Posts tagged Visit Stockholm

Letters from the Kingdom of Sweden: Nationalmuseum, the greatest Art Treasure in the Heart of Scandinavia!

Adventure Travel 4 Comments

My dear travellers and lovers of extraordinary trips, I hope you are well and ready for a new adventure on the Mr.M blog. Today’s post will be the last post for the month of July (sorry for the confusion that I made with the previous post) and also the last letter in the series of posts from Sweden.

Before I start today’s post, I would like to remind you of some of the previous posts from the edition of letters from the Kingdom of Sweden, so if you haven’t had time to read the previous stories or maybe you want to remind yourself of some interesting details, spare a few minutes of your time and by clicking on the following links, visit some of the previous travelogues from Sweden:

1) Stockholm: A Modern Green City of Culture on the Water

2) Everything you need to know about the Royal Palace in Stockholm

3) Vasa, The Story of the sunken legendary luxurious warship…

Today I will share with you my impressions of the Nationalmuseum in Stockholm and I would like to thank the Visit Stockholm for the invitation and the amazing experience to get to know the culture and customs in the heart of Scandinavia.

The Nationalmuseum (National Museum of Fine Arts) is the central Swedish state museum in Stockholm, and also the largest Swedish art museum. The collections of this extraordinary art treasure house consist of various works of painting, sculpture and art on paper from around the 16th century to the 20th century, as well as arts and crafts and design objects from the 16th century to the present day. The total number of exhibited works reaches an incredible figure of almost 700,000 objects. The National Museum is located on Blasieholmen in Stockholm in a building designed for this purpose by the German architect Friedrich August Stühler. The building was completed in 1866, but the museum’s history is older than that and goes back to June 28, 1792, when the Royal Museum was founded. The National Museum is therefore one of the oldest art museums in Europe.

The collections were moved to Blasieholmen after previously being partially housed in the Royal Museum, which opened in 1794 in the north wing of the Royal Palace in Stockholm. As with several other national art museums, the collections are largely based on generations of royal collectors, which for various reasons passed into state ownership. For example, works that belonged to Gustav Vasa can be seen today in the Nationalmuseum.

The museum’s activities also go outside the box, so you can see certain works outside the building on Blasieholmen. The National Museum also includes a collection of portraits of the Swedish state exhibited in Gripsholm Castle. In addition, objects from the museum’s collections are exhibited in a number of museum institutions throughout Sweden.

This museum has a long history and I will try my best to briefly explain some of the most important historical moments related to this institution. In the early history of the National Museum, as with several other European national galleries, the history of the National Museum is largely synonymous with the development of royal, state and more widely available collections. In Sweden, the foundation for today’s state art collections was laid in the 18th century. Several works included in the collection of the National Museum, for example a part of French paintings from the 18th century were once owned by Queen Louisa Ulrike. By 1777, the queen’s financial situation had become unsustainable, partly as a result of a large and expensive investment in art. The debts were settled by her son, the then Swedish king Gustav III, in exchange for her giving up her collections and Drottningholm Castle.

For today’s Nationalmuseum, it is important that the king did not use his own financial means, but the state’s, which prevented the collections from being dispersed during the succession. It is likely that state funds were also used when Gustav III, after the death of his father Adolf Frederick, acquired several works of art, including Chardin’s Tecnarin. At the same time, the king also made an important acquisition of the collection of drawings by Carl Gustav Tessin that Adolf Fredrik had bought from him in 1755. The collection of drawings was immediately donated to the Royal Library, but was then transferred to the Royal Museum when it opened in 1794.

How did that transformation from a royal art collection to a state museum take place? There are no official records that can explain to us what Gustav III intended with his museum arrangement. It was believed that he was targeting a publicly accessible institution, but recent research has shown that there is no reliable evidence for this. It should be remembered that the significance of making something available to the public was somewhat different then than it is today, which is why it is believed that the royal museum would have become a private matter, accessible to those who could be considered competent. Regardless of Gustav III’s intentions, the Royal Museum was founded on June 28, 1792, just three months after the king’s death.

At that time, they did not have prepared rooms for exhibitions, and the work on the building was not finished after the king’s death. The transfer of the artistic heritage was carried out in December 1792 and was of great importance for the future of the museum. During the work on the registry office, the significance of the financial resources (state or private) used by the king for the acquisition of art collections was highlighted. At that time, there were no firm laws governing what was considered the king’s private property and what was state property.

Through the transfer of inheritance, all the king’s art collections became state property. In this way, the king’s art collections became the property of the people, but only later would they become fully publicly available.

The first decades of the 19th century were an extremely difficult period for the museum. The lack of interest combined with very little resources bordering on non-existent meant that the work was kept alive by the energy of the museum’s dedicated staff. The lack of funds made new acquisitions largely impossible. At the same time, many of the great museum collections in Europe were created at this time thanks to an aggressive acquisition policy, supported by more concerned courts and the bourgeoisie. From 1817 the Royal Museum did receive an annual grant from the State, but this was insufficient for anything more than the maintenance necessary to save the collections from total decay. However, the donations saved the museum because they legitimized the museum as its own authority.

However, rather poor economic conditions made it difficult for the first part of the 19th century to pass completely uneventfully. The most significant thing that happened at that time was the large acquisition of sculptures by Johann Tobias Sergel in 1815. After Sergel’s death, the Royal Museum was able to acquire all the sketches of plaster and terracotta sculptures that were part of his work.

It can be said that the acquisition and installation of Sergel’s sculptures marked a turning point in the exhibition activities of the museum because it represents both classicism and indigenous art. Because, at the same time when the Sergel collection was presented to the public in artistic Sweden, voices were raised who wanted to shift the focus from classicism to domestic and nationally oriented art. In this context, it may be noted that in 1818, King Carl XIV Johan commissioned from Bengt Erland Fogelberg colossal sculptures representing the gods Asa Oden, Thor and Balder. They will later be placed in the Royal Museum.

