Sjöfartsmuseet et Akvariet (and a bit of Slottsskogen)

Over breakfast today in Gothenburg, I decided to start my day at the Sjöfartsmuseet et Akvariet, and make further decisions after that, depending on timing.

Speaking of timing, after I visited Gothenburg’s main civic square, Götaplatsen, yesterday, I said in my post about it here that it looked like they were setting up a marshalling area. Based on the month (June) and the fact that there were several Pride flags around, I guessed, founded on nothing else, that they might be getting ready for a Pride parade.

I did some searching on the worldwide inter thingy this morning. Yes, indeed. Gothenburg’s Pride parade is today. And, as I guessed, it starts in Götaplatsen.

I’d been considering visiting the art gallery beside Götaplatsen today, but if so, I’ll have to time it to avoid triggering my intense discomfort with large, densely packed crowds and my hate of loud, continuous cacophony. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

At the time of writing this paragraph, I don’t yet know if I’ll get to the gallery today. I no doubt will know before I press the “publish” button on this, but I like to retain a little mystery, so I’ll save that information for my afternoon post.

Here’s another aside that you won’t find the least bit interesting. You’ll curse me for including it. But here it is. When I travel in a big town or any size city, if the hotel doesn’t include breakfast in the base rate, I usually don’t opt for breakfast.

Hotel breakfasts are generally large buffets. I can never restrain myself and end up eating way too much for breakfast.

All I need for breakfast is a double espresso and a pastry. Cafes are usually plentiful in decent urban areas, so I make do with that if breakfast isn’t included with my room.

This was my third morning in Gothenburg. There is a great little cafe right beside my hotel. In fact, it’s in a corner of the hotel building, but without an entrance from the hotel.

Today is Sunday. When I went to the cafe my first morning here, I asked if it was open on Sunday.

“Yes, but this Sunday is the last one. During the summer, we close Sundays.”

I beamed with pleasure at my good fortune. But I should have asked a follow-up question. I should have asked, “What time do you open on Sundays?” I didn’t.

It was closed when I went there. I saw a sign giving hours. It didn’t open until 11:00 on Sundays. (At least, I think it was Sunday. The days on the sign were printed only in Swedish.)

I used Google Maps to find an open coffee shop. Walking the few blocks over to a small, local (the few other patrons and the one barista seemed to know each other) coffee shop, the streets and sidewalks were next to deserted.

I went back to my hotel to use the washroom before heading out after breakfast. When I left at about 9:30, and for the roughly 45 minutes it took me to walk to the Sjöfartsmuseet et Akvariet, the streets and sidewalks remained nearly deserted. The city was quiet. Too quiet. I guess that the good people of Gothenburg don’t do Sunday mornings.

On that 45-minute walk, I passed a lot of architecture I liked. I took photos of some of the buildings and streets for one or a combination of three reasons: The building/street looked attractive. It looked, maybe not attractive, but interesting. Or because my brain told me, “Joel, for goodness’ sake. This is a long walk. You’re not young anymore. Stop. Pull out your phone. Aim it at that building. Take a moment to frame the shot well. Snap a picture. Look at the picture you took. If you don’t like it, take another one. No one will know that the real reason you stopped here was to rest your tired legs.”

I posted a collage of those photos above.

Sjöfartsmuseet et Akvariet

So what, you might ask, if you don’t already know, is “Sjöfartsmuseet et Akvariet?” Google Translate tells me that “Sjöfartsmuseet et Akvariet” is “Maritime Museum and Aquarium” in English.

That’s a good thing because my guidebooks told me to expect a maritime museum and aquarium. If “Sjöfartsmuseet et Akvariet” translated to, instead, say, “Slow Farts Museum and Aardvark Sanctuary,” I would have been more than a little confused by it all, as well as partly intrigued and partly disgusted by the “Slow Farts Museum” part. Fortunately, it wasn’t that. Although, the aardvark sanctuary might have been interesting.

After the paragraph in which I gave the actual translation and before she had whatever reaction she had to the imagined translation, I suspect that one particular reader thought, “Aquarium? Did Joel say aquarium? Get on with it, Joel! Let’s get to the good part, already!”

Why, yes. Yes, I did say aquarium, but first I visited the marine museum part. Save the best for last, and all that.

I suppose it makes sense to pair an aquarium with a maritime museum. If you’re going to have a maritime museum, you should at least give a nod to the creatures that live in the sea. It’s sort of like a tangible land acknowledgement, but with water.

The Sjöfartsmuseet

The Sjöfartsmuseet, the maritime museum, is a museum. It’s about maritime history and activity. Duh.

The exhibits in the largest gallery have some overarching explanatory panels in both Swedish and English. But the text accompanying each item on display, which often encompassed more than one paragraph, was in Swedish only.

That wasn’t a problem. The Sjöfartsmuseet made a large, professionally printed book available to borrow while in that gallery. The book contained just English translations of all of the text next to each item.

The gallery was divided into sections, each designated by a letter of the alphabet. Each display case was numbered. The pages of the book were tabbed, with the gallery sections’ letters printed on the notched tabs. It was then an easy job to find the number of an item for which I wanted to find the English translation.

