Royal Hunting Museum

As the airfield was not very far away from Halle- and Hunneberg, I decided we needed to go to the Royal Hunting Museum.

I marketed the excursion as a visit to a ‘Moose Museum’, but Nathan misunderstood and thought we were going to a moose park, so he got a little bit disappointed. No real moose in sight.

The moose population here has varied in size over the centuries depending on the availability of grass, and hunting. They were in fact extinct here at the beginning of the 19th century, and when they later immigrated to the area, they became such a treat to the pine plantings in the area that King Oskar II decided to initiate royal hunts. These are still hosted here every other year.

The museum taught us a lot about the fauna of Halle- and Hunneberg, but also about the whole table mountain region here between the two largest lakes in Sweden. It is actually Sweden’s first UNESCO Global Geopark!

So what is a geopark? It’s an area that tells the story of our planet’s development. Today there are 177 geoparks across 46 countries. They are meeting places where the history of the earth meets the history of mankind.

Air show

Nathan arrived with train and bus from his Copenhagen flight on the Friday afternoon, and after having spent the first afternoon and evening in the cabin (with mowing lawns, and sundowners by the sea - see this previous post) we had a hefty program already from the Saturday morning! We were going to an airshow at the Trollhättan-Vänersborg Airport.

This airport celebrated 40 years, and actually went through a name transformation to become Göteborg Stallbacka Airport, this very weekend.

We saw JAS 39 Gripen, AJS 37 Viggen, J29 Tunnan (from Swedish Air Force Historic Flight), and helicopters and ambulance planes.

Linnea might not have been the most excited about our Saturday morning activity, but it was a nice morning. We saw some aerobatics, some old and new planes, had some coffee, and did some people watching! A good morning all around!

We had to bribe her with Max Burgers for lunch, but it was all worth it!

Uddevalla boardwalk

After a few days with Pia, Linnea and I were on our own again. On a particularly windy day we went to Uddevalla to walk the famous seaside boardwalk Strandpromenaden.

This spectacular wooden boardwalk is anchored in the mountain wall on one side. It takes you to Gustafsberg, which was Sweden's first seaside resort. Unfortunately this time of the year, nothing was really open anymore, so no ice cream or coffee for us.

Still, it was a nice little walk!

Fjällbacka

After Vitlycke we continued out to the coast, and to Fjällbacka. This is the place where crime author Camilla Läckberg comes from, and where many of her books takes place.

It is also a very cute little coastal town. We had time both to explore some of the little shops, and to go for lunch at Bryggan, with great views. By the way, one of the best lunches of the summer!

After a day full of adventures, we returned to the cabin to have pizza from the local pizza place, drink wine, eat Saturday candy and play charades.

Vitlycke Museum

So, after the visit to the Vitlycke panel we continued into the museum. Dogs were not welcome inside, clearly illustrated with this funny sign:

First stop the souvenir shop, as always. I was a bit disappointed though, as I didn't really think they sold a lot of "petroglyph-inspired" souvenirs. Nothing for my Christmas tree, booo!

There was a lot to look at, and a lot to discover.

I really liked this museum. It wasn’t big but well laid out, and super interactive, really good to visit with younger kids I would imagine.

Behind the museum was the Bronze Age farm, where the Bronze Age Festival took place this weekend. We got out there just in time for the Bronze Age fashion show! It was very cool!

It was funny as the speaker was giving the commentary just like in a contemporary fashion show; "Anna is wearing an outfit inspired by a find in Skydstrup in Denmark, trendy around 1300 BCE and made out of wool", etc.

 

The Vitlycke panel

Over the weekend, Pia came to see us. The weather was a bit unstable, but we were lucky to have clear skies for the excursion I had in mind for our Saturday - to the Vitlycke Museum.
We came just in time to join the guided session of the Vitlycke panel, which is part of the UNESCO World Heritage Area. It features 500 individual images, everything from shamans and warriors to sun symbols and mysterious ships.

This panel is 20 meters long, and nearly 100 of the images are ships, with the longest being over 3 m! These images were created over a long period spanning across the Bronze and Iron ages, from 1700 BCE to 300 BCE.
They depict stories of life, death, fertility and other things important in people's lives, then as now.

We got a half an hour presentation of the petroglyphs, where each carving tells a story. Ha ha, don't you just love this man running away from... a snake? A monster? Arms in the air, you can almost hear him scream as he runs!

After the presentation we continued to explore up in the woods behind the panel, where there was a kilometer long boardwalk around some more panels and burial cairns from the Early Bronze Age.

This rock carving is the most widespread rock carving of Sweden. These boats here are depicted on the Swedish 50-krona bill, see below: