For my last weekend in Malmö I had a few plans. Right down the road from my hotel was the Malmö Disgusting Food museum, which looked pretty interesting, and I had a board games afternoon planned with some friends from work.
The disgusting food museum looked pretty small from the outside, but had plenty of exhibits and some taste and smell tests. I did most of the smell tests but the taste was too crowded so I didn't end up trying anything.
The first section of the museum was dedicated to strange alcoholic drinks, some grosser than the others:
Here's a sample of some of the drinks:
There were some interesting foods and also some disturbing ones. A few I had tried and the Australia selection was interesting...
Here's a sample of a few:
On Sunday I decided to take a trip out to Lund, a small town to the east of Malmö. I started with a walk around heading in the general direction of the Cathederal.
Lego Adidas shoes:
After a quick explore I decided to hop on an English tour of the cathedral. I was the only person on the tour so I got a private tour.
The cathedral was built in the late 11th century and has gone several modification since then. The first known church on the site was consectated in 1145 and appears to have been burnt down. It would have had a flat wooden roof, which was completely destroyed.
Scholars are able to tell that there was a serious fire due to pink marks in the sandstone
It is believed that the crypts under the church were built first, and then the church above. Once the wooden roof burned down, the ceiling was rebuilt with gothic arches. This worked to better distribute the weight and as such the cathedral could have much bigger windows. Later upgrades to the church removed some of the gothic style to make it more Romanesque.
The Cathedral also houses one of the oldest Astronomical Clocks, likely installed in the early 1400s. It has several features showing different information.
At the top of the clock are two knights that strike each other twice a day, they are jacquemarts (or bell ringers). One represents the night and the other the day, showing the endless cycle:
The knights - The blue represents night, the red represents day
On the main face, there are two sets of twelve hours as well as a ring denoting which sign of the zodiac is currently dominant. The black ball on the end of the stick currently pointing at the left 9, shows the phase of the moon and rotates to show more white as we approach full moon. The sun arm is currently across Aquarius as that is the star sign for early Feburary.
The zodiac metal circle also shows the ecliptic (or plane of Earth's orbit around the sun) and the location of the hands of the the sun and moon show where they sit on the eliptic.
The black and red fields represent the horizon and when the sun hand is over the black field it represents night and red represents twilight.
Below the clockface is the automation. In the middle is a statue of Saint Mary with baby Jesus. When the clock chimes, the heralds raise their trumpets, music (In dulci jublio) plays and the three kings and their servants exit the left door, move past to bow and reenter the right door.
The crypts under the cathedral house the original altar, as well as many graves and tombs.
There are multiple carved pillars. Those around the altar represent biblical stories,such as the spiral stairs from Solomon's Temple and Trees from the garden of Eden, as well as stories of the Giant, Finn:
After finishing up at the Cathedral, I headed to Kulturen, an outdoor museum of old Swedish buildings:
