A long weekend in Stockholm

Richard and I enjoyed a long weekend in Stockholm, which was scheduled to coincide with a meeting that he is attending now. I had never been to Sweden and so was keen to see a small chunk of it. Stockholm is nice, with lots of water, boats and a quaint old town. There are a surprisingly large number of museums to visit, which we took advantage of, courtesy of SAS who were offering free museum/public transport passes with flights.

view in sh

view

We visited 4 museums in total, the first was about the Vasa – a boat which was built in the 17th century for Gustavus Adolphus. The warship was the biggest of its kind and took 2 years to build. In 1628 it set sail in the Baltic Sea and after 20 minutes and only 1500 m, it sank. The low salt environment and the clay preserved the vessel, such that in the 1960s it was raised in almost perfect condition (minus iron nails!). For the next 17 years it was sprayed with polyethylene glycol and then it was re-built. It is amazing. These pictures do not do it justice. If you are there, go and see it!

vasa side 2

back of vasa

vasa side

After the Vasa, we went to the Modern Art gallery, where we saw the Metamorphosis of Narcissus (Dali) – there were other famous things, but that was definitely the highlight. Then we went to the Nobel Museum which was about Nobel prize winners…. we were a bit tired by this point so we sat in front of a video for about an hour to have a rest!

On Sunday we went to Skansen, which is a Swedish cultural museum a little bit like Beamish in the UK. The only difference is that this museum also had a zoo and an aquariam.

reindeer

There were real reindeer too.

otter

owl

It was a really good trip. I left Richard at the bus station and made my own way home. I got back to the car at Heathrow’s long stay car park at about 10pm. I tried to start the car and it was completely dead. I did get home with the help of Charlie the RAC man, but it was rather late.

8 thoughts on “A long weekend in Stockholm”

  1. Glad you made it home. Did Charlie tow you home, or did he manage to get the car started?

    Wow, you look cold in those pics Rachel! 😯

    What an amazing looking owl. :alien: The otter’s teeth look scary though – I don’t want to come back as a fish… 😉

  2. Nope, Charlie injected some energy into her and she was fine. Needtheless to say, she is the owner of a new battery now.
    It was cold! 4 or 5 degrees ish. There isn’t a cold smilie!

    The tortoises and baby alligators were hilarious – they were in an enclosure together and the tortoises were bullying them by nibbling their toes and kicking them. The ali’s weren’t impressed!

  3. Great post; what a great weekend, I want to go there!

    Unfortunately I am not going anywhere just now – Scotland was planned this weekend – but The Curse of the Pudding Race has struck for the third time and I am injured again: this time by falling down the stairs yesterday. So I may not get my Christmas pudding this year either 🙁

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