Stockholm, Sweden

Our tour met at 9:15 so we had plenty of time to get ready.  Dave woke up early and went out on deck to take pictures as the ship made its way through Stockholm's Archipelago - an 80 mile stretch of islands from the Baltic Sea into Stockholm.  He then made it to the fitness room for a run and I slept, shocking :) but I liked to ordered breakfast and coffee to the room so I could enjoy the view of pulling into the Stockholm port. 

Coming into Stockholm

We found out that there were only 125 or so English speaking passengers and that is out of almost 3000!  Our tour had only about 40 people so it wasn't too bad and half of them were from other countries!  Jeff and Colette as well as the couple from Miami that we met on the train were on the tour. 

We boarded a bus with our guide Peter, a native from Stockholm who spoke perfect English.  He did a great job trying to show us as much as possible in four hours.  There were 4 other cruise ships that were in port at the same time so we had to boogie. 

One of the other ships in port

We did a city tour of Stockholm which is also known as The Venice of the North (haven't we been some place else called that?) but it is made up of 14 islands and is 30% water, 30% land/parks and 40% buildings.  It is located at the meeting point where the Baltic Sea meets Lake Mälaren and it really is a beautiful city - wish we had more time to venture through it.

We did a guided tour through the Royal Palace which is the official royal residence of the king and queen.  It is adorned in Italian Baroque style and was completed in 1754.  We could not take pictures inside but it was pretty and I loved all of the tapestries. We were allowed into a special area of the 608 rooms that is NEVER open so we felt pretty special. :)

The Royal Palace

We then did an old town, or Gamla Stan, walk on the quaint cobblestone streets, much like Germany's!  The Prästgatan Lane, or the Priests Lane is a 15th century street that we were led down hearing abut the history of Stockholm. 

We also had a guided tour of the Vasa Museum.  This was pretty amazing and all I could think of was Goonies!  See the pics, you'll see why!  The Vasa ship was an unseaworthy, 3 cannon, deck fighting ship from 1628 that sunk 20 minutes into her maiden voyage.  It sat at the bottom of the harbour for 333 years before it was discovered in 1956.  95% of the wood is original but they spend mega money on restorations to keep this ship in it's museum.

The Vasa Ship from 1628

It was a super quick tour but a good one.  We chose the excursion due to the short time in port and didn't want to risk doing the city on our own and missing the ship!  Stockholm would be a great place to visit again, to do a canal cruise through the 100's of secret waterways, to see the magnificent Town Hall where the Nobel Prize banquet takes place.  The island of Södermalm is the location of Stieg Larsson's Millennium trilogy and it would be cool to explore the hot spots of those great books.  It was a great short day in Stockholm and we were happy to get back to the boat anyhow as both of us experienced nausea and upset tummies for 1/2 the tour! (Guess that's what 2 days of being on the sea will do to us!)

We came back and had lunch at the zoo a.k.a the buffet as did all of the other tours that got back at the same time. There were a lot of people on that ship!  We relaxed till dinner time where we joined our table mates and the missing couple finally joined us.  They were from Omen and really nice.  That nights the entertainment was all about "Little Italy" with dancing and opera singing...and we decided that we could have done without it :) The clocks went ahead an hour on our way to Estonia so we called it a day.


LINK to Stockholm Pictures