Stunning Stockholm

Since I didn't split this post into separate posts for the two days we spent in Stockholm there's a good chance this may be a little long,.  I'll try to keep my comments short and hopefully you can enjoy the photos.  Sailing in and out of Stockholm was one postcard photo after another with calm waters, pretty homes, and green woods.  .

We had purchased a Stockholm GoCity Pass for the two days we were there which included the hop-on-hop-off bus and boats around the city, plus admission to tons of museums and venues, definitely a good deal.  The bus got us into town where we saw the National Theater on the left and some of the streets in the photo on the right.

Since no one else had a preference I headed us towards the Vasa Museum, which is on one of the 30,000 islands around Stockholm. It's located on Djurgärden, the island that means “Animal Garden” and was formerly the king’s hunting ground, but now is the city’s playground. It has tons of green spaces and also lots of museums located on it.

A quick photo of Karl and I with Chris, Sally and Holly.  They are great to travel with, Holly especially loves everything we do!

I saw this random arch with the figurines and couldn't figure out why it was there.  Later on I realized that these wooden carvings are replicas of the sea nymphs and mermen carvings that adorned the Vasa.

This museum is home of the top heavy warship that sank in 1628 just 40 minutes into her maiden voyage, somebody’s equations were seriously off.  Salvaged in 1961 from her watery grave the Vasa was restored to become the best-preserved ship of the age with 98% of it being original wood.

Entering the museum is pretty jaw-dropping, just to see the ship itself is amazing but seeing all the detailed carvings on it and learning about all it took to preserve it, plus all they've been able to learn about it was a stellar experience.  We all agreed that this was one of the best museums we've ever been to.

The depiction of the lion on the bow of the Vasa represented King Gustav II Adolf, who had ordered the ship built to help him establish Sweden's dominance in the Baltic in the 17th century.  Can you imagine what he must have thought after learning that it heeled over in a gust of wind and sank so quickly?  You can see there on the right the sea nymphs and mermen.  A little more on them later.

More of the elaborate carvings on the ship.

Vasa had a total of 56 gun ports.  Not all of her guns had arrived before she sailed.  The open gun ports were part of what caused her doom as when she heeled so far over in the wind the sea began to pour into them.

Holly, Sally and I enjoying the exhibits.

I thought one of the coolest things in the museum was this 1:10 scale model of the Vasa, complete with how its painted carvings would have looked, a most impressive ship.  It's just too bad that the builder miscalculated and didn't add enough width below the waterline.

In the 1990s testing of paint samples from various sculptures and planks were examined under microscopes and also analyzed chemically, to reveal how colorful that Vasa was.

The detailing, the paintings, the gilding would all have been quite glorious.

Here is the actual stern of the ship, you can see how detailed the sculptures were.

On the model you can see how colorful it would have been.  The lions are holding the national coat of arms.  They would have been gilded because of their importance rather than just given a coat of yellow paint.

It was a twelve year project to figure out the various paint colors from a thousand different paint samples from the Vasa.  They found 20 different kinds of paint with pigments that are mainly from minerals and plants, although there is also a lead-white and a red lead in the the mix.

Notice the small round holes on the left.  Those are the scuppers, small round drainage holes which would have been plugged prior to a battle.  One of the thing the Swedes of this age liked to do was to compare themselves to the Romans of old.  In the photo on the right stands a Roman warrior standing on a lion's head with a dog at his feet, the lion allows the dog to live.  The sculpture implies that "Gustav II Adolf, the defender of Sweden, is as merciful toward his defeated enemies as the lion is to the dog."

The small figures in this photo shows the number of men who would have been working the Vasa.  In 1628, Vasa was supposed to have a crew of 145 mariners as well 300 soldiers.  She sank before the soldiers could be picked up and brought aboard.  

More than one seaman may have used the same chest like the one on the left.  Under the hat in that chest were found all the items on the right.  Included in this chest were a pair of leather mittens, leather for shoe repairs, a keg, and 66 copper coins, among other things.

A regular seaman on the Vasa would have worn something like this.

A cross section of below the deck of the Vasa.  Some of those levels were much too small for a man to stand up in.

One of the  original Vasa cannons.  Most of them were salvaged after the ship sank and exported for sale.

When the Vasa was located in 1956 they still weren't sure she could be raised.  Thanks to the efforts of Anders Franzén, who discovered her location, then put together a team of experts from the Swedish Navy Divers, the Swedish National Maritime Museum, the Swedish National Heritage Board, plus a salvage company called Neptune, Vasa saw the light of day again in 1961.  It would be many more years and a lot more conservation work before she would be where she sits today.

