Houses on the islands outside Stockholm
By the end of today, both Enid and I were wishing that we were able to fly out sooner tomorrow than our scheduled flight. I think we have both had enough of European cities for a while.
The Stockholm archipelago
The cruise in this morning was very nice. We passed by the islands in the Stockholm archipelago — there are over 30000 of them — and we said how much they look like the islands in a northern Saskatchewan lake. Except for the cabins, since almost every island had several, and some had what looked like large hotels or apartments, the terrain is very similar to the shield. SInce it is the result of the last ice age, I guess that isn’t surprising.
We decided to take the Hop-on Hop-off bus today, and by the end of the day we were glad that we did, as we are both tired. It isn’t cheap for what you get, at 260 Swedish Kroner (about $40), but it got us to where we wanted to go.
Our first stop was close to the State Historical Museum. We stopped at a small grocery store, got some buns, fruit, cheese and cookies and ate our lunch in a park with a large fountain. There were lots of little blonde haired children there with their parents, and one little girl that ran all the way around the fountain.
Rune stone
The museum had a nice display of Swedish history, with a timeline that showed artifacts from as far back as about 1000 to the present. Enid was especially impressed byt the intricate embroidery that has survived to the present day. In the basement, securely monitored and behind some heavy lockable gates, was the “Gold Room”. It did have some beautiful displays of gold jewellery, coins, goblets, etc. One of the neck rings for a Viking king, in gold, weighed 720 g.
Jewellery in the Gold Room
We got back on the bus and were going to get off at Gamla Stan, the old town. Instead we decided to stop sooner, so got off at the city hall, which is a very large impressive building (it is where they serve the Noble laureates dinner). It was Saturday, and there were many, many people who were getting married at city hall, and getting their pictures taken there.
Swedish guard at the Royal Palace
We caught the next bus 2 minutes later, and did stop at Gamla Stan to walk around. It was very crowded, and the narrow streets were jammed with tiny shops selling souvenirs of all kinds to the tourists. We didn’t see the changing of the guard at the royal palace, but we did see a marching group of soldiers there.
After we’d walked to the next bus stop, we were both tired. We rode the bus to the end of the route, which was our cruise terminal. Since their is commentary on the bus we got a very brief introduction to some places in Stockholm, and some ideas of what we will do after our tour to the train station is over tomorrow and we have several hours to wait until we go to the airport.