Scandinavia – God dag Stockholm! Pt. II
Good morning guys and welcome back. Last week I started telling you a bit about my short but sweet stay in Stockholm and this week I’m continuing to do so. I am going to continue exactly where I stopped last time, so be prepared to read all about the following days in Sweden.
Last week, I started telling you all about our second day in Stockholm, and after visiting the Royal Palace, we went on to visit the famous Vasa Museum. Honestly, we were not sure if we really should visit this museum, as it didn’t sound too exciting. A museum of an old ship that sank a few hundred years back? Does not sound too much fun. But everyone I asked suggested we should visit it, so we decided to give it a try (also because the entry to the palace was cheaper than expected due to a student discount, so we were not too worried about the money).
Well, the Vasa ship is way more exciting than it sounds. The ship sank in 1628, just minutes after leaving the harbour for the first time. It was supposed to be the most powerful warship in the Baltic sea and had room for around 450 men. It sank due to constructional mistakes as back then there were no blueprints made, just some drawings of what the boat should look like. More than 90 per cent of the ship that you can see at the museum is still original, as the ship sank on a place where saltwater meets sweet water, which helped save it from bacteria that would otherwise have destroyed it.
The museum itself is really cool as well. You can take a look at the ship from different levels, and therefore comprehend the real size of it, on some places you can actually take a look inside it, and on one level they re-constructed a part of the ship so you can actually “enter” the Vasa – and realise how small people used to be back then, as I was not always able to stand up straight without hitting the ceiling. And of course, there’s a restaurant (with amazing Köttbullar once more) and a souvenir shop and many, many other attractions. We were genuinely impressed by this museum, different to Junibacken, a museum that is inspired by Pippi Langstrump that is just next to it, which I would only recommend for small children.
Afterwards, we decided to visit some of Stockholm’s subway stations. This might sound weird, but more than 90 of all the 110 subway stations in the city are coloured by artists. Some of them are more impressive than others, but it really shows how little needs to be done to make a boring place like a subway station look cool. We went to the stations Kungsträdgården, T-Centralen and Rådhuset.
The next day started off with another tour around Gamla Stan before we went to a boat trip until Vaxholmen. Most of these boat trips start at the harbour Nybroplan, just next to Gamla Stan in the city centre. We made a trip around the Skerry Islands of Stockholm that lasted around 3 hours. We were able to see so many tiny islands with just one little tiny Swedish house and the guide explained to us that if you are living there and want to go to the city but do not own your own boat, you have to put a flag next to the house, hoping the ferry sees it, but if you are to slow you have to wait until the next day. I can’t imagine living in a place like this, but I guess it has to be awesome to relax there and not talk to anyone.
While this was surely not everything I’ve seen and learnt in Stockholm, this is the end of this part of the short Stockholm series. I can only highlight how much fun I had, and I became a real fan of Scandinavia. Helsinki and Copenhagen are now definitely on my list, and I can’t wait to go back North as soon as possible!
