three main burial sites, and neither of them were reliable. One was a German priest, whose account was hearsay and was mostly propaganda aimed at making the Swedish pagans seem like savages.

The other was Snorri Sturluson.

In Snorri's version, one king was sacrificed to end a terrible famine. One fell off his horse and died. The third was gored by a sacrificial bull. But these accounts don't match up with the remains found.

Ten year old boys on bearskins and such

There was a reason for this too.

"In Snorri's stories about the Norwegian kings, they alway have heroic deaths. But the Swedish kings, the deaths are silly. This is why we say, when we don't believe somebody, that they are telling Norwegian Stories."

That was not my favourite thing.

"Also, Snorri is slang, in Sweden, for wiener. So that is funny. It makes all the school children laugh when they hear it."

The view from the middle site

They also had a kids section

The on-site archaeologist got me the metal sword from behind the counter

I would have looked more fierce if I could have wiped the shit-eating grin off my face.

Some things I saw while running in Stockholm

Entrance to the old town

Streets were pretty empty at 6am

Fast moving water

At the national theatre

Swans! Cygnets!

If you had one day in Stockholm

"You have to see the Vasa," I was told before I left Australia. "You can't miss it, if you're in Stockholm."
Nils, one of the Austrians at the hostel, put it more eloquently. "The ship is... fucking... huge."

He wasn't wrong.

My mum said she wanted some photos with me in them. Thanks for making her happy, random Swedish dad.

Nils also warned us to get to the museum early. "By ten o'clock the tour buses arrive and you have to wait in line for, like, an hour," he said. I walked in at 0840 and took a few minutes to process what I was seeing.  The ship is enormous. Sixty nine meters long and about thirty tall (the tops of the masts were removed when she sank) it fills the huge space and commands constant attention.

But it's not just the size of the ship that captures you. German and Dutch sculptors were paid to create the beautiful carvings which decorate the ship.

The gunports had lions inside each cover. No two recovered were alike.

Using thousands of samples from all over the ship, researchers have an idea of the colours used. The result would have been... gaudy. But impressive. There's a mish-mash of mythology; Roman Emperors, Bible figures, traditional Norse legend, all with their own message for onlookers.

Tasteful and subdued.

And all of it displaying lions, the symbol of power and ferocity. The massive ship in the center of the museum is impressive enough; with flags flying and painted sculptures she would have been a marvel.

Some of the ingredients of the paints

The story of the Vasa is pretty astonishing. She sank twenty minutes into her maiden voyage when a strong breeze blew her over far enough that water came in through her lower gun-ports. With four of her sails still raised she sank by the island of Beckholmen.
(Quick aside - the hostel I'm staying in has named all its rooms after islands in the lake. I'm staying in the Beckholmen room)

The actual Vasa literally never looked like this model, because this one has all the sails raised.

The reigning theory is that the Vasa was too narrow. She was trying to be too many things. The king at the time wanted a ship with two gun decks and a fast ship, meaning she was too heavy and narrow, with not enough space for ballast to prevent tipping. But as our tour guide said; lucky for us. The waters of the Baltic preserve wooden ships better than any others in the world, so now Stockholm has an amazing museum.

The queue when I left. Went all the way down the street.

You might think it strange that I've written a post about how amazing this ship/museum is and included very few photos of the ship itself. The difficulty comes from the sheer size of the thing. It was very difficult to find a shot which would show her adequately.

Shot taken from the gallery at the aft, best I could do.

I dunno, maybe see it for yourself?

I thought you'd be taller

"I was expecting everyone to be seven foot tall and blond," I said. "I still feel pretty tall."
"No, we're just like anybody else." Our host, Axl, was blond but wasn't a giant. He was teaching us how to make kroppkakor and telling us about life in Stockholm.

Potato dumplings with bacon and onion drizzled with melted butter and a lindenberry sauce. Doesn't count unless you cook it yourself.

Earlier that day he had sent me to his favourite cafe in Stockholm, a few blocks from the hostel. I asked the mustachioed barista if he knew what a flat white was.
"Of course," he said. "We were not born yesterday." One of their staff was from Sydney, he told me, and flat white training had become mandatory. When he brought it to my table he boasted, "That one is so flat."

Better than passable, it was really good coffee.

With a coffee and a sandwich to fight jetlag, I explored central Stockholm, following the mall until I reached a huge building with guards. It took a few minutes to find the signs; I had found the royal palace.

Just guarding the crap out of it

In a way Stockholm reminded me of Sydney; a city designed with the landscape in mind. It's built across a number of islands in the mouth of  Lake Mälaren and I walked along the water's edge, crossing any bridge I came to.

There are many boats in Stockholm. Here's one.

Not wanting to be late for dinner, I strolled back through the streets towards the city center. As I went I passed these guys.

It took me a couple of goes to see that their story was told around the statue.

The kroppkakor were good, the linden berries were fresh and tart and set off the potato well. I let the others tell me about what they had seen and done so far in Stockholm to get a sense of what I should do the next day. One thing kept coming up.

You've got to see the Vasa.