Road Trip 2018, Part 21 (19th July)
From the Kalmar Cathedral (link to an earlier post), we walked along another few blocks of wooden buildings, down to the Kalmar County Museum near the harbour.
One of the Museum’s permanent exhibitions is about the 17th century warship Kronan, which served as the flagship of the Swedish Navy in the Baltic Sea in the 1670s. When built, she was one of the largest seagoing vessels in the world. However, after only four years of service, the ship foundered in rough weather at the Battle of Öland on 1 June 1676 and sank quickly, taking about 800 men and more than 100 guns with her, along with other valuable military equipment, weapons, personal items, and large quantities of silver and gold coins. Most of the guns were salvaged in the 1680s; but after that the wreck fell into obscurity, and it wasn’t until 1980 that its exact position was rediscovered. Since then the wreck site has been excavated by divers and more than 30,000 artifacts recovered; many of which have been conserved and put on permanent public display at the Kalmar County Museum.
Minature models of the ship
Life-size reconstructions of the interior
… and scary displays to help us imagine the terrors of the shipwreck!
Carved wooden figures salvaged from the ship
Ship’s bell
Various artifacts
Before leaving the museum, we had lunch at their café overlooking the harbour.
Museum building in the background.
Going back to the car, we chose the walkpath on top of the old city wall again.
11 comments:
Gorgeous looking town. and interesting museum
How awful about the fate of this ship. It was HUGE, too! At least they finally found it. After they excavated it, did they find any more bodies? After such a sad and dark exhibit, lunch in a sunny cafe was just the thing. I love all these houses, with the red roofs. The last yellow one is GORGEOUS!!! I see the windows are open, and there is a matching tower. What is this place?
Kalmar really looks a beautiful town/city, I am just amazed there were so few people about - was it a very hot day?
The displays at the museum seem to be aiming at really making visitors understand what it was like back then. Imagine you live and work aboard a war ship, sleeping in a hammock among the cannons... Once more, I am very glad that I am living here and now!
as I looked at all these beautiful photos and beautiful buildings, I noticed something I have never mentioned before. your towns are so clean, the streets and buildings, everything is pristine. is your whole country that way? or do you only take photos of the pretty towns. here streets with buildings are not clean and beautiful like yours. that is an incredible museum and I did not need the scary sculpture to make my imagination work on the ship wreck.
Thanks Lydia. I agree - it was a nice place to visit! :)
Ginny, I don't know what any of the buildings are, except for the museum.
The city centre with all its old buildings is quite charming, Meike. I'm sure one could easily spend a lot more time both in Kalmar and on Öland. (We had booked three nights in a hotel on the outskirts, and spent one whole day on Öland, and one whole day in Kalmar.) As for the weather, that whole week was very hot! (Around or over +30°C every day.) I can't help laughing a little at your comment about few people, though... If anyone knows how to keep people "out of the picture", I'd say that's you! ;) - It wasn't crowded, but you can still see people in most of the street photos, even if I avoided close-ups.
By the way, I did notice one thing on this trip, though: Tourists nowadays, children included, seem to be getting very good at stepping aside to let others take photos. I never had to ask, people seemed to do it automatically. I take it to be a side-effect of almost everyone taking photos nowadays (using their mobiles).
Sandra, I wish I could just say yes, of course everything is fresh and clean, everywhere, always... ;) But it probably comes closer to the truth to say that most towns are well aware of what areas and buildings attract the tourists, so therefore usually make a special effort with those. And as this trip of ours was a typical tourist trip - and in sunny weather too - that's what shows in my pictures as well.
I've gone through this post three times now and seen new things each time. I often do that with your posts because a single viewing is rarely enough. I have always had a fascination with sea battles in the days of sail but the Danish/Dutch v Swedish battles were beyond my knowledge so that led to a bit more learning for me. One thing which I noticed and haven't seen for a while was the blinds that open outwards as sunshades. I think they are such a good idea (in the right place of course).
Graham, one of the fascinating things about blogging is that even from one's own posts, one often learns a more than one would otherwise have done... First by checking up on things before posting; and then by the comments from readers, who often notice quite different details! :)
Have to confess that most of the wars and battles of the past are rather a blur in my memory now (even if no doubt at some point I read about them in school). I might still be able to recall a few important years and kings and places etc - but ask me to explain the context (like who declared war on whom and why) and I'm usually lost! Still, visiting Kalmar and Öland this past summer was a reminder that once upon a time, Sweden was indeed involved in a lot of wars, and our borders changed a number of times.
As for the blinds/sunshades, that was not something I was really thinking about at all when I took the photos! (which probably means they're common enough for me not to notice them much...)
I like how the buildings are different colours and that's a seaside town, there's something about living by water that's very relaxing.
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