Stockholm

Tuesday 16th August 2016

It has been an interesting early morning, watching the ship navigate its way into Stockholm, through this huge archipelago. The total time taken once entering the archipelago till arriving at the dock , is 5 hours. We only caught the last 1.5 hours and look forward to seeing the voyage back out again this evening. There are some incredibly tight passages between islands.

The cruise ship wharf is long and narrow, and once we were secured, another ship came in behind us, effectively blocking our exit. We can only assume they will leave before us.

With all of the formalities completed, we were on the shore by 8.30am, looking for some way to get into town. There are no shuttle buses organized, and we are told to walk down to the main road and catch the 76 bus into town.  Fares had to be prepaid and there was a ticket machine that was too hard to deal with, so we walked into town with a few others, a walk of about 4 km.

Once by the waterside, we walked in the direction of Gamla Stan (the old town), and along the way saw a canal cruise that was leaving in 5 minutes. The cruise was called “Under the Bridges” and went for 2.25 hours covering a lot of ground, so we signed up and were soon on our way. Our experience has been seeing these places from the water gives a great overview if it is guided and covers the key areas.

The Vasa Museum (we did not visit but I have been there before)

New Urban Development

Town Hall

The Hospital half of which is below ground in case of invasion

The boat was set up with individual headphones and a guided commentary in about 8 languages (you just selected the one you wanted). It was generally very good.

After a cruise on the Baltic side of Stockholm, we entered a lock, which took us into a large lake on which a lot of Stockholm is built. Apparently a passage was blasted through solid rock separating the lake from the Baltic Sea to connect the two, and lake is actually about 1 m higher than the sea.

The cruise took us past many of the famous city highlights down as far as the old town, before turning around and heading back to the lock, and into the Baltic part of the cruise before returning to our starting point.  The cruise was very informative, if not a little pro Swedish.

Once back on dry land, we continued walking on to Gamla Stan, and the adjoining Island Riddar Holmen.

There are dedicated fishermen everywhere

Crossing over the bridge to Gamla Stan, we run into a cultural festival of some proportion, with all sorts of projects being built and entertainment projects for kids. A large cardboard castle was under construction on the bridge itself.

Looking up from the bridge, immediately in front of you is the Royal  Palace, a massive structure on the top of the hill.

The Royal Palace

The main attraction at Riddar Holmen is the Riddar Holmen Church, it is the oldest preserved building in Stockholm. It was completed around 1290 and for much of it’s life, was the Royal Burial Church.

We walked down to the waterfront, just to get another view of where our boat ride had taken us, before going back to Gamla Stan to explore the old town.

It was lunch time by now, so first priority was to find somewhere to eat and sit down for a while. We found a nice place in one of the cobblestone streets, and had a very nice meal of traditional Swedish fare.

Swedish Meatballs

Seafood Soup

After lunch we covered the highlights of the old town, including the front of the Royal Palace, before winding our way back to the new town. We have done a lot of walking today and the ship is sailing at 4.30pm, so we decide to get a taxi back to the ship and spend a bit of free time on the free internet at the port.

The Royal Palace

The ship that came in after us the MSC Musica, did depart before us, giving us clear passage out of our dock.

We sat in the lounge up forward for a few hours watching ship work its way back out to sea, with the pilot finally getting dropped off 5 hours later., at around 10 pm.  He certainly earned his keep as it is a pretty treacherous passage.

This ship was less than half our size

Tomorrow is an At Sea day, on our way to Kiel, Germany.