Tag: museums

Exploring Sweden

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View from Skulebergets nature reserve along the High Coast

Continuing our extended Europe trip, Darlene and I crossed over from Copenhagen into Sweden in mid-May.  We had two weeks to explore a bit of Sweden, starting in Malmö.  We visited several connected museums in Malmö before venturing out to the southern coast to see the standing stones at Ales Stenar.  After Malmö, we made our way north along the west coast, stopping in Helsingborg, staying overnight in Falkenberg, visiting Tjolöholm Castle and an automobile/aviation museum before reaching Gothenburg where we spent three days exploring the city via foot, bicycle and canal tour.

4–minute video montage of our trip

After Gothenburg, we left the west coast to traverse across the country and north to the more remote High Coast region of Sweden, stopping along the way at a castle, Läckö Slott (apparently just missing the one daily midday tour) but then overnighting in Skultuna.  Our destination was the city of Örnsköldsvik, from where we went hiking in Skuleskogen National Park, kayaking in the bay, climbing up Skulebergets and touring the coast.


Our last five days were spent in Stockholm, walking and/or electric scooting around the city, visiting several museums, including the spectacular Vasa museum which houses the world’s best preserved 17th century ship – raised and recovered from the harbor sea floor.

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Our Copenhagen Visit

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Continuing our European vacation, Darlene, her sister Kathy and I spent four days in Copenhagen – first time for all of us.  We did some sightseeing around the city, from the top of the Round Tower astronomical observatory to inside Frederik’s Church, we enjoyed a boat tour of Copenhagen’s waterways and very interesting Danish architecture.  We visited the immersive Museum of Danish Resistance and climbed up Copenhill, a surprising combination of waste-to-energy power plant and recreational site for year round hiking, skiing and climbing.  We rented bikes to tool around a bit like proper Copenhageners, enjoyed an open air street food market and strolled some of Copenhagen’s famous streets and waterfronts like Nyhavn and Strøget.

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Six Days in Ireland

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I joined Darlene, her sister Kathy and her aunt Judy on a trip to Ireland last week – a return visit for me but their first time in the Emerald Isle.  Darlene organized the itinerary which included seeing the Book of Kells at Trinity College, taking the tour at the Guinness Storehouse in Dublin, visiting Blarney Castle and grounds, spending a couple of days in Killarney and touring a portion of the Ring of Kerry.

Here’s a video montage of our trip:

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Peterson Automotive Museum

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After our stay in Anaheim to visit the Disney parks, we spent a couple of hours on Friday at the Peterson Automotive Museum in Los Angeles.  They’ve got a large collection of historic and iconic cars including vehicles from Hollywood movies featured in various changing exhibits.  There’s currently a large Tesla exhibit there which was unexpectedly pretty cool.

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An Intrepid Tour of Spain

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Upon completion of our hiking trip in Portugal, Darlene and I flew to Madrid and immediately joined the guided group tour we booked with Intrepid Travel.  We met our guide, Sergi, who quickly proved to be both quite enthusiastic and entertaining, along with our nine fellow travelers (mostly Aussies) and David, a guide-in-training preparing for his upcoming first tour.

Here’s the link to all the galleries from the trip.

Day 2: Toledo

Our first full day was a day tour to Toledo from Madrid to explore the old walled city – and for Darlene to buy boxes of marzipan from the nuns at the convent.

Days 3-4: Seville

We were then off by high-speed train to Seville where we spent two days and nights to see the city.  We lucked out at the normally very crowded Plaza de España as it was being cordoned off in preparation for a concert and we swung by the replica of the Victoria, the only ship to return from Magellan’s circumnavigation voyage.  We skirted around Seville’s bullfighting ring, Plaza de Toros de la Maestranza and wandered through the shopping district.  We had a wonderful local guide show us around the amazing royal palace and gardens, Real Alcázar de Sevilla (also home to scenes of Dorne from the Game of Thrones tv series) and we wandered around the immense Seville Cathedral (one of the largest in the world), which was originally a grand mosque.  Lastly, we attended a flamenco performance on our final evening.

 

Day 5: Córdoba

Our next overnight stop was Córdoba, home to an amazing and incredible grand mosque – a mosque so large that a huge cathedral could be built within the center of it.  Our walking tour continued around the old town and that evening we got to see an Andalusian equestrian show.  (No pics or video allowed during the performance.) The following day, on the road to Granada, we stopped in at a olive oil mill and learned first-hand how olive oils are taste-tested.

Days 6-7: Granada

We stayed two nights in Granada whose star attraction is The Alhambra, a medieval fortress and series of palaces chiefly built by the Moorish monarchs of Granada.  We enjoyed a walking tour through various parts of the old city and there was also much shopping.  For the Alhambra, we had a daytime tour of the fortress (or Alcazaba) and the Generalife palace and gardens but then we were able to return after dark for a mesmerizing tour of the Comares Palace grounds and a quick peek into the more recent Palace of Charles V.

