Sweden & Denmark Trip (Day 5)

Monday morning we took our time getting up and ready then headed out to explore Stockholm. We bought a rail pass this time so we didn't have to try to navigate the streets on our own and pay for parking. We had looked on a map and had seen that most of the things we wanted to see were fairly close to each other so we trained/bussed to the furthest location and worked our way back. The bus dropped us off in front of off in front of a fashion museum that was incredible on the outside:


Behind the fashion museum was the Vasa Museum. The Vasa was a ship built by the Swedish king in 1628. He was in it for the show and had the builders carve over 700 figures and add unnecessary things to it so that when it was finally launched into the harbor, it sank. It stayed there until 1961 when they were able to bring it up and restore it. It's now in this museum and it's amazing. The ship is HUGE and is very ornate. Pictures don't do it justice for the size or detail. It was probably cramped space, but the ship had about 450 people on board when it sunk. Only about 40 died but it was a huge embarrassment for the king.

Looking up from the ground floor

Some of the carvings on the back
Part of the side view

After leaving the Vasa Museum, we walked across the river to the main part of the city. This was the view from the bridge and how I've always pictured Stockholm to be:

Next we took the bus over to the Royal Palace and walked around there for a while. We didn't plan it, but we got there just as they were doing the changing of the guards here too.

The front of the Royal Palace (it didn't look like

much of a palace but it's huge!)

One thing I really like about Europe and Scandinavia is that they have old churches everywhere. Every little town you drive by has a church steeple peeking over the trees. There are several in Stockholm and this is one we thought was pretty:

Back across the river is City Hall. It was built in the early 1900's and they used 8 million red bricks on the outside. Inside is where they hold the annual Nobel Prize banquets.
This is just an example of old meets new. The church in the middle of the city is obviously old and the building on the left is a new Sheraton hotel.

By about 5:00 we decided we had seen most of what there is to see in the city so we jumped back on the train and headed back to the hotel. There was a shopping mall and grocery store right by the hotel so we walked around there and got dinner and picked up a few Swedish treats before going back to the hotel to get ready to go home.