Later in the 19th century, painting will have a more significant place in museum activities, as can be seen from the documentation on the drastic changes initiated by the museum director. The director took the museum into the 19th century in a completely different way with a new color scheme, associated above all with the Danish and German Biedermeier, and the exhibitions were arranged in a modern way for that time, from the classically oriented Enlightenment principle to the provoking imagination, romantically suggestive exhibition aesthetics.

The 20th century brought certain innovations, so the department of modern art was founded in 1952. The first exhibition was a tour of Pablo Picasso’s Guernica in October 1956, when the renovation of the museum was completed, the facility was named “Moderna Muzeet”, which was officially opened on May 9, 1958. Until 1975, the Modern Museum was a subdivision of the National Museum.

Later, the Modern Museum became a unique separate institution, which together with the Nationalmuseum and the East Asian Museum was part of the joint body Statens konstmuseer. When the Modern Museum became an independent institution in 1999, the Statens konstmuseer changed its name to the Nationalmuseum from Valdemarsudde Prins Eugen. At the same time, the East Asian Museum was transferred to the newly formed State Museum of World Culture. A few years ago, in 2017 to be exact, Valdemarsudde became an independent foundation again, and the authority has since been called the Nationalmuseum.

A large number of works in the museum’s collections come from the royal collections of many generations. From the gallery of Gustav Vasa’s paintings that were in Gripsholm Castle, it is possible to identify with certainty several paintings that are now in the National Museum. Gustav Vasa’s collection consisted mainly of works of art by Northern European painters.

Of the works with a past in royal ownership, many were acquired on the background of various personal preferences, but also several examples of objects that came to royal collections in the 17th century as war booty.

A large part of the works that today are considered to form the core of the Nationalmuseum’s collection of paintings before 1800 mainly come from several collections: Karl Gustav Tessin, Queen Lovisa Ulrike, King Adolf Fredrik and Gustav III. However, several of the most important works in the royal collections were acquired through Tessin in various ways.

These collections were dominated by French, Dutch and Gustavian Swedish painting, which greatly influenced the composition of the National Museum’s collection as it looks today. Several of the museum’s Rembrandt works are owned by these people, as well as other important works from 17th-century Holland and some from Flanders from the same period.

One ff these four collectors, Carl Gustaf Tessin undoubtedly had the greatest importance, not least because a large part of the collections of Adolf Fredrik and Lovisa Ulrike ended up there under his care. At the age of nineteen, Tessin went on a grand tour during which he stayed in Paris between 1714 and 1716. He would later return several times, but during this first visit he acquired a large number of master drawings and 23 so-called contre-epreuves by Antoine Vato and met several artists of that time.

Later, Tessin returned to Paris, now in better financial conditions as he was appointed overseer responsible for the building of a castle in Stockholm, succeeded his father and married a wealthy heiress. He now acquired paintings by artists such as Francois Lemoine, Francois Desport, Nicolas Lancrat and Jean-Baptiste Pater.

However, he did not buy anything from Watteau, whom he held in high esteem. The explanation for this can be seen in the fact that the artist has now passed away and that Tessin has concentrated on living artists and that the prices of Watteau’s works have risen. Being in Paris also meant buying art in the name of building a castle. From Paris he traveled to Venice to try to negotiate a contract with Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, but without success.

Later, in 1739 Tessin returned to Paris again, where the art scene behaved differently with the re-established salon from 1737. During this visit, he focused on François Boucher and Jean-Baptiste-Simeon Chardin, acquiring among others Boucher’s Triumph of Venus, which was shown at the Salon of 1740. Tessin also made several purchases of Dutch paintings on the Paris market, mostly through the art dealer Edme – François Gersen. Among those works, Rembrandt’s Portrait of a Young Woman in Profile and Constantin Verhout’s Sleeping Student are significant.

Until 2013, when the Nationalmuseum building on Blasieholmen in Stockholm was closed for renovations, several temporary large exhibitions were shown annually. Some examples were Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Design by Sigward Bernadotte, Terribly Beautiful, Deceit the Eye, Pre-Raphaelites, Caspar David Friedrich, Rubens and van Dyck, Concept Design, The Shape of Time, and Slow Art. In the gallery of engravers, smaller exhibitions with works mainly from their own collections are shown.

The museum borrows a large number of works for exhibitions in other museums in Sweden and abroad. In the Nationalmuseum, research is carried out on the basis of its own collections as a starting point, as well as its own publishing activities.

The Nationalmuseum also has a picture archive. The museum is also in charge of the Art Library, which is one of the largest art libraries in the Nordic countries and is a joint library of the Nationalmuseum and the Modern Museum.

The museum has a department for conservation, photography and art management with orientations according to the objects of each collection. The department works on the preservation of objects and cooperates with the Department of Collections and Research on technical research.

The Nationalmuseum manages, in whole or in part, the collections of objects in a large number of visitor destinations throughout the country. These include, for example, Drottningholm Castle, Gripsholm Castle, Ulriksdal Castle, Nines Castle, Lacko Castle, Lovstabruk Castle, Vadstena Castle and the Gustavsberg Porcelain Factory. The Orangery Museum in Ulriksdal Castle and the Museum de Vries in Drottningholmsmalmen preserve the central parts of the museum’s sculpture collection. Since 2018, the National Museum has a branch in Ostersund – the Jamtli National Museum.

Until July 1, 2017, Prins Eugens Valdemarsudde belonged to the competent National Museum with Prins Eugens Valdemarsudde. The authority (now called only the Nationalmuseum) falls under the Department of Culture. The association of friends of the Nationalmusei vanner museum was founded in 1911 by the then Crown Prince Gustaf (VI) Adolf and over the years has made a significant contribution to the museum’s collections.

The Nationalmuseum in Stockholm was closed on February 3, 2013 for renovations. The museum was in need of extensive restoration and renovation, as the building was badly worn from heavy use. Several technical systems in the museum have reached their useful life.

The Nationalmuseum reopened on October 13, 2018, and the opening ceremony was personally performed by King Carl XVI Gustaf in the presence of members of the royal family, Minister of Culture Alice Bach Kunke and thousands of visitors. The museum’s exhibition space has been expanded and can now accommodate twice as many visitors and display almost three times as many works of art. In addition to the technical update, previously blocked windows and skylights have been opened to create more daylight and views towards the city. The noisy restaurant got a better, quieter location and was replaced by an airy and quiet sculpture garden. The museum has restored a color scheme inspired by the original palette.

My dear travellers, we have come to the end of the fourth and at the same time last special post from the Letters from the Kingdom of Sweden, which would not have been possible without the selfless help of the Visit Stockholm in cooperation with local partners who allowed me to feel the spirit and beauty of Swedish culture and tradition. Of course, as always, I tried my best to convey to you my impressions of this unusual experience from Sweden.

Time always flies when a person is having a good time! A person is rich in soul if he has managed to explore the world and I am glad that I always manage to find partners of my projects who help me to discover new and unusual destinations in a completely different way during this global health crisis of COVID-19.

I am honoured to have the opportunity to cooperate with companies that are the very top of the tourism industry and I would like to thank them for this incredible adventure and for allowing me to experience the beauty of this unusual city in Scandinavia in a completely different way.

How did you like my story about the Nationalmuseum in Stockholm? Have you had the chance to visit the heart of Scandinavia so far?

If you have any question, comment, suggestion or message for me you can write me below in the comments. Of course, as always, you can contact me via email or social networks, all addresses can be found on the CONTACT ME page. See you at the same place in a few days, with some new story!

With love from Stockholm,

Mr.M

This post is sponsored by the Visit Stockholm, as well as other local partners. This post is my personal and honest review of the destination experience.

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Letters from The Kingdom of Sweden: Vasa, the Story of the sunken legendary luxurious warship…

Adventure Travel 3 Comments

My dear travellers and lovers of unique trips, I hope you are well and ready for new adventures! This is the last post for this month and I wanted to share with you an unusual legend about a luxurious Swedish warship, the Vasa.

Before I start today’s post, I would like to remind you of some of the previous posts from the edition of letters from the Kingdom of Sweden, so if you haven’t had time to read the previous stories or maybe you want to remind yourself of some interesting details, spare a few minutes of your time and by clicking on the given links, visit some of the previous travelogues from Sweden:

1) Stockholm: A Modern Green City of Culture on the Water

2) Everything you need to know about the Royal Palace in Stockholm

Today I will share with you my impressions of the Vasa Museum and the legend of this amazing warship and I would like to thank the Visit Stockholm for the invitation and the amazing experience to get to know the culture and customs in the heart of Scandinavia.

I think the older generations remember the legend of a magnificent warship that was supposed to show power and strength with its beauty and luxury, but sank after traveling 1300 meters from the port… How this ship went from being a great shame to the pride of Sweden, we will discover together in today’s post on the Mr.M blog.

Vasa or Wasa is a famous Swedish warship built between 1626 and 1628. The ship sank after sailing approximately 1,300 m on its maiden voyage on August 16, 1628, at dusk.

Since the Vasa was one of the most expensive ships of all time with modern war equipment and exquisite craftsmanship, you must be wondering what went wrong?

Many questions were asked: Was the ship properly prepared for the wind? Was the crew sober? Is the ballast properly stored? Were the weapons properly secured? However, no one was ready to take the blame. The crew members and the shipbuilders formed two groups and each of them tried to blame the other and all of them swore that they had performed their duty without fault and during the investigation the details of the stability demonstration were revealed.

Then attention was focused on shipbuilders. “Why did you make a ship so narrow, so bad and without enough bottom that it capsized?” the prosecutor asked the shipbuilder Jakobson. Jakobson stated that he built the ship according to the instructions of the master shipbuilder, who in turn followed a specification approved by the king himself. Jacobson actually widened the ship by about half a meter (50 cm) after he took over construction, but the construction of the ship was too far advanced to allow further expansion.

In the end, no culprit could be found. Arent de Groot’s answer, which became legendary, when asked by the court why the ship sank was “Only God knows”. Gustav Adolf approved all the measurements and armament, and the ship was built according to the instructions and loaded with a certain number of guns. In the end, no one was punished or found guilty of negligence, and the blame practically fell on Henrik Hibbertsson.

Some research today has shown that the Vasa sank because it had very little initial stability, which can be thought of as resistance to heeling under the action of wind or waves acting on the hull. The reason for this is that the distribution of mass in the hull structure and the ballast, guns, cargo and other items loaded onto the ship add too much weight to the ship. The center of gravity is too high, so it takes very little force to capsize the ship, and there isn’t enough righting moment, the force that tries to force the ship back into an upright position.

The reason the ship has such a high center of gravity is not because of the cannons. They weighed slightly more than 60 tons or about 5% of the total displacement of the loaded ship. This is relatively light weight and should be manageable on a boat of this size. The problem is in the hull construction itself. The part of the hull above the waterline is too tall and too heavily built for the amount of hull in the water. The headroom on the decks is more than necessary for the crew members who were on average not quite 1.70 meters tall and therefore the weight of the deck and the weapons they carry is more above the waterline than necessary. In addition, the deck beams and their supporting timbers are oversized and spaced too closely together for the load they carry, thus adding too much weight to the already tall and heavy superstructure.

This ship spent 330 years submerged and there were several attempts to bring the wreckage to the surface. The ship was salvaged with a mostly intact hull in 1961. It was housed in a temporary museum called Vasavarvet (“Vasa Shipyard”) until 1988, and then moved permanently to the Vasa Museum in the Royal National City Park[ in Stockholm. The ship is one of Sweden’s most popular tourist attractions and has been seen by over 35 million visitors since 1961. Vasa became a universally recognized symbol of the Swedish Empire.

The ship was built on the orders of the Swedish king Gustavus Adolphus as part of the military expansion he initiated in the war with Poland and Lithuania (1621–1629). She was constructed at the Stockholm Naval Shipyard under contract to private entrepreneurs and armed primarily with bronze cannons cast in Stockholm. Richly decorated as a symbol of the king’s ambitions for Sweden and himself, when completed she was one of the most powerfully armed vessels in the world. However, Vasa was dangerously unstable, with too much weight in the upper hull structure. Despite this lack of stability, she was ordered out to sea and sank just minutes after encountering a breeze stronger than a breeze. The order to sail was the result of a combination of factors. The king, who commanded the army in Poland at the time of her maiden voyage, was anxious to see Vasa take the place of flagship of the reserve squadron at Alvsnabben in the Stockholm Archipelago. At the same time, the king’s subordinates lacked the political courage to openly discuss the ship’s problems or to delay the maiden voyage. The Swedish Privy Council organized an investigation to find those responsible for the disaster, but in the end no one was punished.

During an investigation of the wreck in 1961, marine archaeologists found thousands of artifacts and the remains of at least 15 people in and around Vasa’s hull. Among the many items found were clothing, weapons, cannons, tools, coins, cutlery, food, drink and six out of ten sails. The artifacts and the ship itself have provided scholars with invaluable insight into the details of naval warfare, shipbuilding techniques and daily life in early 17th-century Sweden. Today, the Vasa is the best-preserved ship from the 17th century in the world and also the most visited museum in Scandinavia. The Vasa wreck is continuously being monitored and researched on how to best preserve this historical specimen.

What does Vasa look like as a wreck and what is left? The Vasa has four preserved decks: the upper and lower gun decks, the storeroom and the orlop. Due to the constraints of preparing the ship for conservation, archaeologists had to work quickly, in 13-hour shifts during the first week of excavation. The upper gun deck was heavily disturbed by various salvage projects between 1628 and 1961 and contained not only material that had fallen from the rigging and the upper deck, but more than three centuries of harbor debris.

The decks below are less and less destroyed. The decks contained not only gun carriages, three surviving cannons and other items of a military nature, but were also the places where most of the sailors’ personal belongings were placed at the time of the sinking. This included a wide variety of scattered finds, as well as crates and barrels of spare clothing and footwear, tools and repair materials, money, privately purchased groceries and all items of daily use. necessary for life at sea.

Most of the objects found are made of wood, which testifies not only to the simple life on board, but also to the generally unsophisticated state of Swedish material culture at the beginning of the 17th century. The lower decks were primarily used for storage, so the hold was filled with kegs of provisions and gunpowder, coils of anchor cable, iron shot for guns, and some officers’ personal belongings. On the orlop deck, a small compartment contained six of the ship’s ten sails, spares for rigging, and working parts for the ship’s pumps. Another compartment contained the ship’s carpenter’s belongings, including a large tool chest.

After the ship itself was salvaged and excavated, the site of the loss was thoroughly excavated during 1963–1967. This produced many pieces of rigging as well as structural timber falling off, particularly from the bill head and stern castle. Most of the sculptures that decorated the exterior of the hull were also found in the mud, along with the ship’s anchors and the skeletons of at least four people. The last item mentioned was a nearly 12 meter long boat, called an esping in Swedish, found lying parallel to the ship and believed to have been towed by Vasa when it sank.

The Vasa Museum is something you must not miss when you come to Stockholm. There are various exhibitions in the museum with different themes such as life on board and its historical context. The film about you is shown in different languages. There is also an audio guide in different languages, which visitors use on their mobile devices. The museum has free Wi-Fi internet. In addition, there is a well-stocked shop and a pleasant restaurant for lunch and fika (a wonderful and unusual Swedish custom that you must try). It is important to note that admission to the museum is free for children under 18 years of age.

My dear travellers, we have come to the end of the third special post about the legendary luxurious Swedish warship Vasa, which would not have been possible without the selfless help of the Visit Stockholm in cooperation with local partners who allowed me to feel the spirit and beauty of Swedish culture and tradition. Of course, as always, I tried my best to convey to you my impressions of this unusual experience from Sweden.

Time always flies when a person is having a good time! A person is rich in soul if he has managed to explore the world and I am glad that I always manage to find partners of my projects who help me to discover new and unusual destinations in a completely different way during this global health crisis of COVID-19.

I am honoured to have the opportunity to cooperate with companies that are the very top of the tourism industry and I would like to thank them for this incredible adventure and for allowing me to experience the beauty of this unusual city in Scandinavia in a completely different way.

How did you like my story about Royal Palace of Stockholm? Have you had the chance to visit the heart of Scandinavia so far?

If you have any question, comment, suggestion or message for me you can write me below in the comments. Of course, as always, you can contact me via email or social networks, all addresses can be found on the CONTACT ME page. See you at the same place in a few days, with some new story!

With love from Stockholm,

Mr.M

This post is sponsored by the Visit Stockholm, as well as other local partners. This post is my personal and honest review of the destination experience.

SHARE THIS POST

Letters from Sweden: Everything You need to know about The Royal Palace in Stockholm…

Adventure Travel 4 Comments

My dear travellers and lovers of unique trips, I hope you are well and ready to continue our adventure in the heart of Scandinavia and the capital of the Kingdom of Sweden – Stockholm. As I promised you in the previous post, in the following posts I will share with you some more detailed information about certain sights that caught my attention and that I am sure will intrigue you. Today’s post will be dedicated to the Royal Palace in Stockholm, as well as the royal complex.

If by any chance you didn’t have time to read the first travelogue about Stockholm on the Mr.M blog or you want to remind yourself of some details, take a few minutes of your time and visit the post on the following link.

Today I will share with you my impressions of the Royal Palace in Stockholm and I would like to thank the Visit Stockholm for the invitation and the amazing experience to get to know the culture and customs in the heart of Scandinavia.

Before I start my story about the Royal Palace today, I think we should get to know the members of the Swedish Royal Family better. Since 1818, the Swedish royal family has consisted of members of the Swedish royal house of Bernadotte, closely related to the King of Sweden. Today, those recognized by the government are entitled to royal titles and perform official duties and ceremonial state duties. The extended royal family consists of other close relatives who are not directly from the royal family and therefore do not officially represent the country.

Throne room – “Hall of State”

The Swedish royal family, closely related to the head of state, could be identified as having existed since the 10th century AD, with more precise details added during the two or three centuries that followed. An exception is the case of Saint Bridget, who became known outside of Sweden as the Princess of Nericia, which seems to have been a noble and not a royal title, since she was not the daughter of a king. Historically confirmed monarchs are officially listed by the Swedish Royal Court.

Until the 1620s, the Swedish provinces were granted as territorial appanages to royal princes who, as their dukes, ruled semi-autonomously. Beginning with the reign of Gustavus III, and as codified in 1772, the provincial duchies existed in the royal family only as nominal non-hereditary titles, without any inherent ownership or trust in them, although several members of the royal family maintained a special public connection with and sometimes secondary residence in “his or her duchy”.

The son of the Swedish king usually held the princely title as a royal dynast (such as Prince Bertil, Duke of Halland), but on rare occasions also as a noble rank (such as Fursten Prince Friedrich William of Hessenstein), or as a courtesy to a former dynast ( such as Prince Oscar Bernadotte).

The Swedish Royal Court lists the following persons as members of the Royal House:

1) King Carl XVI Gustaf (born in 1946)
2) Queen Silvia (King’s wife, born in 1943)
3) Princess Victoria, Duchess of Västergotland (King’s elder daughter, born 1977)
4) Prince Daniel, Duke of Västergotland (son-in-law of the King, born in 1973, husband of Princess Victoria)
5) Princess Estelle, Duchess of Östergötland (granddaughter of the King, born in 2012, daughter of Princess Victoria)
6) Prince Oscar, Duke of Scone, (grandson of the King, born in 2016, son of Princess Victoria)
7) Prince Carl Philip, Duke of Vermland (the king’s only son, born in 1979)
8) Princess Sofia, Duchess of Vermland (King’s daughter-in-law, born 1984, wife of Prince Carl Philip) 9) Prince Alexander, Duke of Södermanland (King’s grandson, born 2016, son of Prince Carl Philip)
10) Prince Gabriel, Duke of Dalarna (king’s grandson, born 2017, son of Prince Carl Philip)
11) Prince Julian, Duke of Halland (King’s grandson, born 2021, son of Prince Carl Philip) 12) Princess Madeleine, Duchess of Halsingland and Gastricland (King’s younger daughter, born 1982) 13) Princess Leonora, Duchess of Gotland (granddaughter of the King, born in 2014, daughter of Princess Madeleine)
14) Prince Nikola, Duke of Angermanland (king’s grandson, born in 2015, son of Princess Madeleine)
15) Princess Adrienne, Duchess of Blackingham (granddaughter of the King, born in 2018, daughter of Princess Madeleine)
16) Princess Margareta, the King’s first sister, born in 1934
17) Princess Desiree, Baroness Silfverschiold (the King’s third sister, born in 1938), widow of Baron Niclas Silfverschiold.
18) Princess Christina, Mrs. Magnusson (King’s fourth sister, born in 1943), married to Consul General Tord Magnusson.
19) Marianna Bernadotte (born 1924), widow of the king’s uncle Sigvard Bernadotte.
20) Princess Birgitta, Princess of Hohenzollern (the King’s second sister, born in 1937), widow of Prince Johann Georg of Hohenzollern.

Queen Silvia

Now that we’ve been introduced to the royal family, it’s time to learn a little more about the royal complex.

Stockholm Palace or Royal Palace is the official residence and main royal palace of the Swedish monarch (King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia use Drottningholm Palace as their usual residence). Stockholm Palace is located on Stadsholmen in Stockholm. It is located near the Riksdag building. The offices of the King, other members of the Swedish royal family and the Royal Court of Sweden are located here. The palace is used for representative purposes by the king while performing his duties as head of state.

This royal residence has been in the same location by Norström in the northern part of Gamla stan in Stockholm since the mid-13th century when Tre Kronor Castle was built. In modern times the name refers to a building called Kungliga Slottet. The palace was designed by Nicodemus Tessin the Younger and was built on the same site as the medieval Tre Kronor Castle which was destroyed by fire on 7 May 1697.

Due to the costly Great Northern War that began in 1700, the construction of the palace was stopped. In 1727, construction continued six years after the end of the war. When Tessin the Younger died in 1728, the palace was completed by Carl Harlemann who also designed much of its Rococo interior. The palace was not ready for use until 1754, when King Adolf Frederik and Queen Louise Ulrika moved in, but some interior work continued until the 1770s.

No major changes have been made in the palace since its completion, only some adaptations, new interiors, modernization and remodeling for various regents and their families, coloring of facades and addition of palace museums. The palace is surrounded by Lejonbacken and Norrbro to the north, Logarden and Skeppsbron to the east, Slottsbacken and Storkirkan to the south, and the outer courtyard and Hogvaktsterrassen to the northwest.

As of 2009, the interior of the palace consists of 1,430 rooms. The palace contains apartments for royal families, representatives and ceremonies such as the State Apartments, Guest Apartments and Bernadotte Apartments. More features are the State Hall, the Royal Chapel, the Treasury with the regalia of Sweden, the Livrustkammaren and the Tre Kronor Museum in the remaining basement vaults from the former castle. The National Library of Sweden was housed in the northeast wing, Biblioteksfligeln (Library Wing), until 1878. Since 2014, it houses Bernadotte’s library. The Slottsarkivet is located in the wing of the office.

The palace houses the offices of the Royal Court of Sweden, a workplace for about 200 employees. The Royal Guard guarded the palace and the royal family since 1523. A comprehensive renovation of the facade began in 2011 to repair weather-damaged sandstone sections. The Royal Palace is owned by the Swedish state through the National Property Board of Sweden, which is responsible for the management and maintenance of the palace, while Stathallarambet (Office of the Governor of the Royal Palaces) administers the royal right to dispose of the palace. The palace belongs to the crown palaces in Sweden which are at the disposal of the King and the Royal Court of Sweden.

Artists such as Jean Eric Rehn and Fredrik Wilhelm Scholander were important to the magnificent interior of the palace during the late 18th and 19th centuries, when pilasters, columns, wall decorations and other details were added. Among those sculptors, painters and craftsmen who also contributed to the later renovations were Louis Masreliez (interior work in classicism and neoclassicism), Jean Baptiste Masreliez (interior work), Akel Magnus Fahlcrantz (Logarden wall and wrought iron fence in Logarden), Johann Niclas Bistrom (sculptures), Sven Scholander (restorations), Johan Akel Vetterlund (facade sculptures of prominent people and four allegorical groups on the Logarden wall), Julius Kronberg (paintings on the ceiling) and Kaspar Schroder (facade sculptures on the court lion mask facade).

