Saturday, 13th August in Stockholm

Warship Vasa

The first thing we did on Saturday was to visit Vasa Musuem, which houses the Vasa, a wooden warship that sank in Stockholm Harbor during her maiden voyage on August 10, 1628. On this day the pride of the Swedish fleet, the Vasa set sail for war with Poland. On a clear, calm day, the top heavy ship almost immediately capsized and sank before the stunned eyes of the crowds that had gathered to see her off. More than three hundred years later, the ship was raised in 1960, preserved, and in 1990 placed in a modern museum. The museum contains not only the restored ship, but replicas of the Captain’s cabin, the crews’ quarters, a cannon deck and hundreds of artifacts from the formerly sunken ship.

Skansen

Skansen, the world's first and also the largest open-air museum, was founded in 1891 to let visitors see how Swedes lived in previous times. Today, around 150 traditional houses, with a staff in period costume, and other exhibits from all over Sweden occupy this attractive hill top. It's a spectacular 'Old Sweden in miniature' and we felt as if we had gone back in time. Skansen is over a very large area and has old houses, manors, wooden churches, windmills, farmsteads, bakeries, glass-works, iron-works among other sites. It took us a long walk to visit these places and we rested our tired legs by helping ourselves to some freshly baked pastries from the bakery.

The rest of Saturday in Stockholm

It was already late afternoon by the time we left Skansen. We then took a sightseeing excursion by boat around the islands of Djurgarden and Skeppsholmen (Stockholm is made of several islands - the bigger and more important of these are Sentrum, Gamla Stan, Blasieholmen & Skeppsholmen, and Djurgarden). It got cloudy during the boad ride and then it started to rain.

After the rain stopped we went to Kaknas Television Tower (Kaknastornet) - which at 152 metres is the tallest man-made structure in Scandinavia. We got a nice view of the Stockholm city and archipilago from the top. I wanted to stay there till it got dark so that we get a view of the city lights. But we then decided against it due to the rains and the fact that it was still about 2 hrs before it got dark.

It had been a long day and we decided to stop over at our hotel for some rest. After that we went out again for seeing the sights of Stockholm by night.

This is a photo of the Stockhom Town Hall taken from across the water in the island of Gamla Stan.

The one above is of the Stockholm Royal Palace, also in Gamla Stan.

Stockholm, being a cluster of islands and sorrounded by the sea, has lovely harbours, sea inlets and waterfronts. And quite naturally these waters have all sorts of ships on display. We saw quite a few old, carefully preserved sailing ships, a warship and several medium sized ocean liners amongst others.

The Grand Hotel in Stockholm was built in 1874. It is a landmark in the city now and among other dignitaries it also plays host to the Nobel Prize laureates, when they arrive in Stockholm each year in December