The most beautiful city
Wow Stockholm certainly is very beautiful. It’s actually an archipelago, a group of islands. The city is built across them, with sea water between, bridges linking them together and ferry’s, trains, tram, buses, etc. The place is full of traditional big buildings.
The old city with its narrow streets, cobblestone roads are full of tourist shops, coffee shops, bars, etc. Around the water ways and in the city there are beautiful parks, with artwork (everywhere), monuments, fountains and avenues of trees.
We were lucky it just happened to be the 500 year celebration of the royal guard and military. So they had an entire day of things going on. Like guards, the military, people in traditional outfits marching around the royal palace. The King and Queen came out onto a balcony to give the large crowd a wave.
There is so much to see in Stockholm.! We’ve given the City 5 days and hardly scratched the surface. Definitely been a fun time.
Liquorice Shop….the entire shop….Licorice!
But we do love our coffee shops
Vasa Museum
The Vasa Museum is a huge building with a raised “Man of War” ship that spent 333 years at the bottom (about 100 feet down). The Vasa is the largest ship ever raised and when you look at it you think how did they get it up and into a specific built building…it’s huge. The recovery and restoration project itself is amazing. It is 95% original.
The ship built in 1626 had over 800 carvings on it. Even now it’s magnificent, just imagine it when new.
On its maiden voyage the Vasa sailed 1,500 meters before sinking, they skited that it was the heaviest battle ship in Europe at the time. It went 1,500 meters, then the wind made the ship list to one side, it was so heavy and poorly designed and water ran in the gun ports and it sank. Well I hadn’t heard of Swedes being great boat builders…but it was definitely pretty.
This is a must do for anyone coming here….we had a great time. It is impossible to show the size of it in photos. The building has six levels for you to view the boat from. The whole boat is in a temperature controlled room kept between 18-20 degrees Celsius. You go through 3 airlock chambers to get in.
Royal Palace
Most of the royal palace was closed off because the King and family was in the palace. But we got to see the Treasury and the Royal Chapel. They even let us take pictures, here are just some.
The Treasury
Gamla Stan ( The old city )
Nordiska Museet
This was an average museum, but the building was great.
Drottningholm Palace
I’ve used a map below of their website, the site is 315 acres of gardens, palaces, lakes, bush land walks, etc. We spent most of the day…..you can just imagine how many pictures we took…OMG…but here is just a few. Link to the site website
The Palace (Castle)
Out back
The Chinese Pavilion