I’ve been to another museum on this trip, I forget where, and maybe it wasn’t even on this trip, but one on my immediately previous trip, to Argentina, where the pages of English translations were just lumped together without any way to easily relate them to the physical displays. This was much better. Please take note, museums of the world.

The maritime history in the Sjöfartsmuseet was primarily an overview, which spanned 400 years and covered maritime industry overall, not just in Sweden. But there was more of a focus on Sweden than elsewhere, and there was one gallery specific to the port of Gothenburg. In addition to information about the history of the port, there were a couple of models of it.

The items on display ranged widely. There were, among others, ship decorations, souvenirs from voyages, lots of ship models, crew and captains’ uniforms, a mine, and navigation devices.

The mine was, obviously, the sort that gets put in a harbour to blow up enemy ships in wartime, not the sort of thing that miners go into to extract ore. That was in a section about the dangers at sea. This section was sufficiently up-to-date that it listed COVID-19 as one of the dangers at sea. The text mentioned that crews were quarantined, and floating Petri dishes were taken out of service. (“Floating Petri dishes” was my unoriginal description. The Sjöfartsmuseet called them cruise ships.)

The display of navigational tools contained one instrument in particular that was interesting, a crown compass. It was shaped like a crown, but without any jewels. There was a hook at the top. Crown compasses hung above the captain’s bed. That way, at night, he didn’t have to go up to the deck to check that the helmsman was steering the ship in the right direction. Just looking at the compass above him could tell him that.

There was also a temporary exhibit in the Sjöfartsmuseet about how maritime uniforms have inspired broader, non-naval fashion. Okay, let’s move on, shall we?

Enough about the Sjöfartsmuseet part of the Sjöfartsmuseet et Akvariet. Yes, as I said, there was an Akvariet, an aquarium, part. It’s time to get to it.

The Akvariet

The aquarium is in the basement of the Sjöfartsmuseet et Akvariet. It’s not huge. There are several small tanks and one largeish one. As I walked down the stairs, the first tank I saw (which may be because my eye was particularly drawn to it, I don’t remember) contained jellyfish. I’ve mentioned several times in these pages that I love jellyfish. They are such delicate and beautiful creatures that look to me like they shouldn’t possibly be able to exist, but they do.

The aquarium had only one species of jellyfish, in only one small tank, but, like I said, it’s a small aquarium, so I’m glad they had at least that.

The other small tanks contained coral, sea plants, tropical fish, non-tropical fish, and other small sea creatures.

One of the small tanks contained about a half-dozen “horseshoe crabs.” They were weird. Most of them were lying on the bottom of the tank, possibly sleeping, shell-up. Their shells looked very much like the rocks they were sleeping beside. One of the horseshoe crabs turned itself upside down while I was there, exposing its underbelly and leg-like appendages.

The signage, in Swedish and English, accompanying the horseshoe crab tank said, “The name Horseshoe crab is a little misleading, as they are actually more closely related to spiders and scorpions than crabs.

“They are often called living fossils as they are similar in shape to many fossilized animals found around the world. They have most likely remained physically the same for the last 250 million years; however, they would have adapted their behaviour and lifestyle during this time period to match their changing habitat.” Cool.

The bigish tank contained a couple of blacktip reef sharks. They’re not particularly large sharks, but they are predators. And they were swimming in the tank with a bunch of smaller non-shark fish, which, I assume, would normally be prey. The sign explained that the “sharks are tank-bred and raised on thawed food and hence don’t eat the other live fish.” I’ll bet the other fish are rather pleased about that.

To be honest, before visiting it, I wasn’t certain I’d enjoy the maritime museum part, but I liked the entire Sjöfartsmuseet et Akvariet, maritime museum and aquarium included.

A bit of Slottsskogen

Do you remember that huge park, Slottsskogen, I walked along the edge of when going to the botanical gardens, Botaniska Trädgården, the other day? I mentioned that there were a couple of attractions inside the park, a zoo and a natural history museum, that I thought I might get to after the botanical gardens, but I didn’t because I ran out of time and energy, particularly energy.

Slottsskogen isn’t particularly far from the Sjöfartsmuseet et Akvariet. However, it’s a very big park and those attractions aren’t particularly close to Sjöfartsmuseet et Akvariet.

After I finished with Sjöfartsmuseet et Akvariet, I decided to take in one of those attractions. I won’t tell you which, because I didn’t get there before lunch. And, you know the rule, lunch is the dividing line between my morning and afternoon journal entries.

When I got to the park, I looked at how long it would take to get to the attraction. Google Maps told me it would take about twenty minutes and I’d get there around lunchtime. (It just told me the twenty minutes, I determined that it was lunch time.)

It also told me there was a cafe close to my destination in the park. So, a bit of a walk through the park and then a bite for lunch, it was.

That twenty-minute walk was beautiful. It took me along paths through a forest, and by some beautiful fields of grass and trees. Sjöfartsmuseet is a huge and glorious park. I’ll have more to say about that in my next entry.