April 1st - Skansen

April 1st, 2011

Katie and I spent a cool windy day at Skansen, which is kind of like a colonial Williamsburg but for Sweden.  Many houses, farmsteads, churches, windmills, town buildings and other structures from throughout Sweden were moved here for preservation in a 75 acre tract.  To Katie’s pleasure it also included many native Scandinavian animals such as wolves, reindeer and brown bears, as well as a nice aquarium. It was only about 4 C today so it was very nice to spend some time in the aquarium which was nice and warm.  We were a bit taken aback by some of the animal enclosures, such as the crocodiles in an enclosure with Plexiglas walls only 6 feet tall and a sign on the Plexiglas that said “Caution: crocodiles can jump”.  That certainly makes you reluctant to approach the enclosure!  But it was better than the touch pond in the Irish aquarium with the dangerous thornback rays.   There were several field trips at Skansen, all of which rode the Stockholm public transit with us, but otherwise it was pretty empty.  Unfortunately many of the buildings were closed and the houses which have artisans practicing their crafts in the summer were largely closed as well. However, the glassblowers was open and we were more than happy to spend a long time in the heat of the shop watching them make stemware as we slowly warmed up.