May 15
Today was a carbon copy of yesterday as far as the weather goes. We started the day by walking to the closest hop on bus stop which we took to the Nordic Museum. This museum highlighted life in Sweden from the early 16th century until modern times. We moved through it fairly quickly because it was similar to a museum, we visited in Gothenburg a couple of weeks ago.
Next, we visited the Vasa Museum. The Vasa was an early 17th century warship. It was an amazing feat of shipbuilding with over 700 sculptures carved into the ship. Unfortunately, it wasn’t very seaworthy. In fact, it never made it out of the harbor. On its maiden voyage in 1629, it tipped to the left side after a strong gust of wind hit the sails and water rushed in through the gun ports. The Vasa sunk less than 400 feet from shore killing 30 people. It remained in the harbor for over 300 years before it was finally recovered in 1961. It took many years to restore the ship, but it is now one of the biggest tourist attractions in Stockholm.
After the Vasa, we walked a short way to the Viking Museum. Unlike the one in Oslo, this didn’t have too much in the way of artifacts. There were several recreations used to tell the story of life as a Viking. The coolest part, though, was a Disney type ride that told the story of a man who went a-Viking to find silver for his family. It was very interesting but we couldn’t take pictures.
By this time Lynn was having a great deal of difficulty walking so we decided to take one of the cruises that came with our Stockholm Pass. It was a beautiful ride around one of the large islands.
After we were back on dry land, we had dinner and headed back home. We thoroughly enjoyed our time in Stockholm; it is a beautiful city. The Stockholm Pass turned out to be a great investment. We paid 845 kronor for each pass but the fees for all the things we did was 1879 krona each. So, we basically had a buy one, get one free deal.
Tomorrow morning we’ll take Uber to the Central Station and store our bags. Our train for Sundsvall doesn’t leave until about 2:30pm so we’ll spend the morning seeing a few things in the city. Peter wants to spend some time in the parks so it will be a relaxing morning. Have a great night.