August 7-9, 2015: Stockholm is very well provided with museums. Not counting the Town Hall, I visited three major and two specialized museums over three days, and was thoroughly happy with all five. My first museum day began slowly, as I couldn’t find the bus my phone wanted me to take to Djurgarden island. Eventually it dawned on me that the road I was looking for was above me, and I took a handy escalator up to the correct level. Then I spent most of the day at the Nordiska, Stockholm’s comprehensive decorative arts museum. Besides a series of period interiors, the museum covered festivals, folk art, clothing and jewelry, and possibly some other things I didn’t get to. The clothing exhibition focussed on three separate periods, but I particularly liked the video of people dressing in everyday clothes of an earlier era. We don’t know how easy we have it!
One area showed dining tables set for meals at different times. I was interested to learn that the swan centerpiece was not actually edible, but a reusable presentation piece contain some other meat. The jewelry display didn’t particularly excite me, but by that time I was rather tired, despite a stop for lunch in the museum’s cafe. However, instead of retreating to my hotel, I walked behind the Nordiska to the Vasa.
When I had approached the Nordiska I had noticed a line up of tour buses, but the Nordiska had been blessedly uncrowded. I found the crowds in the Vasa, even though it was well into the afternoon by the time I arrived. Although I had read about the ship, sunk on her maiden voyage in 1628, on her way to fight against Poland-Lithuania, I was unprepared for her sheer size. As I approached on the museum’s lowest level the ship towered over me, all 52.5 meters (172 feet) of dark wood.
Intended both as a fighting flagship (64 cannon) and an in-your-face statement of King Gustavus Adolphus’ power and prestige, she was heavily decorated at stem and stern. The museum has seven levels, so you can get up close to the whole ship. I took an English language tour that happened to start just after I arrived, and then wandered through the many exhibits, including the reproduction gun deck. A sister ship, Applet, was slightly wider in the beam, and did not suffer the same fate.
Although I had spent an entire day on Djurgarden, I was back again next morning to tackle the open air museum, Skansen. And I do mean tackle, 300,000 square meters is a fair amount of ground to cover. Since I now knew where to find the bus, I arrived shortly after the 10:00 am opening, only to find that most of the demonstrations started at 11:00. Not really a problem, I caught them on my way out, and the docents were in place. I had an interesting chat about political attitudes with one, who thought Sweden needed more immigration. Another explained the vegetation growing on some of the farmhouse roofs: it was insulation and also soaked up any excess water. Overall, I enjoyed Skansen, which offered some good views of Stockholm, some interesting buildings and fewer people than I expected, although I was sorry for some of the animals.
Back in central Stockholm I stopped off in the Dance Museum. Not for everyone, of course, but I was delighted with the large collection of Ballet Russe costumes, both early and late – mostly from 1924’s “Sleeping Princess”. Besides the costumes there are items collected by the museum’s founder, Rolf de Maré, while traveling in Asia. These were mostly familiar to me from my own travels, and I was more interested in the information about Nijinsky’s talented sister, Bronislava, also a dancer and choreographer. The museum happened to be free the day I visited, but I would have thought it worth an admission fee.
The Chosen One from Le Sacre du Printemps, 1913
Detail on a page’s costume from the Sleeping Princess
After the East Asian Museum I wandered over a bridge to Kastellhomen island, which had a castle of sorts, not open to the public, what looked like a number of holiday chalets, and no museums.
My Time to Travel 
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