Today we had a very relaxing day at the Swedish Naval Museum in Karlskrona. Here you can experience over 500 years of naval history with all your senses. Exciting and interesting for both the kids and us adults. We learned a lot about traditional frame shipbuilding (the wooden models are interesting to look at), saw a part of a very old oak ship’s wall, could also visit a very old naval sailor, which is apparently still in top condition and learned that Hollywood is quite cheating when sea battles are shown. Because in contrast to the cinematic representation, where only a few soldiers stand at the cannons, it must have been not only very low, but also very full in the cannon aisles – so it tells at least the Swedish naval museum – beside many men at the cannons (everything of course in manual operation), these cannons had to be loaded also with stone cannon balls – hard dangerous work, because they had to be stuffed additionally still and ignited with gunpowder. So it sometimes happened that they backfired. And now imagine all this on the high seas…. Not a nice job.
Still, very exciting to learn about the naval history of Sweden, which is closely linked to the history of Finland, Norway and Russia. In any case, the Swedes understood a lot about shipbuilding – and there was and still is enough wood in the forests.
After we could finally get away from the museum, we went for another hike to lay out another Berkel stone (this time one with a fish motif) in the rocks. Emmy climbed into the rock wall especially for this and visibly enjoyed it.
Such a relaxed day with a lot of cultural history has to be sometimes. Tomorrow morning we will go to the capital of Sweden, Stockholm. We are already very excited about what exciting things await us there. Stay tuned. Tomorrow more.