Skansen open air museum
We accidentally decided to go to the Skansen museum - we went on a bus tour of the city, which drove around Djurgården (among other places) pointing out the attractions available there. We thought there was some deal for getting in cheaply because we'd been on the bus tour but had managed to get ourselves confused. But we decided to go anyway.
It is an open air museum taking up much of the island. It started as a collection of buildings from around Sweden before the industrialisation of the country. So theres a lot of buildings which don't appear to be in their correct context (which gave the place a slightly sickly sweet Disney meets New England feel).
First stop was food, we climbed from the entrance up to the nearest cafe, sat upon a tall rocky outcrop. The venison stew was remarkably good value (being something like 10 krona more than you'd pay for a McDonalds hamburger) and gave A. her first taste of lingonberries. Just what we needed.
We noticed a lot of people carrying big bags of apples, and decided to go the direction they came from. There was an apple and pear festival going on, but the poor pears hardly had a look in, the apples stole the show. There were a number of stalls selling apples in various forms, mostly raw for later consumption but you could have them cooked in different ways.
The museum, as well as having many buildings from all over the country, houses a zoo with a number of animal enclosures and walks through reproductions of rural scenes.
A summer house
Flagpoles over the city
A windmill
A view across the city
The home of the apple festival
A wood pile
A. on a bridge
Me on a different bridge
A milestone
A scary sculpture
A wooden guardian
Tree of dummies, in the childrens petting zoo, I'm not quite sure of the logic behind this but there appeared to be a collection of dummies arranged in rainbow colours wrapped around a tree, quite a surreal exhibit
A tower in the grounds
Rocks in the zoo
Bears
An ancient house looking out over the sea
A. looking out over the sea
Me laying claim to the ancient house
Unknown antenna building in the distance
Works on a building, what a fabulous ladder
City skyline
Reindeer
A. with a wooden reindeer
The wooden reindeer
Another view over the city