Day Seven
Stockholm, Sweden

This was our regularly scheduled day in Stockholm, complete with our regularly scheduled rain! Our tour guide was a delightful man named Robert Lilja, who was a business associate of my dad's. Dad had the occasion to show Robert around Philadelphia and said that if we were ever in Stockholm, he would repay the favor. He probably never imagined in his wildest dreams that we'd actually show up, but there we were, and he seemed very glad to have us! I could fill this page with anecdotes of funny little things that happened that day- how he drove around the city as if he owned it, ran red lights, jumped curbs, or the trip we took up the "tour busses only" road to get a good view...well there were five us in a Volvo, didn't we count as a tour bus? Our fellow passengers saw us there and we endured some good-natured ribbing about our "private tour guide" when we got back to the ship that afternoon!

This may have been the most enjoyable day of the cruise. We didn't do much touristy stuff so there aren't a lot of photos, but we had a great time. We went shopping at NK, an upscale department store in the city (the women shopped, the men went to the cafe and talked over beer), we visited the Vasa Museum, ate a delicious lunch at a very old restaurant, and visited the Royal Palace. We thought we were going to see the Crown Jewels but we went in the wrong door and found ourselves instead at a fascinating exhibit of clothing and other items belonging to the Royal Family.

This was the rainy view of one of the islands as we left the ship.
We began at the Vasa Museum. The Vasa was a warship built in the 1620s while Sweden was at war with Poland. Robert joked with us that it was the first "total flop" in history, for that was exactly what happened! It set sail from Stockholm and was not underway more than a few minutes when it flipped over!

I have to admit, I liked this better than the Viking Ship Museum in Oslo, but...who knew!

I am standing under a huge lion head sculture, one of many lion figures on the Vasa. The builders believed the lion symbolized the Swedish king.
A view of the Vasa from above
These figures were on the side of the ship. The bright one has been repainted in the colors the restorers think the were used originally.
The Vasa was heavily carved and decorated with sculptures- around 700 of them.
An impressive creation at the stern of the ship
We couldn't confine our silliness to the ship. Rory spotted this statue so we had to pose with him.
Swedish War Rule #1: If you are going to outfit a ship with cannons designed to annihilate your enemies, make sure they look good!
Here are two good web site about the Vasa Museum:
www.vasamuseet.se/indexeng.html and  user.tninet.se/~cdn845y/index3.html.
After lunch we visited the museum in the Royal Palace. I only took a few pictures there. This was the most interesting- a baby's walker from the late 1700s! Whoda thunk that!
Our day ended with Country Music Night in the Crow's Nest. Rory and Dad cut a fine rug, did the "Achy Breaky" and all that good stuff, but the pictures didn't turn out that great.
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