EUROPE 2019_TEST BLOG: Stockholm

27th May 2019 Stockholm
What an amazing entry by cruise ship into this beautiful city. There are islands dotted all the way through the shipping channel and they look like there could be very upmarket holiday homes on these islands.
Made our way by boat into Djurgarden Island where the famous Vasa Museum is situated. The Vasa was a 16th century sailing ship built at great cost for King Gustave of Sweden and he isisted they have massive cannons added to the ship and when the ship was launched in Stockholm's harbour it immediatly sank. The main hall contains the ship itself, and various exhibits related to the archaeological findings of the ships and early 17th-century Sweden. Vasa has been fitted with the lower sections of all three masts, a new bowsprit, winter rigging, and has had certain parts that were missing or heavily damaged replaced. The replacement parts have not been treated or painted and are therefore clearly visible against the original material that has been darkened after three centuries under water.

The new museum is dominated by a large copper roof with stylized masts that represent the actual height of Vasa when she was fully rigged. Parts of the building are covered in wooden panels painted in dark red, blue, tar black, ochre yellow and dark green. The interior is similarly decorated, with large sections of bare, unpainted concrete, including the entire ceiling. Inside the museum the ship can be seen from six levels, from her keel to the very top of the sterncastle. Around the ship are numerous exhibits and models portraying the construction, sinking, location and recovery of the ship. There are also exhibits that expand on the history of Sweden in the 17th century, providing background information for why the ship was built. A movie theatre shows a film in alternating languages on the recovery of the Vasa.

After we saw the Vasa we then went to the Viking Museum and then made our way back to Gamla Stan which is the old city of Stockholm then back to our ship.