Summer 2010 - Sweden Part 2

Wednesday 28 July saw an early start  from Trondheim as we were off on the train to Sweden. The line winds its way through the hills, forests and lakes, nothing spectacular though. After a quick change of trains at Östersund our next stop was Sundsvall on the Gulf of Bothnia about 350 km north of Stockholm.

Sundsvall

Wide streets in the centre of Sundsvall

Sundsvall is a modern industrial town although the only sign we saw was the paper mill across the other side of the bay. The origin of the wide streets and the large square in the centre of town can be traced back to 3 major fires which almost totally destroyed the town each time.

Sundsvall Square

In 1721 Sweden and Russia were at war. The invading Russians burnt to town down. The town was rebuilt using abundant timber from nearby forests. Another fire in 1803 wiped the town out again. When the town was rebuilt after this fire, the town was redesigned to have wide streets  to act as fire breaks and of course mostly timber buildings again - because it was cheap and easy to use.

The Great Fire of 1888 In midsummer fire again ravaged the old town centre and destroyed everything except a few stone buildings. The devastation was absolute. Help in the form of food, clothing and money poured in from all over Sweden. They were lucky it was midsummer and not in winter where it could get to -25°C or lower.

Lesson learnt: buildings in central Sundsvall are now made of bricks and stone. Although there is a strange regulation which says that some buildings, mainly apartments must be stone or brick for the ground floor but that they can have timber for the second and third floors!

Not far from Sundsvall by bus is Alnö Island.

Holiday homes at Spikarna

I've included the next few shots taken in Sundsvall to show you what a digital camera can do to get some good shots.

Sundsvall Clock

(Canon 450D, EFS 55-250 lens 250mm, f/9, 1/160s, ISO-800)

This lens gives reasonably sharply focused images stopped down a bit in contrast to those where it is wide open. Image stabilisation helps when the using a telephoto at long settings.

Gustav Adolfs Kyrka

(Canon 450D, EF-S 10-22mm lens at 10mm, +2/3 f stop, F/3.5, 1/13s, ISO-500)

This one is included to show what can be achieved in low lighting conditions without a flash and tripod. Using the AEB setting on the camera at + and - 2/3 f stop yields a well lit shot with the light coming from through the windows a little over exposed. Most of my indoor shots are taken at -2/3f. (Outdoors, without the use of ND filters, I use 1/3 f stop compensation with reasonable results. Nearly all outdoor shots this summer were done with this setting.)

Gustav Adolfs Kyrka

(Canon 450D, EFS 17-85mm lens at 55mm, +1/3 f stop, F/4, 1/30s, ISO-800)

Letting the camera do the work and selecting from 3 exposures produces this pleasing image in a rather dark corner of the church. I am a great fan of the AEB function of modern digital cameras that allow good shots in difficult lighting situations where the use of flash is impractical.

Sundsvall has adopted the dragon as a symbol and there are dozens in the centre of town. This came about following rebuilding after the 1888 fire.

This one has a book in its mouth - outside the bookshop of course.

Two nights here was enough as a full on visit to Stockholm was next.

Stockholm

The Grand Hotel. The Nobel Laureats stay here during the Nobel Prize ceremonies in December each year, except the Peace Prize Laureates which receive theirs in Oslo.

Stockholm is built on a number of islands and around a rather large lake, Lake Mälaren which is less than a metre above sea level. There is a large network of ferry services to the many islands between the city center and the open sea of the Gulf of Bothnia.

Changing the guard at the Royal Palace (Kungliga Slottet) on Gamla Stan

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The Summer Palace at Drottningholm

The raincoat again and dull skies!

The ferry to Drottningholm on Lake Mälaren

Gamla Stan

A quiet square on Gamla Stan

Late afternoon sun on af Chapman, built in 1888 tied up at Skeppsholmen

Admiralty House on Skeppsholmen

A quiet corner on Fjäderholmarana

The following three shots demonstrate my attempts at photographing birds on Fjäderholmarana. Apart from the seagull, the species of the other two birds is not know to me although the first one looks like a dottrel.

