Baltic Cruise 2002:
Day 7 - Stockholm, Sweden
Day 7 - Stockholm, Sweden
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Friday, July 5, 2002: Stockholm is another one of those cities where Debbie had seen the airport many times, but had never seen the city. That's all in the past now. Our morning began with a boat tour of Stockholm's highlights. Here's the famous Vasa museum, which houses a ship that sank into the Stockholm harbor on its maiden voyage 300 years ago. The unique architecture of the museum resembles a ship. |
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Here's the schmancy Grand Hôtel where the Nobel Prize winners stay during their visit to Stockholm. |
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Across from the hotel is the Royal Palace. The Swedish royal family (featuring our close, personal friend Queen Silvia) does not currently live at this palace. We were busy, so we didn't rush out to the suburbs to visit them. Plus, there's a small risk that Queen Silvia would not remember the time she walked past us in Göteborg in 1996. |
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Here's a view from the water of Gamla Stan, Stockholm's historic old town. |
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After our water tour, we walked into Gamla Stan to tour it on our own. We found great shopping, pretty sights and a great cafe featuring those awesome Scandinavian skink and øst sandwiches (ham and cheese). |
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The Royal Palace is located at one end of Gamla Stan, and we set up our timer to take this photo. |
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Here's another shot without us blocking your view. |
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The people of Stockholm do love their statues of St. George and the Dragon, and you can see why. |
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Here is Debbie relaxing in quaint Gamla Stan with an authentic Swedish sign in the background. (Our daughter Jill posed for a nearly identical photo in December 2003). |
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The Ice Gallery! No way! We just had to go in, especially with the enticing block of ice on the pedestal just outside (under the large framed sign). When we first passed the Ice Gallery, the block of ice was at least six inches tall, but when we returned after several warm hours, the ice had melted to almost nothing. |
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The nice folks at the Ice Gallery gave us these groovy silver capes to wear in the freezing room. During our visit, a video commercial for the Ice Hotel in the north of Sweden was projected onto a slab of ice on one wall. We had already made plans to visit the Ice Hotel in 2003, so we were very excited! |
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These outfits are so flattering, we just might have to move north of the Arctic Circle permanently. |
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Back in the warm summer air, we stopped for beers at a bar located on a boat, with a lovely view of Gamla Stan in the background. |
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Our walk back to the Noordam was scenic, as is everything in Sweden. We admired the giant cliffs of granite all over the city. |
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We enjoyed a slow, 40-mile sail through the Stockholm archipelago as we headed to Kalmar. The islands were beautiful and the buildings on them were, too. |
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We love Stockholm! |
Copyright © Deborah Schilling/Thomas Bundy