Sunken Ships, Ikea and Exotic Pizzas.....

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Today was our last day in Sweden, so we decided to make the most of it before jetting back to London. Our first stop of the day was the Vasa Museum, which is a museum built over top of an old graving dock. In 1628, the Vasa was launched. She was the pride of the Swedish Navy, featuring 64 guns and amazingly ornate sculptures. Unfortunately, the designers didn't quite get the stability analysis right, and she capsized about 20 minutes into her maiden voyage. She was still in the harbour!

Attempts were made to recover the 69 metre long ship, but at the time, there was no way to lift such a big heavy object from the bottom of the ocean. Since the Vasa sunk in the harbour, her masts were actually sticking up above the surface. Once many of the objects had been recovered from the wreck, the masts were cut off so as to not impede navigation. The Vasa was soon to be forgotten - and not discovered again until the twentieth century.

In 1961, 333 years after sinking, the Vasa was rediscovered and eventually raised to the surface. After 17 years of restoration, the ship was opened to the public in the Vasa museum.

After our visit to the museum, we had to hurry back to central Stockholm to catch a bus back to the airport. (On our way to the bus station we saw a sign for the bus to Ikea - we realized then that we had not yet seen an Ikea, which seemed a bit odd. As it turned out, we ended up seeing the Ikea on the bus out of town, but it wasn't even blue!) We decided to go the airport a bit early because it is in a town called Nyköping that we thought would be neat to check out. So, once we got to the airport, we hopped on a city bus into Nyköping town centre and began to explore there.

Nyköping is a nice town - but it was very quiet on the Sunday afternoon. Most of the shops were closed, so we actually had a bit of a tough time finding some dinner. Eventually we settled on basically the only thing that was available... pizza. The shop owner didn't speak English, so we just selected a couple of pizza's that sounded tasty based on their names. We ordered two, because we thought that they were personal sized pizzas - afterall, they were only £7 each, which by Swedish standards is cheap for anything. As it turned out, the pizzas were HUGE, and used some interesting ingredients! Check out the pictures for details. The Tropicana pizza was quite tasty, despite featuring bananas. The Batman pizza wasn't great - and I'm sure the garlicy/oniony breath we were left with made the plane ride a little uncomfortable for the poor chap sitting next to us!

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Photos

The Vasa
This is the ship that sank in the harbour on her maiden voyage. Turns out, they didn't know that much about stability back in the early 17th century.

The Vasa
The stern of the ship. All of these statues were at one time painted to show off the status of the King.

The Vasa
A picture says a thousand words, so I'll shut up.

As Close as we came to Ikea
It's funny - we've seen Ikea's in London, Wales and Scotland. But when you travel all the way to Sweden, there is no Ikea to be found! This was on the last day of our trip, just at the bus station as we were starting our journey back home. (It turns out, we actually did see an Ikea from the highway on the bus ride to the airport... the weird thing? It wasn't blue!)

This is the sort of Pizza You Get When you Can't Read the Menu
The name of the pizza was "The Batman." Toppings: Tomato Sauce, Kebab Chicken Meat, Raw White Onions, Garlic Sauce, Garlic Sauce and More Garlic Sauce (We felt quite bad for the gentlemen sitting next to us on the plane!!)

This is the sort of Pizza You Get When you Can't Read the Menu
"The Tropicana"
Toppings: Curry Sauce, Ham, Pineapple and Banana (Yes, I said banana!)