ABBA, cricket, eight-ball and summer holidays constitute the majority of my childhood memories.  ABBA were the biggest band in the world and their reach even extended to the South Australian bush.  I can still remember the envy I felt as a nine year old when told that cousins were going to the ABBA concert in Adelaide.  To that time it seemed that most of my life I’d been listening to ABBA records as we played eight-ball in the shearing shed at home.  Now here I was, all these years later, standing outside the new ABBA museum in Stockholm, anticipating the concert I’d never been able to attend.

The ABBA museum is located on the garden island of Djurgårdsvägen in Stockholm.  Having opened less than a month prior to our Arrival (the first, and hopefully only, ABBA pun) we were a bit concerned that we would have trouble getting in, particularly as it was a beautiful, sunny, Saturday in Stockholm.  As it turns out there was also a royal wedding on in Stockholm that day and with people lining the streets for miles there was room enough for us in the museum.  Interestingly the only means of payment for anything in the ABBA museum is via credit card.  It seems the band are not big fans of organised crime and money laundering throughout the world and are taking a stand in their museum.  By making all payments electronic there are fewer krona in circulation that could be used to pay for less wholesome activities than the purchase of an ABBA museum ticket, poster or satin jump-suit.

Entry tickets in hand we joined others in the foyer awaiting the introductory video that set the scene for our journey back to the 70s.  Upon entry we were greeted by the dulcet tones of Terry Wogan commentating ABBA’s Eurovision 1974 winning performance of Waterloo, complete with his assertion that if they were all male judges then ABBA would have it in the bag.  The outfits they wore in that performance were on display, along with many others that triggered memories of Countdown and the numerous weeks ABBA spent at number one with a variety of songs.   What could have been quite a one dimensional museum was turned into a very entertaining way to spend a few hours through the use of various interactive displays including Benny’s piano which is directly linked to his home piano so it plays remotely when he is playing at home. Alas the piano was silent for our visit.  Obviously he was busy working out what outfit to wear to the royal wedding.  That might also explain the silence of the red telephone in the Ring Ring section of the museum – a telephone to which only the members of the band know the number and occasionally call in order to surprise a lucky museum visitor who happens to pick it up when it rings.

Two hours later we emerged from the museum into the gift shop.  Our desire to buy was only matched by our desire to maintain a reasonable luggage weight on the next leg of our European trip to Italy, hence I sit here typing this dressed in the lightest of possible satin jump-suits having foregone the matching platform boots and star shaped guitar.