The Road Goes Ever On

Thursday, June 18, 2009

Kalmar to Stockholm; and the Ikea Mother Store

The next day we visited Kalmar and its castle, then drove on 240km to Stockholm. The terrain was gorgeous, bucolic, much of it reminiscent of the Wisconsin Dells. After visiting the Mother Ikea store, just south of Stockholm, we camped, more or less downtown, at Langholmens Husbilcamping, on the island of Langholmen. Stockholm is situated on dozens of islands, with canals, bridges, etc. A beautiful city we'll see more of this weekend.

In Kalmar, a land whale

Kalmar Slott (castle), moat, etc.

Very old cannon at the Slott

Stockholm: Ikea Mother Store

Five floors

The canal we are camped on in Langholmen

Oland

Monday the 15th we drove from Bromsehus, near Kalmar, to the island of Oland. Oland is a large island, perhaps 75 miles long, about 4-5 miles off the main coast of Sweden, connected by an enormous bridge. We thought it would be largely resorts and condos, given its position, but it was almost entirely agricultural. It is literally littered with megaliths, most bronze age or later, but still impressive. The island itself is a large limestone uplift, and its middle ridge is much like the Burren in Ireland, although not quite so desolate. The east coast of Oland is especially interesting where you can see the uplifted limestone plates right out of the sea. Oland has some 400 windmills; in the 19th century, there were 2000. And linear villages (all buildings in a line along the road); and tons of megaliths.

400 windmills, many in rows like this

Typical Oland megaliths; they were everywhere

Oland east coast; almost completely deserted

A re-built iron/stone-age fort; we thought it looked too much like Medieval Times and so didn't go in

Another day, another ship-shaped stone circle, one of four we counted in the immediate vicinity

Vicki by the ship circle

Tall Oland menhir

A real bronze/iron-age fort, un-reconstructed

Driving the Southeast Coast of Sweden

Sunday the 14th we drove from Kaseberga, leisurely, to Bromsehus, up the coast a bit, stopping for lunch in the fishing village of Skillinge, grocery shopping in Rimrashamn, and more megalithic sites. The weather was beautiful, the terrain alternating coast and fields of wheat, occasional woods. Denmark is said to be 85% tilled. This part of Sweden is even more so. We stopped for the night near the old medieval fort of Bromsehus, now a complete ruins except for the raised area and enormous ditch, all right by an inlet from the sea.

Part of the harbor at Skillinge

A dolmen and stone circle on the sea

Me by the sea

A fierce-looking cow near Bromsehus

To Helsinki, Briefly

It is Thursday, June 18, and we have been in Stockholm a couple days. (Free) internet connections are lacking, and this afternoon we are taking the over-night cruise to Helsinki, Finland, returning Saturday. I hope to post some blog entries by the weekend.

Update: Well, I did find an internet cafe for a while...but we'll be in Finland Friday, back to Stockholm Saturday.

Saturday, June 13, 2009

Ship Shape: Ales Stenar

It finally stopped raining, and we had a chance, Saturday afternoon, to go and look at Ales Stenar, the largest of the Swedish ship-shaped standing stone circles. There are dozens of them, mostly in southern Sweden. Ales Stenar is in the 4,000-6,000 year-old range. Some argue it is merely a ship-cult site; some argue for a solar orientation/observatory. It is impressive in any case. Only one stone is missing, possibly, and its absence may simply have marked an entrance.

Ales Stenar stands on a beautiful grassy bluff above the tiny fishing hamlet of Kaseberga, overlooking the Baltic. It is late spring, and already the place is crowded. Walking around, I quickly figured out that as many are here for the fish market as for the megalithic site. I am savoring both!

Ales Stenar, about 200 feet long and 60 feet wide

Ship-shape; ship cult, millennia before the Vikings

One side

Backpackers at the site; we're glad we're not backpacking in this weather

The tiny harbor of Kaseberga

Tiny, but it supports a fish market well known for smoked salmon, eel, etc. The line was nearly out the door. I think the sign says "fish for sale." Note smoke coming from the smoke-house behind the building. I love smoked fish.

Until coming here, I had always associated swans with fresh water; the Baltic coast we have seen is loaded with them.

