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.
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.
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