Major changes to the facade were made during the reign of King Charles XIV John, which resulted in the repainting of the Harlemann light yellow color of the facade and in the early 20th century during the reign of King Oscar II when the decision was made to return Tessin to the original.

During the reign of King Oscar I, there was a renewed interest in the older styles and when the Vita Havet (White Sea Ballroom) was created to the design of Per Akel Nyström in 1844–1850, a compromise was made between the old and the new. Fredrik Wilhelm Scholander was the royal curator to King Charles XV and shared his taste in interior design, resulting in rooms such as the Victoriasalongen (Victoria Salon) in the exuberant revived Rococo style.

King Oscar II carried out numerous additions, improvements and modernization of the palace. Most of the empty facade niches during his reign were filled with sculptures. He gave an update on the technical installations of the palace, such as the installation of water pipes in 1873, electricity installation in 1883, telephone in 1884 and water central heating around 1900.

Since 2014, the property has been connected to district heating. The king’s interest extended to the decoration of the staircase, and he commissioned Julius Kronberg to paint the ceilings on the ceiling of the West Staircase. Author Georg Svensson wrote about King Oscar II that “his goal was to complete the construction of the palace according to Tessin’s plans in a manner worthy of this monument.”

During 1922 to 1930, Lawgarden was rebuilt from a former English park into a more open area with pools of water on either side of the promenade leading from the East Arch to Skepsbronn.

From 1956 to 1958, the Gustav III Museum of Antiquities was restored. The architect and chief intendant Ivar Tengbom was appointed for the works. The Treasury was opened in 1970, and the Tre Kronor Museum in 1999. 4 years ago, in 2018 to be exact, nearly 600 solar panels were installed on the roof of the palace and are expected to generate an annual output of 170 MWh or at least twelve percent of the palace’s annual electricity consumption.

According to data from 2014, the Royal Palace has 1,430 rooms.

Basement: There are 104 rooms in the basement, most of which were used as storerooms and prisons. The remains of the old Tre Kronor Castle are visible there. Certain parts of the basement are divided into two basement floors because of the large differences in headroom in the different parts. A royal wine cellar could be found under the west range in the late 1800s and 1900s, and is most likely still there.

The ground floor is the highest floor of the palace. The rooms there were mainly used by the court staff, and there are four portals (or arches) that form the entrances to the palace, as well as the State Hall and the Royal Chapel.

The middle floor or mezzanine has 115 rooms. Most of the rooms have retained their size since the construction of the palace, but their use has varied. The name is derived from the fact that the floor is only half as low as the other floors. The rooms were mainly used by the court staff, but there were also apartments of princes and princesses. In the mezzanine there is also a small apartment for guests, which consists of several rooms in the northern part of the western row.

The first floor has 67 rooms. The rooms have mostly kept their size since the palace was built, but their use has varied. The Bernadotte Apartments and the Hall of Pillars are located in the north row, and the east row has private rooms. King Carl XVI Gustaf and his family lived here until they moved to Drottningholm Palace in 1981.

The second floor has 57 rooms. Most of the rooms have retained their size since the construction of the palace, but their use has varied. Guest Suites, State Suites with Vita Havet Ballroom (White Sea), Cabinet Meeting Room and Prince Bertil Suite are on this floor.

The attic, has about 25 rooms, as well as the upper part and the arches that form the ceiling for the State Hall, the Royal Chapel and the southern staircase. The attic is mainly used for storage.

Treasury

Within the royal complex there are several separate museums that you can visit, namely: Royal Apartments with apartments for their guests, Treasury, Three Tre Kronor Museum, Gustav III’s Museum of Antiquities, Royal Chapel, Royal Armory Museum. Depending on your interests you can visit the museums that you think suit you, but I can tell you that each of them is special and unique, so you should visit each of them if you have enough time.

The Royal Palace in Stockholm is the official residence of His Majesty the King and is also the site of the monarchy’s official receptions, open to the public throughout the year. This unusual combination of a royal residence, a workplace and a cultural and historical monument open to visitors all year round makes the Royal Palace in Stockholm unique among European royal residences.

The palace contains many interesting things that are worth seeing. In addition to the royal apartments, there are three museums steeped in royal history: the Treasury of Regalia, the Tre Kronor (Three Crowns) museum which depicts the medieval history of the palaces, and the Gustav III Museum of Sculpture and Antiquities. During the summer months, the Royal Chapel is also open, as well as Ridarholmen Church – the royal burial church five minutes’ walk from the palace, for which a combined ticket is available.

Gustav III’s Museum of Antiquities

My dear travellers, we have come to the end of the second special post about the capital of the Kingdom of Sweden, which would not have been possible without the selfless help of the Visit Stockholm in cooperation with local partners who allowed me to feel the spirit and beauty of Swedish culture and tradition. Of course, as always, I tried my best to convey to you my impressions of this unusual experience from Sweden.

Time always flies when a person is having a good time! A person is rich in soul if he has managed to explore the world and I am glad that I always manage to find partners of my projects who help me to discover new and unusual destinations in a completely different way during this global health crisis of COVID-19.

I am honoured to have the opportunity to cooperate with companies that are the very top of the tourism industry and I would like to thank them for this incredible adventure and for allowing me to experience the beauty of this unusual city in Scandinavia in a completely different way.

How did you like my story about Royal Palace of Stockholm? Have you had the chance to visit the heart of Scandinavia so far?

If you have any question, comment, suggestion or message for me you can write me below in the comments. Of course, as always, you can contact me via email or social networks, all addresses can be found on the CONTACT ME page. See you at the same place in a few days, with some new story!

With love from Stockholm,

Mr.M

This post is sponsored by the Visit Stockholm, as well as other local partners. This post is my personal and honest review of the destination experience.

