Mamma Mia! Walk in and dance out of ABBA the Museum
HTL hotel on Kungsgarten. That’s right, checking myself in. In fact if I wasn’t always in such a rush I would have known that I could have also checked in online ahead of time and used my phone as a key card for the duration of my stay.
However, I am not a fullyfledged grumpy old man just yet and the couple of minutes spent at one of the handful of check-in desks was child’s play and took no time at all.
Stockholm has any number of worldclass attractions to its name yet compared to other cities equal in size it is home to quite a large number of excellent museums. Rather surprisingly the newest of these is dedicated to that most famous of Swedish exports. Yes, ABBA The Museum has finally arrived.
Now, what’s not so cool is admitting that most of us haveave a soft (if secret) spot for the odd ABBA classic. There are a few of us from a certain generation for whom the former Eurovision winners provided the soundtrack k to very memorable parts of f our lives. Weddings, 21stt birthday celebrations andd Christmas parties up andd down the land inevitablyy featured a blast of Dancing g Queen at some stage of thee proceedings.
‘Walk in, dance out’ is the he claim that greets you and I have to admit that despite it being unavoidably corny you ou would be hard pushed to defy fy the fun factor.
And while there are the usual collections of costumes, memora- bilia and awards you would expect to find in such a museum, the real highlights here are not to be found ho housed in a glass case.
From jumping into a re recording booth to record a cover of your own versi sion of Mamma Mia to tr trying on costumes in the vi virtual changing-room, th the ABBA experience is at times hilariously in interactive. Never more so than when standing in the audience cheering on y your friends as they perform onstageons with holograms of the band members themselves.
Ninety minutes later and I’m in no doubt that most, if not all, visi- tors to the museum will indeed dance their way out.
Situated amongst an archipelago of around 30,000 islands, Stockholm itself is spread across 14 islands so where better to rest up and enjoy dinner than on the water.
Ångbåtsbryggan is a floating restaurant on one of the city’s most popular promenades, Strandvägen, and it serves some of its finest cuisine to boot.
Not only that but it provides this Irishman with his first taste of reindeer. Served in a taco it was far more delicious than I could have anticipated.
It didn’t sit so well with my young nephew, however, and on my return the news of what
he had eaten was met with a less impressed reaction than I had hoped.
The following morning our group was treated to a whistlestop tour by local guide, Sofia. On my next, longer, visit I will certainly take the time to visit the city hall, which is home to the Nobel Prize or the Gröna Lund amusement park, which provides the city with a fantastic backdrop from across the water.
For now as we are in the company of a local it’s decided we shall do as the locals do and enjoy a fika, a coffee break with cake. Always with cake. And so we find ourselves in the sun-filled garden of the Blå Porten café.
Inside, large oak tables line the centre with barely a square inch of table top visible so laden are they with the most delicious-looking cakes and pastries I have ever seen.
If the nearby Vasa Museum hadn’t come so highly recommended it would have been easy to sit there in the sun all day until you had tried them all. Situated on the island of Djurgården, the museum is home to the massive 17th century gunship which the museum is named after and which was salvaged almost fully intact in 1961.
So top-heavy was the ship that she sank mere moments into her maiden voyage, remaining on the harbour bed for the subsequent 333 years.
The museum is built around the ship, enabling the visitor to view it from many different levels and angles.
I cannot recommend a visit to this museum highly enough. In fact I cannot recommend a visit to Stockholm enough.
The rest of my whirlwind trip went by in a haze of delicious food, including lunch at the aptly named Meatballs For The People (where this traditional dish is served with boiled potatoes, pickles and lingonberries), and then rounded off with what’s widely believed to be the city’s best smörgåsbord at the famed Grand Hôtel. Yum.