Monday in Malmo – Joel’s Journeys & Jaunts

It’s Monday. I’m in Malmö, Sweden. I arrived here after a four-hour bus trip from Gothenburg.

Today being a Monday is not pertinent in the least. But Malmö and Monday both start with M, so it had a kind of alliteration thing going.

I can’t remember when I started this insane custom of trying to incorporate alliteration in the title of the first post from a new city. I haven’t been doing it all along. And I should break myself of the habit. It’s annoying. If not for you, then for me.

I was having trouble coming up with appropriate M words. (M names are easy for reasons we don’t need to mention here.)

I thought of some negative words like malevolent and malignant. But I have no reason to call a city I’ve only just met anything like that.

Marvellous and magnificent also came to mind. But, likewise, it’s too early. I don’t want to have to take back an unearned praise later. Speaking of “came to mind,” maybe I could have worked “mind” in there somehow.

I considered trying to work malapropism into the title. But I worried I’d use it improperly.

So, Monday in Malmö, it is.

And about the bus, I don’t like buses. I much prefer trains. Buses are usually much more cramped than trains and you generally don’t have as much freedom to move about. Yes, I know that it’s possible that people can meet their future spouses on a bus and live happily ever after (I said, live happily ever after!), but, theoretically, that could happen on a train too.

When I planned this trip, I first checked to see what days I could get a nonstop flight from Toronto to Stockholm and back. (The nonstops don’t operate seven days a week, at least not at this time of year.) Then, I looked at a guidebook to find cities and towns that might make a good circle route around southern Sweden.

After that, I went to the Swedish rail site to check if I could get between those cities and towns without having to transfer anywhere in between. I hate connections and avoid them wherever possible. When I’ve got a connection, I spend all of the first leg(s) constantly worried, convinced I’ll miss my connection. I had to reverse the direction of my route from what I’d originally planned to make direct trips happen, but all the journeys could then be done without connections.

I next checked that I could get hotels in the places I selected on the dates I planned.

I then started doing all of the bookings. When I went back to the rail sight to buy the tickets, I noticed something I hadn’t noticed when I was just looking for the availability of trains. The rail company sells tickets not only on its trains, but also on another rail line and an independent bus line. All of the other journeys were on one of the two rail lines, but the Gothenburg to Malmö trip was by bus.

But, here I am, in Malmö, after spending only four hours cursing the fact I was on a bus. After arriving, I had a few hours available in the afternoon to look around. I used it by heading to the Malmö Castle, Malmöhus Slott,

Malmö Castle (Malmöhus slott)

To be honest, I’m not sure what the Swedish name of the Malmö Castle is. On many signs here, it’s just Malmöhus, which Google Translate tells me means Malmö House. But its website calls the castle “Malmöhus slott.” That being said, “slott” (“castle” in English) is lowercase on the website, so I don’t think it’s part of the proper name.

(The Malmöhus slott website is in Swedish. I couldn’t find any English pages on it, but for some reason, websites often make the button to select another language difficult to find. So I might have missed it. The Chrome browser will translate pages from Swedish into English if you ask it nicely.)

According to a Chrome translation of the opening paragraph of the website, “Malmöhus Castle is the oldest preserved Renaissance castle in the Nordic countries. Remains of Erik of Pomerania’s castle from 1434 are still preserved in the castle, which was completed in the mid-16th century.”

So, it’s kind of old.

Needless to say, the castle isn’t used as a castle anymore. Who needs defensive castles these days? Unless, of course, the head of government of a neighbouring wants to absorb your country as its 51st state.

(Note to self: When I’m back in Toronto, recommend that they install cannons at Casa Loma and update and operationalize the armaments at Fort York. The other historic forts across Canada should get similar upgrades. And do the British still have available the plans they used for burning down the White House in 1812? Maybe Canada’s head of state, King Charles, can get them for us. Canada strong!)

Sorry. I got distracted.

Malmö Castle was further fortified over its first couple of centuries. But its importance waned in the 18th century.

It was used as a prison from 1828, with the last prisoner leaving in 1920. (Unless I misread one or the other, there’s a discrepancy between the website and signage at the castle. The website said it was a prison from 1828 to 1909. The sign at the castle said the last prisoner left in 1920. Did they leave a prisoner to hang out by himself for eleven years in what was then a former prison?)

There was also a period when the castle was used as a shelter to deal with a serious homeless problem in Malmö. I’m not clear on when that was, but I think it was soon after the last prisoner moved out.

In 1945 it served as a refugee camp for people rescued from Nazi concentration camps.

Today the castle houses museums, but I’m confused as to how many.

Malmö Konstmuseum

One museum in the Malmö Castle (I’d call it an art gallery, not a museum) that I’m reasonably certain is a single institution is the Malmö Konstmuseum. (According to Google Translate, “Konstmuseum” is Swedish for “Art Museum.”)

If I had it figured out correctly, the Malmö Konstmuseum is spread out in a few rooms in the castle. Not all rooms are contiguous, and one could have been with another museum, but I think they all form part of the same museum/gallery.

Most of the works in the museum are paintings, but there were also some figurines and vases, sculptures, and a beautiful carved wood cabinet. The works I saw in what I think is the permanent collection range from the 16th to the 20th century.

I think the works are prim

There was also a temporary exhibit dedicated to, according to Outi Pieski. According to a sign in front of the exhibition, “Outi Pieski is a Sámi artist based in Ohcejohka (Utsjoki), on the Finnish side of Sápmi.” A believe that all of her exhibited work is from the 21st century.

The sign had both Swedish and English versions. Obviously, I took that sentence from the English version. It’s a rather short sentence. Nevertheless, in addition to the artist’s name, it contains four words I didn’t know. I had to look them up. One Wikipedia entry covered most of it.

According to Wikipedia, “The Sámi (/ˈsɑːmi/ SAH-mee; also spelled Sami or Saami) are the traditionally Sámi-speaking Indigenous people inhabiting the region of Sápmi, which today encompasses large northern parts of Norway, Sweden, Finland, and of the Kola Peninsulain Russia.”)

Her work includes several media, including fabric hanging from the ceiling, paintings, photographs, and videos.

Malmö Museum

This is where it gets confusing. Inside the castle, there’s also the Malmö Museum, which by the way is what they call it on the Swedish-language website, not the Somethingorothermuseet, as I’ve seen elsewhere in Sweden. It’s two seperate words and on the Swedish-language website the second word is the same as the English word “museum.”

The museum contains several parts to it, that I only think are all part of the same museum. Some of them feel very separate and are somewhat separated physically. So it’s possible there are multiple museums.

And I’m not even sure that the Malmö Kunstmuseum and Malmö Museum aren’t part of a single overarching museum. One ticket covered both. (The ticket seller asked me if I wanted to also buy a separate ticket to the technology museum. I didn’t see the entrance to it, so I don’t know if it’s in the castle or somewhere else. It was getting too close to closing time to include it anyway.)

In some sections, like the first one, which had an archaeology collection, the signage was exclusively in Swedish. If there was a way to get an English translation there other than pulling out my phone and using Google Translate, I didn’t see it. I used the camera function of Google Translate on one sign in this section and learned that I was looking at a tooth from a woolly mammoth that existed 10,000 to 12,000 years ago. I found it too much of a bother to use Google Translate on many of the signs.

The artifacts in this section moved up from prehistoric archaeological relics to much more modern relics, such as a rotary dial phone and a phone of a similar design, but replacing the dial with a touchtone keypad, in addition to phone older than either of those.

The signage at this point was still all Swedish. So I didn’t get much out of it.

Some other sections of the museum had signs with both Swedish and English translations on the same sign. A couple of signs had only Swedish, but provided a QR code that led to a webpage with the English translation.

A large chunk of the museum provided a history of the castle. There were a few rooms with no exhibits per se, but just allowed visitors to look at those rooms of the castle. These were mostly unfurnished rooms, but there was a bed in the king’s bedroom. And there were paintings on the wall of historical personages. I don’t know if they were originals or copies, but I think they’re copies because they weren’t protected in any way.

But wait, there’s more. There was also a natural history part of the museum. This contained mainly stuffed animals (maybe taxidermy; maybe stuffed toys), some skeletons (maybe real; maybe recreations) and some models. This section of the museum was far, far, far smaller than the Naturhistoriska Museet I visited yesterday, but it’s the same concept.

There was also a small exhibit, possibly temporary, on biological sex. This had both Swedish and English text. The introductory narrative explains how sex and gender are not the same thing.

But wait, there’s still more. A particular reader might want to brace herself for the excitement of this. Do you remember yesterday I visited a maritime museum (Sjösfartsmuseet) that was coupled with an aquarium (Akvariet)? Well, the Malmö Museum has an akvariet below its natural history section.

The aquarium held mostly small tanks with a variety of interesting and/or pretty fish. There were a couple of somewhat larger tanks as well.

And some of the tanks weren’t aquariums at all, but rather terrariums containing snakes, lizards, or toads.

And, I know you’re all waiting to hear this. Yes, they had some jellyfish. But it was a meagre collection. I saw only two solitary jellyfish in the only jellyfish tank.

There was one tank that contained an axolotl, in addition to some small fish that weren’t named on the sign. I’d never heard of an axolotl, the dictionary that comes with my Mac says that it’s “a Mexican salamander that in natural conditions retains its aquatic larval form throughout life but is able to breed.” That’s pretty much what the sign at the tank said too, but without saying it’s Mexican, or a salamander.

But it’s the fact that it never leaves its larval form that intrigued me. A Peter Pan creature. It never grows up.

Unfortunately, there was only one axolotl in the tank that I could see. When I arrived, I saw just the tail end of it as it swam behind a rock and then into a little cave at the back of its tank. I waited for a while hoping it would come out again. It didn’t. I came back to its tank a few times, giving up only as it got close to closing time at the castle. There was a picture of an axolotl, an interesting-looking creature, on the sign by the tank. I should have taken a picture of that because I didn’t get a picture of the real-life axolotl. Sorry.

Malmö To and Fro

When I alighted the bus this afternoon at the bus station, which is immediately beside the train station, I wasn’t impressed. It was a rather dull area. Some train stations in other cities are works of art and inspiring to visit even if you’re never goint to take a train to or from them. At least from the outside, the Malmö train station didn’t look like one of those.

However, when I got closer to my hotel, about a ten-minute or so walk away, the city started to get interesting.

Then, as I walked from my hotel to the castle and back (I took different routes there and back), I started to love the city. The walk was through the old part of Malmö, with cobblestone streets and little or no vehicular traffic.

I passed some eye-catching buildings and walked through or by some charmng streets. On the way back, I walked through a public square with restaurants around it. The restaurants all had tables out front. I walked through it around drinks time and the restaurants were all lively.

Almost kitty-corner to that square is a bigger one. There are only a few restaurants around it, but there are some beautiful buildings. And there’s a giant statue of what I assume is an historical figure on horseback. He was wearing a jaunty hat. (The rider was wearing it, that is, not the horse.)

There was also a funky fountain off to the side in the larger square.

I took pictures of lots of the buildings and, rather than try to squeeze them individually into this post. I put them into a collage. Although, because I took so many such pictures, I did two collages. You’ll find one at the top of this post and one here.