Day 10 - Stockholm Finale

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Up early again for another trip to Stockholm by transit. Made it to our first stop which was a 2 1/2 hour archipelago boat tour. This was fantastic. The weather was perfect and we sailed out of the inner harbour out to the inner archipelago. There are 30,000 islands in this area but we did not see them all (only most of them). This area is cottage country for the locals (although increasingly people are making them year-round homes). They take their cars on ferries and spend their summers on these islands. If they don't have a summer home, they might have a boat and island hop for several weeks at a time. Sweden has a law regarding property that states that anyone can go on any land (as long as they do not do damage or interfere with the property in any way). So, a family could stop on any island even if the property is owned by someone, and visit it. The boat ride was so nice and relaxing. Back on land, we walked over to Djurgarden (which is one of Stockholm's main islands) to visit Skansen. This is a little like Black Creek Pioneer Village back home but the Swedish version. A man named Artur Hazelius created the park in 1890 to capture the various periods of Sweden in history. A large part of the park was for a zoo of Nordic animals. It was built into the rocky landscape and created a very natural habitat for the animals. We really enjoyed Skansen. It was again a nice hilly walk through the grounds. Next stop was the Vasa museum. This was a museum dedicated to the Vasa ship which was a ship built in the 1600's on command of the king and was very heavily (way too heavily) armed with cannons. It sailed only 1300m before it sank (as the first ship with double-decker cannons it was too top-heavy). It was only found again in 1950 and in 1961 it was brought back out of the sea and the museum was founded. Very interesting. Hit a few more shops while downtown and then home on transit. Once home, a big windy storm blew in and was done in about 5 minutes during which Nigel was BBQ'ing some cod for dinner......

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Photos

More summer homes
In the Inner archipelago

Lighthouse
First and oldest fully automated lighthouse in the world and still in use