These are painted replicas of some of the sculptures on the Vasa.  Clockwise from the upper left you see a Wildman who is a Nordic superhero (Northern Europe's version of Hercules), a Gideon's Warrior (from Gideon in the Bible who saved Israel from heathens, King Gustav was the Gideon of his time who would save his people from the Catholics),  a figure whose explanation I somehow missed blowing a horn, King David (chosen of God and powerful, like King Gustav thought himself to be), a Triton or Merman (this one wears a Catholic priest's hat which is probably a joke at the expense of the Catholic enemy), and a Nereid, or helpful sea nymph who always helped seamen in distress so you'd want them around.

More figures included, again from top left clockwise, the Polish Enemy (the humiliated Polish nobleman under the bench who when caught lying was forced to crawl under a bench, bark like a dog three time and beg for mercy, the Poles were to be thought of as dogs), a Peasant Woman (representing one of the different social groups of the Swedish people), Roman Warrior (mentioned earlier), a Roman Emperor (there were 20 of these on the ship, admired for their power), and Knight in Armor (these are thought to represent King Gustave's ancestors and were there to show his old and impressive lineage).

And here is the gilded lion that would have represented King Gustave II Adolf himself.  You can see how many messages there were in just a small portion of the ship's decorations.  

And you can probably tell by now that I found the whole story fascinating!  I could have spent half a day looking around in here and soaking it all in.

One of the amazing things about this ship is that it was able to be raised almost intact.  The combination of the cold but low saline waters of the Baltic, plus all the sewage that went into the area where she sank, kept the shipworms away as well as damaging oxygen.  It took years of wood conservation before she was ready to finally be put on display.  The capstan on the left would have been used to raise anchors, sails or other heavy gear.  To the right is a photo of the prow of the ship.

Besides recovering the ship and some of the seamen's gear there were also the remains of 30 men, women and children recovered.  As the soldiers hadn't yet boarded the ship, when Vasa sailed some of the seamen's wives and children were allowed to go along for the ride until the army came aboard.  None of the skeletons can be specifically identified but it's pretty amazing what their remains can tell about them.

Based on what they have learned from various scientific disciplines, plus some assumptions, there are some stunning, as well as haunting, faces that have been recreated after analyzing skeletons.  It was a little eerie to see them, they each looked ready to tell their story.  On the lower left is a man they call "Johan", who was the oldest skeleton recovered.  He is thought to have been between 55-65 years old and was a wealthy man as his jacket was made of expensive imported material.  And yes, even cloth survived in the waters that long.  They even have some of the Vasa's sails.

Another interesting thing, at least to me, is that the conservation efforts don't stop.  The forms that now support the ship are actually damaging it and are in the process of being replaced with a better way of cradling her.  You can imagine how fragile an almost 400 year old ship is despite how strong she looks.

One thing that made me smile was that the night before we went to the museum I was texting with Andrew about the Vasa and had said "I think it would be an amazing Lego project."  Well, low and behold, someone had already done one as a side exhibit.  The Vasa replica is on the upper right, still no idea how many pieces it took to build it though.

The rains began as we came out of the museum but we were hopeful they would stop so we made our way past geese and tourists to get to Skansen, Sweden's first open air museum.

We stopped at one of their restaurants before going inside and I had this lovely meal of vegetables and a meat patty, along with one of Stockholm's famous cinnamon buns.  Everything was delicious!

Still hoping the rains would stop we ventured out into the 19th century buildings of Skansen.  I have to admit here that I wasn't all that impressed with the venue.  The only place where they were doing much of anything was the glassblowing shop, otherwise it was just old buildings with stuff in them, and maybe a person to sell you something.

There were some pretty flowers on the grounds.  I keep seeing lots of hollyhocks in Sweden and the Nordic areas.

This was probably my favorite photo at Skansen.  We finally let the rain win and went to find the HOHO stop to give us a view around the city and then get us back to the ship.  I was done for the day after we returned.

Karl on the other hand, still had the energy to go out to meet some friends

at the Stockholm Ice Bar, which was included in our GoCity Passes.

He enjoyed a non-alcoholic drink and seeing the venue.  Everyone had to wear these coats they handed them at the door so that they can keep the room temperature controlled.  I missed out but I was just too tired.

Monday in Stockholm saw us off again on the HOHO to get to the dock where we secured tickets for the "Under the Bridges of Stockholm Boat Tour".  Walking to the dock I enjoyed a decorative light holder and a pretty door.

