Weekly Photo Challenge: Forward

For Weekly Photo Challenge: Forward I chose another bridge, a very special and unique one. It is Øresund Bridge connecting Sweden and Denmark over the sea. But it is not usual bridge, as on the Denmark side there is an airport and having a bridge so close to it would have been risky. Another posibility was building a tunnel under the water, but it would have been very expensive. Therefore it was decided to build partially bridge and partially tunnel. Travelling over the bridge from Sweden is like you are going nowhere, as the bridge ends in the water. Getting closer you find you are going to “dive” under the sea. Quite interesting experience :-).

The bidge ends in the sea

See the airplane right above the horizon

“Diving” to the water

Advertisement

Weekly Photo Challenge: Surprise

During my recent visit of winter Stockholm I wanted to enjoy the trip as much as possible. So I decided to look at everything like a child, like I see it for the first time and everything surprised me. Now I will share some of my surprises with you, according to the Weekly Photo Challenge.

It already started in the airplane, where we met another plane above the clouds, and we had to cross our journeys, so the other airplane had to descend a bit and then it went close under us.

Finnair below our plain

The other surprise was, how soon there is a dark in winter and how much snow lays on the streets of the city (yes, we also had some snow in Prague, but there was much more). I believe that I was not the only one suprprised by this, as you can see from the next picture.

Bikes covered with snow

Another big but nice shock came when we entered the subway. I have heard that Stockholm has nice subway stations, but this one really surprised me, nothing special on the ground, but down there was an art gallery.

Kusträdgården subway station in Stockholm

Within our trip we visited a lot of museums, and one was the museum of Vasa ship, the warship, that sank on her very first voyage just a few feets from the harbour. 333 years later it was taken from the water and now you can see it in the museum. Vasa brought lots of surprises, first the unexpected sinking and then the almost intact state in which it was taken from the water.

Vasa ship

And very close to Vasa Museum there are another museums, Junibacken at one side, I wrote about this one at my previous post, and Spiritmuseum on the other. Spiritmuseum is quite small, it has very nice exposition of Absolut Art Gallery (I always loved the Absolut commercials). You can enjoy here a quiz: in which movie which spirit played it’s role (“shake don’t stir”), and also the room which will show you the morning of drunken man on screen. But what surprised me most were “smelling” machines, where you can “pump” and smell the ingrediences of spirits, enjoy the smells of herbs, fruits, but also spirits itself.

Smelling machine in Spirit museum

Weekly Image Of Life: Children And Their Gifts

In Prague and Czech Republic you can find lot of attractions for children, we have beautiful ZOO and other activities, which families can enjoy.  But as I just came back from Sweden, for todays weekly image of life I chose the world of Astrid Lindgren, Swedish author of childrens books, whose books are brilliant and I grow up with Pippi and Children from Bullerbyn, I lived in robbers castle with Ronja and Birk or at the roofs of Stockholm with Karlsson. My first detective steps were made with Kalle Blomkvist, the young forerunner of Mikael Blomkvist from Stieg Larsson Millenium books. Astrid Lindgren was my favorite author and I believe it was because the child in her never grown up, see on shot from sweden.se.

Photo of Astrid LIndgren from Sweden.se

In Sweden you can find (at least) two museums dedicated to Astrid, one is in Vimmerby, the city where Astrid and most of her character lived, and the second one is in Stockholm, at Djurgården Island, where a lot of museums are.

AL book at Vimmerby park

Village Vimmerby is in the South Sweden, not far from the highway from Stockholm to Malmö, and big part of it is the World of Astrid Lindgren’s park. You can meet there all your favorites characters from Astrid’s books, visit small cities, play lot of games, watch performances like this one from Emil’s home at Lönneberga.

The walk throug the village is very nice, lot of small buildings and colors all around.

Colorful houses at Vimmerby park

And when you are tired of walking, visit the interiors,

You want to visit Pippi?

or take a boat …

Pram competition, who will be first at the other side?

sorry, I ment the boat with Pippi :-).

Pippi on the boat

If the Vimmerby is too far for you and you just came to see Stockholm, then you can’t miss museum Junibacken, perfect place for families and Astrid Lindgren lovers. At the entrance you will find a stroller park :-).

Stroller park

Behind the entrance is a playground area, where children can enjoy small houses or castles.

Playground hall

After visiting the playground area you go for a train/cabin, which takes you through the beautiful world around villages and above the roofs, through the mouse hole, you are the onlooker of stories that happen around you.

Cabin and the villages around

The tour is like a short performance, for example this one with Ronja and Birk.

After the challenging trip you can go to the dining room and choose from dishes and sweets in colorful area.

Dining room

And finally the place that cannot be forgotten, the place where everyone can find the right tallness :-).

Bathroom for everyone

I hope you enjoyed the tour through the world of Astrid Lindgren, woman, that stayed a child in her heart, had brilliant fantasy and who was a big inspiration for children, as well for me.

I really like how Swedish people enjoys children games, so the last short video is from dancing around the Christmas tree at Skansen, sorry for the sound, really not good quality, but the best I have now :-).