Vicki adds:

June 13, 2009 Southern Sweden

We have spent two days in a very nice parking lot about 200 yds from the Baltic Sea. We came to see the megalithic standing stones in a “ring” in the shape of a ship. However the weather was so bad yesterday with gale force winds, rain, high of 55, that we just stayed in the camper and enjoyed being couch potatoes. Today was just misty and this evening it has cleared up completely. Being Saturday, the parking lot has been quite busy with about 200-300 cars and campers coming and going. About 6 of us are spending the night again. There are restrooms-which we actually don’t need- and free wifi and it is quiet and free. A great combination. Mark and I walked up to the stones on the cliff over the sea earlier and then through the small fishing village. I am sure it will all be posted on his blog. I have been catching up on email and researching Stockholm. It is supposed to be raining hard there for the next two days so we will take our time getting there. We wanted to fly from there to St. Petersburg in Russia but it is very complicated to get a visa and the whole trip of 3-4 days would probably cost about 2 grand so I think we will skip it.

I realize that as of yesterday I have been retired one year. I must admit that it seems much longer what with all we have done, and yet I only have to start to think about it and it feels like yesterday. Memory is such a completely strange thing. Retirement is a marvelous thing but I do miss all my family and friends. Please write as you have time. Vicki

Friday, June 12, 2009

Helsingor (Elsinore) and the Kronborg

Strengthening of Kronborg's fortifications continues

The tower, from the courtyard

More castle

The Hamlet plaque

The Shakespeare section of the gift shop;
Unemployed Philosophers Guild very well
represented

Battlement cannons; it was the Prince Consort's
71st birthday, so there was a 21 gun salute at mid-day

Being disgorged from the Hamlet

To Sweden

Our first full day in Sweden, Friday, has been, um, interesting. From Helsingborg, after getting some Swedish kronors and tourist literature, we drove down to Ystad, in southeastern Skane, to see Ale's Stones, a giant ship-shaped stone circle on the coast. We have been parked at the Ale's Stones parking lot (N 55 23.311, E 14 03.818) since Thursday evening, along with half a dozen other motorhomes. Sweden is very permissive about such camping. The weather has been less permissive. Gale force wind has been blowing since we got here, with rain to match, and temperatures in the 50s. Our 7,500 lb camper is being buffeted in the wind. Fortunately it is water-tight, and I consider this a pretty good test of its water-tightness. As we have been sitting here today, perhaps a dozen other parties have driven up, donned very minimal rain gear (if any), and walked out the 1 km to see the Stones. They arrive back thoroughly soaked and chilled, presumably, to the bone. We are sitting tight, reading, writing, re-organizing (as always). Surely this gale will be over soon.

11 PM update. It's still raining, but the winds have died down. This has been good: we needed a day off.

Saturday morning update. Still raining. We are parked, still, about 200 meters from the sea and the little enclosed harbor for the fishing village of Kaseberga. Even at the height of the storm yesterday, I must note, someone was out in the waves in a wetsuit, surfing. Such devotion!

Monet's very famous "RV in a field with trees"

Denmark's National Museum

In an afternoon we managed only the pre-history and up through the Viking era sections of this immense and wonderful national museum. The prehistory collection is exceptional, especially the paleolithic, and the bronze age items are of great interest, containing many things we'd think of as “Norse” from periods a millennia or two before the Vikings. Denmark has the same kind of bog topography as Ireland, and much of what has been found are bog troves and sacrifices. Although there was no known written language, there certainly were congruences and communications among the peoples of Europe, and beyond, well before the Greeks and Romans, even in the neolithic.

Next to the paddle, the oldest known bow, c. 7,000 BC

Skeleton of an auroch, extinct in Denmark by the Bronze age; last known European auroch died in Poland, 1627

The Bronze Age Scandinavians were sun-worshippers, the museum suggests

The Chariot of the Sun, Bronze Age (horse not pictured)

Horned helmet, early Bronze

Norse horns (musical)

Rune stone, Bronze

The Gundestrup Cauldron (one interior panel only; silver), c. 150 BC, Thracian, probably from Bulgaria, but found in a bog trove dated Bronze age in Denmark

Christiana

You are now leaving the EU

Danish hippie artwork, one of the few as yet untagged

Ditto

Somehow, this conveys a great deal about Christiana

As does this

Someone's idea of a joke; I hope

Christiana is the little hippie commune in Christianhaven started in the 60s or 70s. The government has tried to close it down on several occasions; it “seceded” from Denmark years ago. Now it is merely a seedy and cheesy curiosity, if you ask me. There's a lot of dope being sold and smoked there—no photography on some streets—and that's probably all there ever was to it.