Stockholm and the Vasa

I rarely research the cities I plan on visiting ahead of time, and only after, do I realize or appreciate what I had seen and/or find out what I should have seen. Thankfully for me, I normally see all of the “sites” through dumb luck, but every once in awhile I do miss out on something cool. While on the cruise however, I no longer had that risk…each night, before arrival at the next port, the ship provided a summary of the next city we would visit, including sites to see, history of the country and town, and practical information such as public transportation etc. And it was through this program that I heard about the Vasa Museum in Stockholm.

Under normal rules, I would not even consider visiting a museum while on holiday, but this one proved to be worth the time and price of admittance. But before we made it to the museum, we wandered our way through the old town with standard cobblestone streets, past the grand palace (where Jason and Braden went on a tour and Anna and I enjoyed hot tea in the courtyard café…this would be a trend that continued throughout the rest of the trip), past the opera house, along the rivers and a quick pit stop for hot dogs and water. Two and a half hours later we were finally at the museum.

The Vasa Museum is home to the Vasa Ship, a 17th century ship meant to be the glory of the Swedish people, however due to bad calculations, the ship immediately sunk after leaving the dry docks. The ship lay under water for over 300 years and was eventually discovered and raised again, in almost perfect condition. What little areas needed restoration, were restored and the ship is now on display in the museum. Being a big fan of both Goonies and The Pirate of the Caribbean, I was in complete awe; it looked exactly like a pirate ship. We were off to a great start! Hopefully the rest of the cities could capture my imagination the way the Vasa did.

Museums visited – 1, Churches visited – 0