The long, slim boat took us around to all of the red points on the map.  It was an informative and relaxing couple of hours.

From the water we got view of the National Museum of Fine Arts,

plus the Swedish History Museum,

along with a nice exterior view of the Vasa Museum.  Fun fact here, the museum was built around the ship.  I'll show you the nearby spot where it sank a little later.

All of these attractions are on the the previously mentioned Djurgärden Island where we'd spent time the day before including Gróna Lund Amusement Park, the oldest of its kind in Sweden having opened in 1883.

Apparently this crane is such a permanent fixture that it's been painted to look like a giraffe, hoping to blend in.

One of the cool things about this journey was that we had to go through a lock to get from the Baltic part of Stockholm in to Lake Mälaren, which is about a meter higher in elevation.  You could see how the water level was lower as we came in from the Baltic side.  Once the gates were closed on that side they opened the gate on the lake side and water began to poor in to lift up the boat.  It was interesting that they had ropes along the sides of the lock that boat owners could hold on to so their boats didn't move while in the transition.  Later we came back through the lock and watched the process in reverse.

A random windmill along the side of Lake Mälaren.

The Swedes love their green spaces, we saw lots of boating, kayaking, canoeing, walking, jogging and sunning.  

Or just sitting and enjoying the view.  And in a place like this who wouldn't be content to just sit and chat with a friend.

There are a lot of these small houses along one section of the lake, they are called allotments and in the past were home with garden spots for the poor for growing healthier foods.  Now, because of their location, they are highly sought after.  I could easily spend a week or two in one of those!

One of our bridges we crossed under,

coming up on another.

Il liked how this part of the city was framed in this photo.

The colors and the architecture were stunning on this lovely summer day, and the wooden hulled boat was just a bonus in this picture.

More of lovely Stockholm, the black church spire in the background is the Riddarholm church where many of Sweden's kings and queens are buried..

A contrast here between some of the old and new.  Stockholm City Hall is the red brick building on the left.

Everything in this city just seems to fit together, integrating earth, water and sky.

These buildings are some of the more modern Functionalist architecture.

While this hundred year old boathouse is no longer in use it is such a favorite of the community that they can't seem to tear it down.  There are still hopes it will be refurbished into something else.

Sandy beaches are few and far between so why not just sun yourself on a rock?

The origins of this massive hospital were built during WW2.  Part of it was built in the rock itself as protection just in case Sweden got into the war.  They remained neutral.

One of the favored residences these days are house boats, or boats made into houses.  These are just a couple that we saw.  We had to wonder what happens to them in the winter if water freezes.  We especially liked all the plants growing on the green boat.

Here's a whole row of boat homes.

I loved all the pretty red flowers growing on the sides of the balconies.

More typical Swedish housing.

 A map view so you can get an idea of how Stockholm is surrounded by islands.

I just loved this photo.

On our way back to the dock we passed our beloved Serenade.

As long as the flag flies from this tower Sweden is not at war.

Gamla Stan, or Old Town, Stockholm is pictured here.  This is the most ancient part of the city, inhabited for about a thousand years.  At one time it smelled so bad from human and farm animal waste that people were said to faint on the streets.  Today it is sinking a bit but efforts are underway to get it all shored up.  And the only smells are delicious scents from restaurants.

More Stockholm views

as we came back to the dock.

We wandered over to the nearby Royal Palace in Gamla Stan but didn't end up going in.  I did enjoy seeing the two guards standing outside the entrance.

Scenes from Gamla Stan.  It's a fun place to shop and eat.

A rather random statue of St. George slaying the dragon.

We decided to take a look inside the Nobel Museum.  Every year the Nobel prizes are awarded here in Stockholm's City Hall, thanks to the fortune of dynamite inventor Alfred Nobel.

Inside they have a sheet with the name of every winner of every prize since 1901 hanging from the ceiling.  If you watched each of them go past you it would take six hours.

Being honest again here, most of the exhibits were above my brain power level, especially in Chemistry and Physics so we didn't stay long but I did get a photo next to the replica of the Nobel medallion.

Serenade was docked just a mile or so from the old dockyards where the Vasa would have sailed from.  As we made a 180 degree turn to head out in the evening we got a good view of the area where the Vasa sank, in a spot not far from the red brick building. 

Sail out was as beautiful as sail in from Stockholm with unique

and beautiful buildings along the shores.

We made our way out of the archipelago at sunset with the skies ablaze, having loved our time in this amazing city that we'd love to be able to come back to.