Stockholm, Sweden

August 2

We woke up sailing though the Stockholm archipelago.  There are so many islands there and new ones popping up all the time, so they don't know exactly how many islands there are.  The islands were beautiful, but not the seagulls flying along side us.  Some passengers were feeding them and they were dive bombing the decks. They would fly right along side of us and turn their heads and look us in the eye.  Not real fun for those of us afraid of birds.

Annoying seagulls

We had an early breakfast and got off the ship.  It was a long way to town so they had shuttle buses again, but this time they charged $20 each round trip.  Once in town, we decided to buy tickets for the Hop-on, Hop-off boat.  Everybody else paid cash to some guy right there on the street, but we were low on cash after the shuttle bus fare, so they said we could pay with a credit card on the boat.  The rest of our group showed their tickets as they boarded and nobody ever asked us to buy a ticket, so we got the whole boat trip all day for free.

Vasa Museum (on the right) from the ferry.

Our first stop was the Vasa Museum.  The Vasa was a very fancy ship that floundered and sunk on its maiden voyage right in the Stockholm harbor. The king decided the designer hadn't put enough decks on the ship and had them build one more on top.  This made it unstable and top heavy.  It didn't get very far before it toppled over.  It wasn't found and recovered until 300 years later, but it was almost 98% intact. Because the water is so cold there, it kept the usual wood-eating worms from destroying the wood. The ship was amazing looking for being so old.

Vasa ship

Close up off some detail on the Vasa

We got back on the boat again (still no one asked for our tickets) and went back to Gamla Stan (Old Town).  We walked down the street with lots of spendy shops on it.  True to form, we had to stop for some beer at a quaint little pub.  Kind of looked like an underground Beatles type place.  Some of our group had Swedish meatballs and said they were good.

Gamla Stan street

We walked past the National Palace and took some pictures there.  Then we caught our shuttle bus back to the ship. We made it back in time even though it was a short day in Stockholm.  A couple people missed the ship and they had to find their own way to our next port.  We did find some free wifi on the hop-on boat and also the cruise terminal, so got some more emails sent.

National Palace

Dalle horse in the cruise terminal

We watched the sail out of the archipelago from the comfort of our decks.  Lots of scenic islands.  John Lawrence was doing a commentary as we sailed past things.  Bob played a little blackjack in the casino before supper.  Tonight he had prime rib again, but said it wasn't as good as the first night.  I had steak fajitas which were okay, but not great.  So we were both a little disappointed with the dinner this night.  After supper we tried to win a $100 photo package but no luck for us.  We went and listened to a big band ballroom music band.  No dancing for these tired feet.  Then Bob bought me a hot chocolate with his coffee card. The coffee card let him get 15 specialty coffees during the cruise.  I don't think he ever used them all up.  I listened to tips about Helsinki while Bob found his buddies to play poker.  They found a quiet room to play in, The Conference Room, up front by the Princess Theater.

Bob watching the world go by.

Farewell Stockholm