Wednesday 9 July 2008

A Brief But Awesome visit to the home of ABBA

Hi from Stockholm, Sweden... home of the band we all secretly love!
Stockholm is a beautiful city on an archipelago (our new favourite word).
Gamla Stan is the old built up area of town and very packed with buildings and tourists, but more tastefully, very fancy icecream shops... because we definitely needed MORE food! While we were wandering we saw the changing of the guard at the royal palace, which happens every day, and afterwards did our upside down photo in front of one of the guards and on her way round Eryn grabbed his gun, but, like a true professional, he didn't even blink. Lucky, as the gun looked fairly serious and we didn't have travel insurance, although I suspect "being bayonet-ed by a royal guard because you accidentally grabbed his gun and it was all a big misunderstanding" might be one of those situations it doesn't cover anyway.
In the afternoon we traipsed across town to the Vasa Museum, which was “probably the best museum we saw”. The Vasa was a huge new warship launched in 1628 that was much bigger than anything built previously. It sank on its maiden voyage about 300 metres from where it was launched. We spent over three hours in the museum looking at the details of the ship, its recovery and salvage and also all the information and details about the life and times of sailors around that time including very specific details on those sailors who died when it sank. Photos don’t do it justice... but we can try:


The next day we hired a pedal boat and played chicken with small cargo ships, fast ferries and pleasure craft coming and going from the Vasa Museum port area. It was rather tiring but a nice way to see the city from a different angle.
Public transport again was very good even though the port was not on a very good line. The Metro was very nice - if only every city was so good at it... the drivers on the buses and trams were friendly and helpful too, which made a big impression on us.
Due to the boat schedule, our two days in Stockholm were shortish, but we very much enjoyed it... apparently accomodation is fairly pricey there, so this was the perfect way to take it in.
Hooray, you're nearly there...
K & E x

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