Sunday, July 28, 2019: Day 9; Way Home

We got up at 3:30 am this morning so that we could meet our ride to the airport at 4:45 am. It never gets really dark here in Stockholm during the summer. The light level at 3:30 am is essentially twilight.

Stockholm at 3:30 am

The trip to the airport was relaxing. We three were the only passengers.

We arrived at the Stockholm Arlanda airport at 5:45 am. It was virtually deserted. We got through checking our luggage and going through security with over an hour before our scheduled boarding time. We found the BA lounge...which was uncomfortably warm and offered little by the way of breakfast.

The flight from Stockholm to London Heathrow (LHR) was delayed slightly but arrived ahead of schedule. Thankfully, we did not have to collect our checked baggage, but when through security again and found the BA lounge (North one as there is both a North and South). This lounge is not only much cooler but is fully stocked with meals and liquor.

Our flight from LHR to IAH was supposed to depart at 14:45 hours, but according to the board, the scheduled departure has been delayed until 15:10 hours. One the bright side, the departure time has not increased since we got to the lounge a couple of hours ago. Our original ETA in Houston was 6:35 pm. We will see how this delay impacts that ETA.

We arrived around 7:00 pm local time at IAH. We had no problem with Immigration (thank you Global Entry) or Customs. We reclaimed our luggage, found the parking shuttle and drove to LC, arriving about 9:00 pm. We found no damage to the bottles of Grey Goose, Marker's Mark, or Glenmorangie that we lifted from our Seabourn suite as souvenirs.

Everyone seemed pleased with the gifts we came home with...the Hard Rock shirts from both Copenhagen and Stockholm, the Estonian chocolates, the St. Petersburg egg, and the caviar I got for Maxine in London. I will drop it off at her place on the way home Tuesday morning.

Came home with very little foreign currency. In fact, I only have a Portuguese cork pouch of Euro coins. This despite the fact that, of the eight countries visited on the trips, only Italy, Estonia and Finland use the Euro. The others were: Swiss franc, Danish Kroner, Russian ruble, Swedish krona, UK Pound sterling. While we used credit cards extensively, we found no one who was not willing to take Euros or US Dollars. We gave Maggie, our Seabourn suite stewardess, our last 100 CHF (Swiss franc) bill.

Saturday, July 27, 2019: Day 8; Disembark, Stockholm

It is Saturday morning and we will be leaving the ship at 8:15am. We are docked in a cargo box terminal and there is nothing of interest to see. We finished our packing and departed the room at 7:30 to have breakfast in the Restaurant. There was no one else in the Restaurant so we received good service. Afterwards, it was time to walk off the ship. 

We collected our checked luggage and found our bus for the morning overview tour of Stockholm. We drove around a bit, but the main stop was at the Vasa museum (https://www.vasamuseet.se/en). The museum displays the only almost fully intact 17th century ship that has ever been salvaged, the 64-gun warship Vasa that sank on her maiden voyage in 1628. In fact, it didn't make it out of the harbor and sank within a quarter mile of leaving its dock. The problem was that it was top heaving and simply rolled over.

Cut away model of life below deck.

The only two original cannon in the museum. The remainder were melted down for their metal content or are in private hands.

A diving bell from the 1660's.

Depiction of what the color scheme probably was on the ship's stern, based on paint remnants and paints still on board at the time of the sinking.

Recovered and restored figurines.

Scale model of the ship.

About 50 crew members went down with the ship and the skeletal remains of about one-half of those were recovered.

Computer algorithms have been able to reconstruct likenesses of some of the seamen.

After leaving the museum, we drove around some more. Stockholm consists of 33 islands, most of which are connected by bridges.

We finally arrived at the Grand Hotel, the oldest in Stockholm. It was not noon yet and our rooms were not ready. We registered and were told to check back around 3:00 pm. We decided to walk up to the Hard Rock Cafe Stockholm for lunch and so the kids could get their souvenir shirts. It turned out to be a 3.6 mile hike through town.

Military band and guard heading for the palace for the changing of the guard.

They were having an Indonesia festival in the park near the hotel.

Finally arrived at the Hard Rock.

We got back to the hotel about 2:15 pm and the room was ready. It was a very warm day, reaching 90F, so we were tired. Our flight leaves at 7:45 am tomorrow morning. We have a transfer that will pick us up at the hotel at 4:45 am, so we will probably get up around 3:30am.