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Letters from The Kingdom of Sweden: Stockholm, a Modern Green City of Culture on the Water

Adventure Travel 7 Comments

My dear travels and lovers of unique trips, welcome to a new adventure on the Mr.M blog! Today I have prepared for you a symbolic gift for summer and the beginning of July – the first travelogue in a series of posts about the capital of the Kingdom of Sweden – Stockholm.

I have always wanted to visit this country, as I am fascinated by the Scandinavian culture and way of life, so I wanted to visit the heart of Scandinavia – Stockholm. We all have our own associations for certain destinations, but Stockholm is special, a city that can hardly be described in just 3 terms, but I tried to put my thoughts together and came up with the following terms: Swedish Royal Family, Nobel Prize and Acne Studios . Those are my associations for Stockholm, I just saw that there is another important association – Green City.

Today I will share with you my impressions of this unusual city and I would like to thank the Visit Stockholm for the invitation and the amazing experience to get to know the culture and customs in the heart of Scandinavia.

The Swedes have a special respect for the cult of nature and are an extremely healthy nation, some researches that have been conducted have shown that the Swedes are one of the happiest peoples in Europe. Because they care about a healthy lifestyle and their environment, they make all their efforts to protect their environment and take care of sustainability in every sector.

Stockholm is considered one of the most beautiful cities in the world, built on a lake and meeting the sea, on fourteen islands and with eight centuries of rich history and culture, it is one of the most beautiful cities in Northern Europe. Sectors such as fashion, technology, music, film, design and the gaming industry are experiencing incredible growth. Stockholm is a place where creativity grows and where many dreams come true and new ideas are born. Most important of all is the fact that Stockholm is a city with an open heart for everyone!

Stockholm is also one of the most environmentally friendly cities in Europe and an international model of global environmental and climate action. Five decades after the 1972 UN Conference in Stockholm, which created the link between the environment and poverty and put it at the forefront of the international agenda, Stockholm welcomed the world again in June 2022 for the conference “Stockholm+50: a healthy planet for prosperity for all of us – our responsibility and our opportunity.”

Sweden is known for its design, amazing architecture and special approach to the fashion industry. Scandinavian design is known for mixing minimalism and functionality with style and innovation. Stockholm definitely remains the epicenter of Swedish design and is one of the best in the world when it comes to design and sustainability. Apart from the basic aspiration to make something well-made and attractive, design in Stockholm tends to be practical and applicable.

Each designed piece serves as a building block that can be mixed and matched with other design elements. From solid to bright pastel prints and heavy traditional patterns, fabrics also play an important role in the city’s design culture. All Stockholm designs are available for everyday practical use and there are a variety of high quality designs at different price points to suit everyone’s budget.

Historically, Swedish architects have been heavily influenced by movements and styles from abroad. But due to their geographical location, these cultural flows arrived later and evolved into something uniquely Swedish in style. When Art Deco came to Sweden in full force, it transformed into Nordic classicism to satisfy everyone’s taste and restore balance. Swedish tastes and functionalism grew into its Swedish offshoot “funkis”.

Modern Swedish architecture, both commercial and residential, is characterized by sustainability in harmony with nature. New projects are planned to work in accordance with environmental protection, and a lot of attention is paid to building materials that are energy efficient and environmentally friendly. This has produced some truly spectacular projects.

When talking about the fashion sector, there are numerous success stories in Sweden from brands such as Acne Studios and Stutterheim to the newer fashion favorites of today such as Totême and Rodebjer. Swedish fashion always tries to introduce and connect many talented designers to the fashion world.

Also, not to forget, some major representatives of street fashion brands such as H&M and other brands Weekday, Monki, COS, Other Stories and Arket which are also popular brands that have won the hearts of people around the world. The novelty of some brands is that your gender should not dictate what you can wear. An example of this is the Swedish brand Hope, which for example was the first to apply the philosophy of making unisex clothes that look stunning and fantastic regardless of gender.

When we talk about fashion in Stockholm, it is very important to mention one fashion temple that you must visit when you come to the capital of Sweden. Nordiska Kompaniet (abbreviation NK) is the name of a department store located in Stockholm, and there is another one in another city in Sweden – Gothenburg.

This department store in Stockholm is visited annually by about twelve million visitors, and its history is almost 120 years long, and it is also the first department store that was opened in this area. This department store is home to many international well-known global fashion brands and you can also find many well-known Scandinavian brands as well as up-and-coming designers.

Stockholm is the cultural, media, political and economic center of the Kingdom of Sweden. The Stockholm region alone accounts for more than a third of the country’s GDP and is among the top 10 regions in Europe in terms of GDP per capita. Rated as an alpha-global city, it is the largest in Scandinavia and the main center for corporate headquarters in Northern Europe. The city is home to some of the best universities in Europe, such as Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm School of Economics, KTH Royal Institute of Technology and Stockholm University.

Stockholm is also known for hosting the annual Nobel Prize ceremony and banquet at the Stockholm Concert Hall and Stockholm City Hall. One of the most respected museums in the city, the Vasa Museum, is the most visited non-art museum in Scandinavia. The Stockholm subway, opened in 1950, is well known for the decoration of its stations, it is also known as the longest art gallery in the world.

Now we come to the most important part for all travelers and the answers to the famous questions: What to see in Stockholm? What should not be missed?

Stockholm is a wonderful city, rich in various cultural contents and I am sure that this city will meet all your expectations. In today’s post I will try to briefly give you some tips and guidelines on what you should visit in the capital of Sweden and show off your newfound knowledge to your friends! Some of the mentioned sights in today’s post, I will describe in more detail in the following letters from the Kingdom of Sweden, so don’t worry about the details! ?

The first stop that I consider important for getting to know Stockholm and the Kingdom of Sweden in general is a visit to the Royal Palace complex located in the heart of the Old Town. To get to the royal complex from the city center, it is enough to have comfortable shoes and from the NK department store to the royal complex is only a 5-10 minute walk! You will enjoy the beauty and greenery of the city’s parks and exceptional architecture, and you will see why Stockholm is said to be one of the most beautiful green cities on the water.

