After our world wind tour of Norway, it was good to have 3 nights in the same place in Stockholm.
Our Airbnb host was a lovely, older polish lady, Li, who rents her 3 upstairs bedrooms to students and AirBnb guests. She came to Sweden in the 1970’s to attend the university. She was 31 years old so my guess was going to school was one of the allowable reasons for leaving Poland. After two years of living in Sweden, the USSR decided to tighten the hold on everyone and she had to decide whether to stay in Sweden or return to Poland. It was wonderful to talk with her on growing up in Eastern Europe, modern day politics, the immigrants escaping Syria, as well as the environment. She had lots of opinions.
I think Li’s favorite part of renting rooms is help people. She was always there to welcome us home and ask us about our day. When Derek’s backpack was lost by Norwegian Air, she took us to the drug store and did all the translations so he could replace the necessary items. Needless to say, we now have more stuff in our carry ons. (If you are curious on why we are checking bags, the carry on bag limit is much small in Europe especially on the puddle jumper flights.)
I am fighting my cold again. Yes, the one I got on June 1st is still with me. Mostly as a runny nose. A pharmacist in Oslo, Norway sold me a prescription steroid spray and it seems to be doing the job. Amazing that you can buy many prescription items without seeing a doctor.
Enough with the problems of life and on to Stockholm.
Derek and I felt comfortable immediately. Stockholm is a city built on islands. Look on the left side of the picture below. The white office building was built to consume the entire island.
Everywhere you walk you are crossing bridges or walking along rivers.
Stockholm is built with a lake on one side and the sea on the other. The harbor is a mix of fresh and salt water.
In 2023, Sweden will be celebrating its 500 year anniversary of independence. Until 1523, it was a Danish colony. I love the story of how they achieved independence.
In 1521, the Danish came to Stockholm and massacred any wealthy or people powerful in the eyes of the Sweden’s. One guy got really mad and went to northern Sweden to assemble an army. He came back two years later and kicked the Danish rulers out of Stockholm. Lesson here is careful who you piss off.
My favorite tourist attractions in Stockholm is the Vasa Museum. It is a lot worth a trip to Sweden just to visit the museum.
The Vasa is a Swedish War ship. She was meant to be the flagship for the Swedish Royal Navy. She was equipped with two canon levels and guns on the deck. She had the most fire power of any ship in the world. Her crew was 450 solders. She was built of cutting edge designs by two Dutch boat makers.
Probably was when she headed out for her madden voyage, she catch a few gusts of wind, the canon doors were open (they had just done a gun salute), and the ship sank in 6 minutes.
She lay in 100 feet of water in the Stockholm harbor for 333 years. She was located in 1959 which marked the beginning of the largest archeological find in Sweden. The boat was perfectly preserved in the combination of fresh and salt water. Everything found in the harbor floor of mud was amazingly in tack. Bodies were found that still had their clothes on including their shoes.
After nine years of working on this giant jigsaw puzzle, scientists were able to reassemble the Vasa using 98% of it’s original wood. When you walk into the large warehouse, it takes you breath away. Look at the statues on the sides of the ship. Some of them look nearly perfect.
Interestingly, no one was held to blame. In the 1620’s, designers had to take risks to be cut edge. The mathematics did not exist to test designs.
I was fascinated to find out that they used rocks as a ballasts. Today, with the math, they calculated how much ballast the designers should have used on the Vasa.
Derek found that we could climb the tower at City Hall. This is the same building the Nobel Peace Prize is presented in.
Since the tower is made of brick, there are no narrow wooden stair to climb. Instead we had these narrow brick hallways built as ramps. I got dizzy going round and round.
We were rewarded with the most beautiful view of the city.
