200 minutes in Stockholm! Record

24 February 2013 Travel time: with 14 February 2013 on 15 February 2013
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Stockholm. Joy from the long-awaited meeting could not be measured by any joules and candela. She just splashed over the edge, like inadvertently sipped draft beer from a wide glass on a manly chest. I wanted to love again, sing, dance and scatter juicy quatrains about everything I saw.

At the beginning of the journey, the weather frowned no worse than the experienced guard of the garage cooperative, who was not shown a pass. But a little later, she caressed me with her sunbeams, patronizingly warming the piercing minus on my cheeks.

The choice of means of transportation was made right on the spot. A familiar Swedish employee was put on the shoulder blades by a question tested in childhood: Are you sorry, or what?

And now, on a Swedish monster with a chain drive, cast spokes and tinted reflectors, I crashed into a viscous Swedish atmosphere with a chisel.


The big-small capital of Sweden manages to impress with its scale and be explored in a couple of days at the same time. The compact location of attractions will allow interrogation of ticket collectors at the entrance to museums, 5 pieces per day, moving only on foot. Of course, if there is a big one, then it’s just super, but in my youth, simple tendons were enough for me.

The avenue map I figured out very well in Kristianstad was called 87 museums in Stockholm. The application for the level of culture was submitted already in one title. Behind my broad shoulders, of course, there is the experience of visiting almost all of Stockholm for free and visiting the Vaasa Museum. But this is as far from conquering the museum fund of Stockholm as the amount of horsepower in the horse itself compared to David Coulhard's McLaren.

The usual scheme - to buy a Stockholm card and visit museums until you lose consciousness and the ability to respond to external stimuli did not work here. There were only a few hours available. Enough to leave your mark in 2, maximum 3 museum funds. On the Internet, smart people lucidly wrote that the same ticket was needed to visit the Stockholm City Museum and the Stockholm Museum of the Middle Ages. It cost 100 crowns and was valid for a year. Exactly what is needed.

I rode into the central part of the city, happily waving my great free hand to the familiar houses and streets, which, with their curves and shapes, stirred up forgotten memories in my soul. The picture from the outside, probably, was touching for the Swedes and slightly annoying for the representatives of our Motherland.

The first stop was at the Museum of the Middle Ages, which prepared me for a logical continuation about the history of the city already in the City Museum.

Stockholm Medieval Museum

This museum has managed to remain invisible to me all these years. How many times I passed over it or near it, but it was not even in my thoughts to see a museum there. If you approach the Opera House and from it throw your eyes on the Royal Palace, then dropping just below the horizon you will see the museum. If my coordinates are significantly different from the usual format with degrees, minutes and seconds on the GPS screen, then orient yourself on the museum website.


Where were the Swedish authorities looking? But on the descent to the museum I had to carry the bike in my arms, since there were no sloping surfaces in sight. Will wheelchairs also need to be carried on hand? Or maybe where the elevator was disguised?

In general, I entered the museum with a partner under my arm.

Having identified it not far from the entrance, I was impatient to start learning about the medieval boundary in the fate of incomparable Stockholm.

100 CZK for the ticket, 20 for the audio guide and welcome. By the way, the ticket is annual, and you also need to drop into the city museum with it. There, as it were, a continuation, but of a more modern period.

The audio guide was a new type for me. Headphones, wire and a small laser pencil with a volume wheel. There are little black pictograms depicting an ear around the museum, which must be dispassionately hit with their laser beam. As a reward, the omniscient maiden will tell you a story or two from the life of the ancient Swedes.

I will make a reservation that without an audio guide, the detour will not be so impressive. The Swedish language prevails here, and how long will it take you to see a rider in armor without an appropriate soundtrack.

And so they will tell you how much, why and to whom it was beneficial and how much more fun the rider lived, in contrast to the foot mercenary with a flask to overweight.

In each corner of the impressive perimeter there is a picture from the real life of those times.

Churches, a prison, a market square, a fishing village, a fortress wall, a shoemaker's shop and related materials. In the middle of the square stands a pillar with shackles hanging lifelessly on them. Shackles can be brought to life by trying them on your wrists and ankles.

For greater reality, humanoid mannequins are used. I note that the mannequins are made very soundly and in certain lighting can make a more or less lively company.

The fishing village is represented by two huts with painstaking pettiness and complemented by a computer projection of the entrance to medieval Stockholm.

The projection is alive and within 10 minutes it manages to wake up, wash itself with rain and again plunge into the abyss of night.