Within the royal complex there are several separate museums that you can visit, namely: Royal Apartments with apartmens for their guests, Treasury, Museum of the Three Crowns, Museum of the Gustav III Sculpture Collection, Royal Chapel, Museum of the Royal Armory. Depending on your interests, you can visit the museums that you think suit you, but I can tell you that each of them is special and unique, so you should visit each of them, if you have enough time.

In the following posts, I will pay more attention to certain sights, so that you will get more information and learn more details, so that you will go to visit the capital of the Kingdom of Sweden with excellent foreknowledge!

The Royal Palace in Stockholm is the official residence of His Majesty the King and is also the site of the monarchy’s official receptions, open to the public throughout the year. This unusual combination of a royal residence, a workplace and a cultural and historical monument open to visitors all year round makes the Royal Palace in Stockholm unique among European royal residences.

The palace was built in the Baroque style and has more than 600 rooms spread over eleven floors with the state apartment facing the city and smaller living rooms facing the inner courtyard. The palace contains many interesting things that are worth seeing. In addition to the royal apartments, there are three museums steeped in royal history: the Treasury of Regalia, the Tre Kronor (Three Crowns) museum which depicts the medieval history of the palaces, and the Gustav III Museum of Sculpture and Antiquities.

During the summer months, the Royal Chapel is also open, as well as Ridarholmen Church – the royal burial church five minutes’ walk from the palace, for which a combined ticket is available.

Not far from the Royal Palace, there is the Nobel Prize Museum. The main objective of this museum is to spread knowledge and create interest and discussion about natural sciences and culture through creative learning, exhibition techniques and modern technology.

The Nobel Prize Museum illustrates a century of creativity, where visitors can trace the changes of the 20th century through the Nobel Prize and Nobel Prize winners. Explore the work and ideas of more than 900 creative minds represented through short films, original artifacts and computers. The Nobel Prize Museum is located in the heart of Stockholm, in the Old Town.

Be inspired by ideas that have changed the world. The Nobel Prize Museum contains all the essential information about the most prestigious prize in the world, Alfred Nobel and the Nobel Prize winners. Self-guided tours are possible, as well as guided tours. Aids such as films and various objects take you from idea to Nobel banquet. The bistro serving lunch, Nobel’s Ice Cream, is also able to order meals from previous banquets, but there is a long waiting list for that type of service, as well as much more. This is a museum worth visiting when you find yourself in the Old Town.

The next stop that could help you see art trends and art in Sweden and Scandinavia. The Nationalmuseum is a Swedish museum of art and design. The National Museum is also a government body with a mandate to preserve cultural heritage and promote art, interest in art and knowledge of art. The collections include paintings, sculptures, drawings and prints from 1500-1900. and applied art, design and portraits from the early Middle Ages to the present day.

After several years of renovation and modernization, the Nationalmuseum – Sweden’s main museum of art and design, reopened its doors in 2018. The new space is tailored, quite literally, to highlight the museum’s vast collection of classical art. Entrance to the museum is free, except for certain guest exhibitions. In one of the following posts, I will take you through the current exhibitions that are currently in the museum.

Now is the time for a museum that marked the history of Sweden – the Vasa Museum is a maritime museum. Located on the island of Djurgarden, the museum displays the only almost completely intact 17th-century ship ever to be salvaged, the 64-gun warship Vasa that sank on its maiden voyage in 1628. The Vasa Museum was opened in 1990, and according to official information, this museum is the most visited museum in Scandinavia. Together with other museums such as the Stockholm Maritime Museum, it belongs to the Swedish National Maritime Museums (SNMM).

There are various exhibits around the ship ranging from topics such as life on board and its historical context. The film about you is shown in different languages. There is also an audio guide in different languages, which visitors use on their mobile devices. Free entry for children up to 18 years old. In one of the next posts, I will write a little more about this ship and why it is very important for Swedish history and culture.

When we’re done with the cultural part of the tour of Stockholm, it’s time to have some fun, so I heard that there’s a popular amusement park in Stockholm and I went to see what kind of atmosphere there was!

Gröna Lund (literally translated “Green Grove”) or known locally as Gronan is the most famous amusement park that was founded in 1883 in the capital of Sweden. Located on the sea side of the island of Djurgarden, it is relatively small compared to other amusement parks, mainly due to its central location, which limits expansion. This interesting park has over 30 attractions and is a popular concert venue during the summer.

Gröna Lund has most of the attractions common to amusement parks, such as the Tunnel of Love and seven roller coasters. Gröna Lund is also known for hosting rock and pop music concerts. The park is easily accessible by tram number 7, bus 67 and by ferry from the city center. Its central location allows visitors to see large parts of Stockholm from higher attractions.

As we visited some interesting museums and entertainment venues, you could see through the pictures that Stockholm is one colorful city on the water. There are a number of tourist boats with which you can see the beauty of Stockholm from the water. In addition, if you use a transport ticket, there are also boats that are used as public city transport, so you can also get to know Stockholm that way.

As I said at the very beginning of this post, Stockholm is a unique city that is impossible to describe in a few words, it is a city that is open to everyone and should be experienced in its own way.

My dear travelers, we have come to the end of this special post about the capital of the Kingdom of Sweden, which would not have been possible without the selfless help of the Visit Stockholm in cooperation with local partners who allowed me to feel the spirit and beauty of Swedish culture and tradition. Of course, as always, I tried my best to convey to you my impressions of this unusual experience from Sweden.

Time always flies when a person is having a good time! A person is rich in soul if he has managed to explore the world and I am glad that I always manage to find partners of my projects who help me to discover new and unusual destinations in a completely different way during this global health crisis of COVID-19.

I am honoured to have the opportunity to cooperate with companies that are the very top of the tourism industry and I would like to thank them for this incredible adventure and for allowing me to experience the beauty of this unusual city in Scandinavia in a completely different way.

How did you like my story about green Stockholm? Have you had the chance to visit this part of Northern Europe so far?

If you have any question, comment, suggestion or message for me you can write me below in the comments. Of course, as always, you can contact me via email or social networks, all addresses can be found on the CONTACT ME page. See you at the same place in a few days, with some new story!

With love from Stockholm,

Mr.M

This post is sponsored by the Visit Stockholm, as well as other local partners. This post is my personal and honest review of the destination experience.

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