Day 10 – Cruise – Stockholm, Sweden

I woke up at 5.30am just we were entering the Archipeligo on the approach into Stockholm. I managed to go back to sleep for a bit and got up around 6.30am to go up on deck. It was just gorgeous. Cute little (and some not so little) houses on the islands.

I enjoyed a cup of tea as I enjoyed the view and later sat and had a donut and another cup of tea.

Around 7.30am I went back to the room. Amy & Kevin were awake. Around 8am we woke up Christy and got out the door. We got breakfast at Windjammers and ate it on the back deck I only just discovered this morning. Today I had a delicious vegetable & cheese omelet.

At 9am we arrived in Stockholm and it was amazing to watch the ship turn before docking. We met for our tour – A Day in Stockholm. First stop was the council building which is where the Noble Prizes are given out every December. It was beautiful and very interesting.

We drove around a bit more, then stopped in the old city center where we visited the Royal Church – which housed a Royal wedding just last weekend. Here is the bride and groom!

It was a beautiful church – nice and bright with a St. George and the Dragon statue that dates back to the 1300s.

We then went to watch the Royal Guards walk by on their way to the Changing of the Guard. It was a bit of a fizzler after waiting 15mins. We should have skipped it or gone to watch the whole ceremony. Oh, well, it gave our feet a break.

We then went off in search in food – stopping to admire the stunning narrow streets and beautiful buildings.
We found a place to have lunch that took VISA and had English on the menu.

Amy and Kevin orders Swedish Meatballs – which they really enjoyed, and I had a cheese & spinach quiche – which was quite nice.

After lunch we wandered the main street and the girls bought soft bunnies – yes, bunnies, from Sweden!!!

We met back up with guide for a tour of the old city center but the girls were tired and grumpy so Kevin waited with them while I went on the tour. A shame really cause I think they would have enjoyed it. We saw the narrowest alleyway in the town and a piece of a Viking Rune which was used to stop a buidling from collapsing and is the only Viking aritfact in the country(???) because a persons belongings were burned with their bodies upon death.

After leaving the old city center we were shown some more sights before heading the Vasa Musuem. This just blew my mind. The Vasa sank on it’s maiden vogage in the 1600s and was only found in the 1960s. It is old complete ship in the world and is incredible. i couldn’t believe how big it was.

Here’s a model of what it looked like. It must have been amazing in real life when it was painted in all it’s colours.

It apparently sank because the King kept ordering them to make it bigger after it was already built which meant it was very unstable. We didn’t have long here but managed to see a bit of a film about the ships recovery which was very interesting. Then it was back on the bus for the trip back to the ship. I really feel like we got a good taste of Stockholm today, though more time at the Vasa would have been great.
Back on board we all all hungry so went to the Seaview Cafe for a snack. We ate all the nachos and both Kevin  & Amy had some fruit tart as well.

We then headed back to our room for showers and to get ready for dinner. Tonight I had delicious breaded mushrooms (which I remembered from our last cruise) and a potato Curry. And a yummy low fat mango mouse.

The girls headed off to the kids club and Kevin & I retired for the night. I typed up todays diary  and then did a bit of reading. When Christy came back from kids club she looked like this…and she wasn’t in a very good mood.