It is filled with beautiful buildings that tell of its history, including the Viking years. It's impossible in one day to see enough, but what we did see was great. We visited the Vasa Museum, the Vasa was a warship built for the king of Sweden when he was at war with the Polish. It has 64 guns on two levels, 150 crew, could manage 450 fully armed soldiers (that it was on its way to pick up), and took 1000 oak trees to build. On its maiden voyage in 1628 it travelled 1000 metres before a strong gust of wind caused it to list, a second gust finished the job and the Vasa sunk before it even collected the soldiers who were waiting on an island in the archipelago of Stockholm. 30 people died and the Vasa stayed put until the 1958 when a marine historian rediscovered the wreck. It took the next 5 years to re float the Vasa, a further 17 years spraying it with glycerol to prevent it from drying out and now it is on display for all to see. The wreck was entire when it was founded and divers have retrieved 40,000 pieces from the site (including skeletons, and sails, crockery, etc). Because of the Brackish nature of the water (low in salt - caused by fresh water and salt water combining) most of these items hadn't disintegrated - the sailor whose skeleton was discovered still had his brain, teeth and was wearing his boots! The cause of the accident was the design - too narrow, not enough ballast and too much above the water level. The person deemed responsible was 'the king', greedy for firepower the gun deck became two, and in luxuries aboard! Top heavy!! Of course, he was never punished ! After hundreds of successful years building boats, perhaps they shouldn't have entrusted the design to a Dutchman!!
The city if Stockholm is an archipelago made up of 30,000 islands - we passed the ABBA museum, but didn't see an IKEA, we did however see a shitload of Volvo's ! For such a relatively small population 9,000 they seem to be over achievers - could it be the free education ?
Well that out of the way, last night we had a lovely dinner on the ship in the French restaurant 'The Verandah' it was remarkable - there is an additional charge of US$24 per person, that somehow didn't seem enough. Wayne had smoked Beef Carpacio, smoked at the table for entree, while my main was steak and lobster and was flambéed in cognac right before my eyes. A magnificent grand mariner soufflé, it goes on...... We took lots of photos so ill add them after Stockholm ! Cheers m x
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