Days 8-9: Valencia

On the way to Valencia, we had a short stopover in Elche as a break for the long drive, where we saw a couple of renditions of the “Lady of Elche”.  Unfortunately our bus broke down and we had to wait for a replacement to come and get us.  We made it to Valencia eventually and the following day we walked around the impressive structures making up the City of Arts and Sciences – a substantial public space including science and art museums, opera house, planetarium and aquarium.  Would’ve been fun to check it out in more detail but our day was already filled with a trip out to and boat ride on Albufera Lake with a lunch of traditional Spanish paella and then a walking tour around the older quarter of Valencia.

Days 10-11: Barcelona

We had a long drive from Valencia to Barcelona and our group tour with Intrepid Travel came to a close in Barcelona, but not after a walking tour of the Gothic Quarter including La Rambla, the Mercat de La Boqueria (a popular marketplace), the Barcelona Cathedral and a farewell dinner.  We stayed on an extra night and took a tour of one of Gaudi’s amazing architectural and design wonders, the Casa Batló – so very worth the admission and the crowds.  We also explored the Gothic Quarter a bit more on our own and went through the Maritime Museum of Barcelona – before Darlene collapsed asleep on a bench.

 

Days 12-13: Madrid

The Intrepid Travel trip actually started in Madrid and some folks took in some of the sights ahead of the trip start but we didn’t have time between our Portugal trip and this one, so we flew back to Madrid after Barcelona for a day and a half of sightseeing with Jennifer before we all boarded a train for the upcoming party in Palencia.  We managed to get in a Segway tour of the huge El Retiro Park and visit the Prado Museum, the Cathedral of Santa Maria and take in the full royal palace tour (Palacio Real de Madrid) – mostly no pics allowed in the palace though.

Click through for the full gallery of our Spain tour!

Also, here’s a flyover I recorded in VR in MS Flight Simulator of several of the cities we visited:

Museum of the Mountain West

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As part of our month-long Colorado road trip, we decided to check out the Museum of the Mountain West in Montrose after seeing it in Atlas Obscura.  Jim was our friendly tour guide for several hours and it proved to be quite an amazing collection of old west artifacts.  Very easy to recommend – check it out – but you’ll want a guided tour as as a lot of rooms are now cordoned off for self-guided visitors.  (They kept having thefts.)

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Christmas in New York City

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Darlene and I enjoyed a weeklong trip to New York City over Christmas this year just doing a lot of sightseeing.  It wasn’t a first visit for either of us but there was still plenty to go see and do.  We started off with a midnight visit to the top of the Empire State Building – and discovered that’s the way to entirely avoid any lines or crowds.

We enjoyed thoroughly exploring the lower half of Central Park and we walked around mid-town a lot, taking in the Christmas shops at Bryant Park, visiting the gorgeous Grand Central Station as well as the New York Public Library – home to specters from the movie Ghostbusters, which kicked off a hunt to seek the other filming locations including the Ghostbusters firehouse HQ, the “spook central” apartment building on Central Park West, the Tavern on the Green, Lincoln Center, etc.

Of course we visited Rockefeller Center to see the Christmas displays there and along Fifth Ave.  We also saw two musicals on Broadway over our visit: The Lion King, which was just completely fantastic and amazing, as well as a repeat of Cats which happened to be the first musical each of us had ever seen.  I found I didn’t care for Cats at all this time though – I guess my tastes have changed a bit in 30 years!

We did the VIP tour (tip: not worth the extra) at One World Observatory and stayed for dinner after sunset.  The ride up the “time traveling” elevator was very cool (see YouTube video) but over too quickly to enjoy all the detail!  We saw the 9/11 memorial that night as well – really well done.

    

We walked the High Line (an elevated rail line converted to a green space) and walked around the financial district and down to Battery Park where we discovered and rode the wonderful Seaglass Carousel.  We slipped in a visit to the art collection at the Frick museum and we finished off with a lovely trip on the Staten Island ferry on our last crisp cold day.

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Antique Flying and Driving Machines

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While we were in the Columbia River Gorge area last month, Darlene and I had the chance to spend half a day at the Western Antique Aeroplane and Automobile Museum in Hood River.  This place is only ten years old but it has a huge and fascinating collection of antique, but still operational, cars and planes.  They hold numerous events and classes.  For example, every second Saturday is a “play day” where they bring out and fly or drive a number of the cars and planes to let people experience them.  They also hold classes to learn about and get to drive antique Model T’s (which sounds very cool) or drive classic cars from the 30’s, 40’s and 50’s.  They do restoration work on site, and they host an annual “fly-in” event where you get to see a lot of these antique planes in the air.

I particularly liked how they juxtapose old airplanes and automobiles from the same era.  And I thought it was pretty interesting how old cars look so different and so obviously antique; whereas airplanes from the same time period don’t look so different than planes today.  It was also fun to be reminded of how seat-of-the-pants flying and driving was back in the early days.

Click through for the full gallery, which is only a sampling of what they have on display.