Traveling with children, we have the opportunity to see everything at once from two angles — with our own eyes and from the position of a child discovering the world for the first time. And it’s an unforgettable experience. Our correspondent shares his impressions of such a trip.
Many parents are afraid of sightseeing trips with their children: “we won’t rest ourselves, we won’t see anything, and the child won’t understand, won’t appreciate …”. In fact, such trips can become an exciting family project that will become your shared memory for a lifetime. In addition, our children, deprived of a yard, street, any “outer” territory, from the age of six or seven, especially need new spaces that they can explore and new impressions that will enrich their personal experience. But, of course, not every country or city that is interesting to an adult will be perceived by a child. Therefore, the choice must be thoughtful. In this sense, I was lucky: the publishing house «Mann, Ivanov and Ferber» released a new guide for children «Stockholm. Fun Journey” and invited me and my child in the company of other mothers-journalists for a weekend in the capital of Sweden to “test” it in practice. The guide, by the way, helped us to plan the trip.
The capital of the Kingdom of Sweden is one of the most child-friendly cities in the world. It seems that only here the public is addressed like this: “Dear ladies, gentlemen, children!” Here, in all museums, even such serious ones as the Nobel Museum, there is always a room for children — an interactive, play area. What can we say about museums aimed at young visitors — there even adults forget about their age. In a word, our children — 6-year-old Anton, 7-year-old Timofey and 8-year-old Dina — had a very interesting meeting.
Old city
We did not load the first day with a rich program, and we did the right thing: an early flight and unforeseen queues at the border control tired everyone out. Leaving our luggage at the hotel, we drove to the Old Town. We didn’t have time to change the guard at the Royal Palace, but we counted the bridges (Stockholm is located on 14 islands) and walked along the medieval streets. Children settled them in their own way, not with their eyes, but with their feet. The old signboards and showcases of souvenir shops did not attract them. It turned out to be much more interesting to run up and down the steep steps and play tag around the monuments and flowering chestnut trees (Stockholm is one of the three greenest cities in the world (1). But the children did not ignore the architecture either: on the Great Square, where the musicians of the orchestra sat in front of traditional Saturday concert, our trinity unanimously began to compare the silhouettes of the houses drawn in the guidebook with their originals — buildings of the XNUMXth-XNUMXth centuries of peach, brick-red, gray-blue colors.
In the backyard of an exquisite gothic cathedral, we discovered… a modern playground. I must admit that every playground that we accidentally met these days (and there were many of them) aroused real delight in the children. And there would be something special there, but no: ordinary wooden ladders, ropes, slides, rickety houses, tires, a real tractor or a cart. But in the house there will definitely be something very useful — a typewriter or a telephone, you can climb a tree by a rope, and you can turn the steering wheel on a tractor and fiddle with real wires (of course, everything is absolutely safe). Everything is simple and extremely functional. Here you can play and explore the living space with your whole being, not only with your hands and feet, but also with your head. This attitude towards the development of creativity, in my opinion, is the main charm of all the children’s spaces in Stockholm, including the Junibacken fairy tale museum, where we went the next day.
Museum Island
Opened 18 years ago and quite unpretentious in appearance, the Unibacken Museum turned out to be something like a rabbit hole through which we entered the magical world. Here, time and space lose their boundaries, in every small house you want to stay to live, and traveling by train through a fairy-tale country, you literally feel like you are in a different dimension. Tim and Anton did not close their mouths from the happiness that had fallen for a long time and, it seems, they hardly recognized their parents. Astrid Lindgren, a classic of Swedish literature, whose books became the basis of the exhibition, insisted that, along with her characters, the heroes of fairy tales of other writers settle in the museum. So my Timothy was delighted to find among the residents of the Unibacken the adored Moomin trolls, Niels, Petson and Findus. Is it necessary to clarify that everything is allowed to touch, turn, climb and hide in this museum, everyone and everywhere?
But the next object, the 300th-century military sailboat Vasa, could only be seen from afar. It lay at the bottom of the Stockholm Strait for XNUMX years and was not eaten by worms only due to the cold temperature of the water. Therefore, now it is protected from damage and contact with the external environment. But I was pleasantly surprised by how thoughtful the children’s program is here. First of all, each child is given their own guide to the museum — with questions, tasks and tips. Then, non-stop, they show a cartoon about the history of Vasa through the eyes of … the Lindbum pig, delivered to the ship as food. And now, embracing their toys bought in Unibacken (“I will watch with Findus, he is also interested!”), Our children are excitedly following the adventures of a pig that miraculously escaped death. And then they look at the oak ship with completely different eyes (“And the pig was sitting on that mast, I’m sure!”), And the guns of the sailboat, and at the admiral’s cabin, recreated in full size (“Here Lindbum hid, remember?»).
- Why do we travel
Skansen and the Tom Tit Experiment Center
“Will today be just as interesting?” Timothy asked, waking up early in the morning. Certainly! Skansen, known as an open-air ethnographic museum, also turned out to be a huge zoo where bears, wolverines and wolves live almost in their natural environment, and at the same time are visible at a glance. In real village houses and workshops, furnished in the spirit of the 2th century, children watched the work of glassblowers, combed wool for yarn, mastered stilts, played with old toys made of wooden blocks … But when it seemed that everyone’s impressions were already over the edge, we were in for a shock final journey — to the scientific center of experiments of Tom Tit. Tom Tit is the pseudonym under which, in the 600th century, the French writer Arthur Guide wrote about scientific fun for children in the journal Amazing Science (25). Almost XNUMX sound, light, water, electrical, olfactory and other experiments are pure delight, for which it was definitely worth leaving the capital, because the center is located XNUMX kilometers from the city. We did not find any instructions for a single structure and assembly scattered over the vast territory of the complex — the creators of the museum are convinced that each guest is able to find his own way to put the devices into action and so set up an experiment. And you know, children did it better than adults, which, in general, is not surprising. Timofey, Anton and Dina forgot about fatigue, thirst, wet shoes, and if it were not for the bus that took us to the airport, they would not mind spending a couple more days here.
We could talk about a lot more — about the avant-garde Stockholm metro and a walk over the city roofs of Stockholm … But let something remain behind the scenes. In addition, your trip may give you completely different discoveries.
1. Based on the Global Green Economy Index (2014 GGEI) report.
2. Tom Tit «Scientific Fun».