Stockholm and the ABBA Museum

Stockholm is a city made up of many small islands with bridges and inlets and ferries.  We had two things we absolutely wanted to do in Stockholm — see the Vasa, and go to the ABBA museum.

To get there from our hotel, we needed to either walk “up and over” a portion of the harbor, or take the ferry across.  We opted to take the ferry over and walk back.  We walked across a small bridge to Skeppholmen, to see a sign with a QR code for a mobile guide.  We went past the af Chapman, around the Moderna Museet, to the ferry — we went across the harbor to Slussen and then back across to Djurgården.  We got to see the rides at the amusement park Gröna Lund while on the ferry.  One of them looked pretty gnarly — it’s apparently called Insane and is one of a handful of “4-D” coasters around the world.

We walked around the corner from the ferry to the ABBA Museum.  As we got our tickets, they asked if we wanted the audio tour as well, and then handed us a device about the size of a banana which played back audio clips when we held it over an indicator in various places in the exhibits.  Most of the audio was one of the four band members talking about a specific part of the exhibit and their history.  They also had different interactive stations where you swiped your ticket to later review your “audition” as a 5th member of the band, your sound mixing, or your on-stage performance.  Needless to say, I was taking close looks at all of their costumes and took lots of detail pictures.   We were told that one of the reasons they wore such wild outfits had to do with taxes, and if they weren’t something you would wear on the street, they weren’t taxed.   I’m sure we will find an excuse to make a set at some point – maybe the kimono-inspired ones.  The exhibits also included a section of Eurovision costumes, although Verka Serduchka’s wild silver outfit wasn’t there.