Canon 450D, EFS 55-250mm at 146mm, f/5.6, 1/160 sec, ISO-200 

Canon 450D, EFS 55-250mm at 250mm, f/5.6, 1/320sec, ISO-200, cropped

Canon 450D, EFS 55-250mm at 131mm, f/5.6, 1/400 sec, ISO-200

The waterfront in Stockholm on the way to another island, Djurgarden

Ships in the collection at the Vasamuseet, Djurgarden

The steamer on the right is an ice breaker built in 1917. In the winter the Gulf of Bothnia freezes over so the need for such ships is vital to keep communications open. It was converted to an oil burner in 1957 with a reduction on crew and continued its winter duties into the early 1970s. One interesting point is that the ship has a large v -shaped notch in the stern so that ships it was taking through the ice could be tied close so that they could help push! Another unusual feature is a propeller at the bow to push the ice away!

The main exhibit here of course is the Vasa. Click on the link above to read more about its maiden voyage of 1,300m in 1628.

Vasa.

The ship is at least 90% original!!! Rediscovered in 1956, raised in 1961 and towed in to dry dock and the museum built around it. I couldn't help but draw comparisons with Henry VIII's Mary Rose in Portsmouth. The cold low oxygen content water of the water playing a major part of keeping the worms at bay which would have eaten the timber.

The stern of the Vasa

The ferry to Vaxholm

After 6 nights and five full busy days it was time to head off to the southern part of Sweden and yet more lakes.

Jönköping

Why Jönköping? Good question. In the middle of the lakes and forests about half way to Göteborg (Gothenburg). Remember Beehive safety matches?

 Safety matches were invented by the Swede Gustav Eric Pasch in 1844.

The Tänderstickmuseet  - the match stick Museum

The Lundström brothers, Johan Edvard and Carl Frans, started a large scale match making business in this building in 1847. Jönköping quickly became the match making centre of the world for many years.

 Chemicals and a laboratory for making the match heads.

The recipe for the chemical components of the match heads was a closely guarded commercial secret for many years. Being highly combustible, you would think that match factories would burn down frequently. Not one match factory in Jönköping burned down!

Going hand in hand with the development of the industry was the establishment of the fire brigade in Jönköping and stringent fire safety measures. Quite a proud record considering that  it was the 1840s.

 Aspen timber is the best to turn into veneer for making matches. There is plenty of high quality aspen in this part of Sweden.

 The machinery was made in Jönköping. This machine turned veneer in to blank matches.

Another belt driven, steam powered match making machine.

The backgound is where 40,000 sticks at time were dipped in the phosphorus rich head mixture before going to the packaging machine in the foreground.

Nor far along the side of Lake Vättern is the town of Gränna, famous for where the Christmas walking stick lollies, polkagris, peppermint rock was first produced in 1859.

The ferry from Gränna arriving in the main town on Visingsö Island

The "gardners" on Visingsö

We made good use of a fine day to visit the island. Not very large and good to walk around for a few hours.

All that remains of Visingborg Slott (Castle)

Remember what the Russians did to Sundsvall in 1721?

A short break here in the middle of Sweden was over and off went went by train down to Gothenburg.

Farewell Sweden, next stop was Fredrikshavn in Denmark.

Coming up, Brugge in Belgium - where they make great chocolate and brew the best beer!

Summer 2010, Norway Part 2

Monday 19 July saw us having a good look around Bergen before heading back to collect our cases and drag them to the Hurtigruten terminal for a 2000 hrs departure.

The Nordkapp in Geirangerfjorden - our home

for the next 5 five days on the trip up to Tromsø (Tromso).

The Hurtigruten sails every day from Bergen on a 12 day round trip around to Kirkenes and calls at 34 ports along the way and delivers cargo and passengers.

Cars are driven on and cargo pallets exchanged through side doors. Some stops are for 15 minutes whilst others allow shore excursions for 3 hours or so such as at Trondheim on the way north.

Farewell to Bergen.

The last of the fine warm sunny days until we got to Tromsø.

Next morning the we awoke to rain and low clouds as we sailed into Geirangerfjorden where we left the ship to rejoin it later on the day.

Sailing in the rain!

Geirangerfjorden.

The waterfalls of course need rain to see them at their best. The rainclouds did not produce very good light for photos so this one and others are washed out - I'm not going to cheat and add dark rainclouds elsewhere just to make the picture look more appealing.

Nordkapp and cruise ship at Geiranger.

Onto a bus and off up the side of the fjord to join others at the viewpoint. Geiranger is one of those touristy places where the majority of visitors come by ship. Gerianger is a small town with only a few hundred inhabitants but gets crowded with up to 10,000 visitors with 5 cruise ships at anchor.

This is the view we came to see!

This is the only thing we saw - Nordkapp on the way out to meet up with us at Molde 7½ hours later. Eventhough it was disappointing not to see the fjord, there were plenty of other great sights in store along the way.

Another waterfall. This one reminded me a bit of a day we went into Milford Sound and stopped at The Chasm - 24 busloads of tourists but fortunately there were only 4 here so not as crowded but we had to keep moving to rendezvous with the ship at Molde. As we went up the side of the fjord at Gerianger, we had to go down at some point; Trollstigen was next!

Trollstigen

Looking back at the road snaking its way across the rock face.

Again  a reminder of Milford Sound. Imagine a road instead of the Homer Tunnel on the way into Milford. We had a stop shortly after this for a light meal before heading on across another fjord by ferry then to Molde for dinner a couple of hours later.

A welcome sight as north and southbound Hurtigruta pass at Molde.

Thursday 22 July was our busiest day on the cruise. Firstly the crossing of the Arctic Circle occurred at 0715 hrs whilst we were waiting for breakfast. Shortly after we boarded another boat and headed off up another fjord to the Svartisen Glacier.

The Alba near the glacier.

The Svartisen glacier.

After getting off the boat a short walk up to get a closer look at it certainly didn't result in a better photo. At least the warm drink and food supplied as part of the trip was worthwhile. Back to the Alba and off again to catch up with the Nordkapp at Bodø. Along the way we passed a site where the rare white tailed eagle is know to nest.

One of the local escorts.

(Canon 450D, EFS55-250 mm lens at 135mm. f5.6, 1/1250s at ISO-800.)

This lens is a little soft wide open but a reasonable result among the many exposures with the shutter going off at 3.5 times per second!)

The idea here was to spark interest among the fish eagles by feeding the gulls and other birds on bucket of fish guts etc. Eventually we were rewarded when this one came to see what was on offer.

The white tailed fish eagle.

(Canon 450D, EFS 55-250mm lens at 239mm, f5.6, 1/500s , ISO-800.)

Thank you very much.

(Canon 450D, EFS 55-250mm lens at 250mm, f5.6, 1/400s , ISO-800.)

Having fed the eagles it was time to head off again and look for some puffins. This time we were in luck although I was surprised at how small the birds are. It was now raining quite heavily as you can see in the cropped shot.

Puffin

(Canon 450D, EFS 55-250mm lens at 250mm, f7.1, 1/640s , ISO-800.)

After rejoining the Nordkapp at Bodø we set sail across Vestfjorden to Stamsund in the Lofoten Islands. This area of Norway is where the cod spawn in February and March and up to 2,000 fishing boats descend on the Lofotens. Another bus ride here to visit a reconstructed viking chieftans longhouse for a very toursity meal and show before heading on to Svolvær to rejoin the ship.

Distinctive Lofoten mountains

Heavy Lofoten sky

Leaving Svolvær at 2200 hrs (The Hurtigruten does keep very closely to its schedule of arrivals and departures) our day wasn't done yet. Just on midnight we sailed through a 60 m wide gap into Trollfjorden.

Trollfjorden is 1.5 km long. It is usually frozen over in the winter.

Bow and stern thrusters allow the ship to spin on its own axis within 10m of the side of the fjord.

After three and a half turns it was time to head off towards the next port of call. This is about 0100hrs in the morning and broad daylight.

Being above the Arctic Circle, days are long in the summer and so there is still plenty of vegetation here although we are "above" the treeline. Later in the day it was time to leave Nordkapp and go ashore in Tromsø (Tromso).

Tromsø from the near the top of the Fjellheisen (Cable car)

The main part of the town is on the island with the airport on the other side. The small island on the upper left of this photo is where the Tirpitz was finally destroyed by the RAF in WW2. The Cold War also left its mark here. To get to the airport we drove through the centre of the island which was carved out as a massive nuclear bomb shelter.

Permanent snow above Tromsø

Tromsø waterfront.

Nearby is the Polar museum which is really, really good. This was our first fine day since leaving Copenhagen!. Although skies were blue all day, the slightest breath of wind reminded us that we were 380km north the Arctic Circle. Three night here was plenty of time before heading south to Trondheim.

Heading south out of Bodø.

Nidros Cathedral, Trondheim

(Canon 450D, 10-22 mm lens at 12mm, f10, 1/200s, ISO-200)

Sunshine again in Trondheim, This is where it all happens in Trondheim.

We had a busy time seeing the sites in Trondheim and 2 nights was all we had before it was time to hit the rails for Sundsvall in Sweden.

I hope you have enjoyed "coming" with us up the coast of Norway and hope you can join us again in Sweden.