Nearby are the remains of a 40-meter schooner, which they were able to dig out of the ground, although they were going to dig out the subway.

The fate of the ship (which is somehow not surprising after Vassa) was tragic from the very descent. He could only swim in hatchet style. Already contemporaries came to the conclusion that not the best quality of wooden material is to blame for everything.

An hour with an audio guide flew by. And since there is nothing to do alone in the playroom, which is mainly for children, I had to trudge to the exit. The guided tour, which was supposed to take place at 13.00 in Swedish, would hardly have conveyed even a single familiar word to me.

Stockholm City Museum

This museum is located on the opposite side of the Museum of the Middle Ages Gamla Stan. Or rather, Gamla Stan is, as it were, between them.

For some reason, another subway junction with the name Slussen was built near the City Museum. So the flow of passengers will let you know that the history of the city is stored somewhere nearby.

I entered the museum on the fly, waving the ticket issued to me in the Museum of the Middle Ages and a friendly wink. The young man gave me a green sticker and wished me a pleasant viewing.

Viewing began almost from the threshold. The usual frames of the museum complex here are slightly expanded and turned diagonally. Here is the exhibition, here is the locker room, and what is the cafe doing here. There is no usual boundary and a campaign to shells. All in a daily setting.

The museum is quite modern. Bright, clear, versatile. Perhaps not everything is of such interest to me as a foreigner, but some moments are quite of international interest.

On 3 floors, the gradual development of a small trading town into today's metropolis is presented.

I did not notice a thorough chronology, and the exhibitions are quite independent.

There are a lot of layouts in the halls, live TVs, miniature expositions and entire rooms converted into a piece of the real world.


I was surprised by the scrupulousness in the description of everyday life in the 17th century. Here you have a model of the progenitor of the bio-toilet (a spectacle not for the faint of heart), the diet of those times and activities in your free time. One of the most fun was somersaulting with a partner. In the corner of the hall, there is a screen with curtains, on which a couple makes love. Honestly, a complete immersion in the life of the 17th century. How much has changed in 400 years in the manner of conducting bed triathlon.

So, rounding floor after floor, Stockholm reveals small pieces of its history. I did not notice the audio guides at the entrance, so after wandering for a little less than an hour, I decided to meet with fresh air.

By the way, here, as in any museum in Stockholm, there is a rather lively cafe (it seems that there will be more people in the cafe) and a good room for children's games. There is even a place to leave and with whom a very small child. Just pre-teach children English, otherwise they may get upset when they feel the language barrier.

Here you can join the free WiFi network. The procedure is slightly complicated. Near the entrance there is an office where you need to break into with a widely opened passe-partout or other document. After writing down your call signs, the lady will print out your personal password, which will give you access to the World Wide Web.

I will add that purely for me the Museum of the Middle Ages was brighter.

Having got out of the second museum, I realized that the cultural fund of my consciousness was full and took up a little more space than it was allotted.

So visiting the next establishment will be useless, given that the surplus of information will simply spill out onto the floor, like coins from an overflowing bag of a greedy Leprechaun.

With a cavalry charge, I ran into the Royal Palace, the Nobel Museum and the Museum of History. So to speak, fix their location in your mind, sniff the gunpowder and decide their future fate for a visit.

Having collected a bunch of brochures, I realized that more than my life I want to visit the Museum of History and the Museum of Natural History. But in order to visit Junibacken, Skansen and Tom and Tits, it is advisable to have children with you.

I probably won't go to the Nobel Museum. This is more for students to have than to trump before the ladies. Nobel, then - the name is familiar to everyone!


(I remember how one small coyly posed in front of a girlfriend that, they say, he was in the Colosseum, and all that, and she indifferently yawned into a wide five, answered that she was not very interested in Egypt).

Stockholm has a fairly loyal policy regarding entrance tickets. The fact that children under 18-19 years old are allowed in packs for free almost everywhere is one thing, another, that almost every museum has a day in the week when you can visit it for free. Not once a month, like everywhere else, but once a week. In principle, if you stay in Stockholm for a week, then the main fund can be mastered for free.

There is another nice feature. Most museums have guided tours once or twice a day. If you are lucky enough to be there at the appointed time, then you do not need to pay extra for a guide. Guides assert themselves against your background mainly in Swedish and English.

And these 2 tracks together make me subscribe to any flattering word dropped towards the capital of the Scandinavian Empire, the cultural Mecca of the Baltic Weir.

Translated automatically from Russian. View original
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