Mucking Around Malmo September 2, 2006

Our main attraction to Malmo is a Viking Village just south of town named Foteviken. This is no ordinary historical recreation, no sir! A group of people have dedicated themselves to living the 800-1000AD Viking lifestyle. According to everything we have read this means they shun all modern conveniences in favor of this more basic way of living. We read about this a month or so ago and decided to make this stop.

We took a bus to the village of Hollviken, thirty minutes away, and then walked another fifteen minutes or so to find ourselves looking at a sign saying closed on weekends after August 31. It is September 2. With all the constant planning we missed this one. The good news was that the sign also said visitors were welcome to wander around at their leisure even when the “museum” was closed. We walked through the gates and immediately came upon a group of people dressed in rough woolen and animal skins having a meal on the ground in front of a very basic dwelling. Only one of the six people looked up as we passed and he gave no expression. We made the loop, stopped to read a few explanatory boards and found ourselves back at the entrance. This is why we stopped at Malmo?

Back in Malmo Holly had found a Mexican restaurant for lunch. It has been a while and although it is not what we were used to the food was good and a bargain at about US$20 even with three entrées, one, calamari, we had as an appetizer. The restaurant sat across the street from St. Peter’s Church which was built in the early 14th century. This is a very large and ornate church which speaks to the prosperity of Malmo during that time. As a bonus a local wedding was just ending and we got to see the bride and groom depart. Five minutes after we left the restaurant we happened upon a small park that was hosting a motor scooter rally. Kinda neat to see all the old scooters. Vespa was very well represented as well as some other brands. (See photo site)

A fifteen minute walk had us in the Malmo Museum which is inside the old castle. The displays I’m sure were interesting but there were no printed guides in English and all placards were only in Swedish. We moved on to the Technical Museum which had exhibits about cars, planes, machines and boats. They have the U-3 which is a Swedish submarine that was built in 1941 and decommissioned in 1967 as well as some great antique cars, motorcycles and airplanes. The Technical Museum has English translation and is very interesting. One of the best we have toured.

We had a thirty minute walk back to the hotel where we started the never ending research for the UK leg although I’m happy to report we are getting close to finalizing the itinerary.

We ended the day at a local movie house by seeing “Cars” which they showed in English. Quite funny and a good popcorn movie.