Stockholm

I visited the Vasa in her museum. She was a ship that sank in 1628 in a strong wind only 1300m into her maiden voyage. She was top heavy, a design flaw, Sweden was a great power and the king was impatient to launch her. Sound familiar? Other than the salvage of her cannons she lay undisturbed in Stockholm harbour until she was salvaged in 1961. She was extraordinarily well preserved due to the cold Baltic waters and a snapshot of Swedish society four centuries ago.

In 1988 she was moved to the Vasa Museum. When I visited her, she was in a temporary museum called the Vasavarvet, being treated with polyethylene glycol. Today the Vasa Museum is the most popular in Scandinavia.

Skansen on Djurgården (obviously a cognate of Tiergarten in German) is an open air museum and park, and a quick way to get an introduction to Swedish natural history and culture.

And if you are a kid, get to view or pet animals.

Up till then I had only heard about runestones in Norse tales.

There was a demonstration workshop on the grounds.

A major shopping street in Stockholm.

Most of the photos following were actually taken on the return visit but posted here to avoid breaking up Stockholm across two posts.

I remember passing a Swedish girl outside a shopping centre who was wearing a fishnet blouse that left nothing of her buxom chest to the imagination. She swished past so fast that by the time my brain registered what I'd seen she was gone. I thought, wow the Swedes are very relaxed about public nudity. If this happened today I would look around to see if there were fashion photographers following her.

When I first arrived I called at the tourist centre for a city map. Unfortunately they were out of the English version, but seeing that they had the French version, I asked for that. I should check if I still have it in my keepsakes,

I missed good films after all those weeks on the road. I had seen mention of Fitzcarraldo, a film by Werner Herzog, a filmmaker I respected. So I thought, surely they would have English voiceovers for an international film? Today I don't understand my flawed logic. As it turned out, it was voiced in German and subtitled in Swedish. I had to see it again in London to get the full story. Later, in Rochester, I saw Les Blank's "making of" film, Burden of Dreams. The intriguing thing is that Herzog pulled off an engineering feat equivalent to what the fictional Fitzcarraldo had done in the screenplay.

Stockholm has a unique hostel, the af Chapman which used to be a training ship for the Swedish Navy. I didn't try to get a bed here as I knew it would be very popular. But I did pay it a visit. I stayed in a hostel in the suburbs, very bucolic but also some ways by metro. I remember the stations were deep underground, perhaps to be well under the frost line?

Stockholm has a gorgeous harbour.

It is flaunted a lot in tourist brochures. Or go to an Ikea store to see a poster.

Colourful sculptures in the vicinity of the water.

Gamla Stan, the old town, with narrow alleyways.

And lots of milling tourists.

Some scenes of Stockholm taken before heading south to Malmö. This looks like a market but I remember nothing of it.

Some kind of formal occasion.

A street entertainer.

Geometric pattern on the plaza.

In the evening I boarded an overnight ferry bound for Helsinki. The archipelago that surrounds Stockholm is impressive. Stockholm is one of several cities that lays claim to the title Venice of the North.

There are islands of all sizes, some with what looked like holiday homes with boat landings.

One that is a navigational landmark with lighthouse.

Hackneyed but I can't resist photographing sunsets.

I waited for the yacht to line up to take this photo.

It was comfy inside the huge ship. I had not booked a berth or even a seat so I found a suitable spot in the lounge for my sleeping bag. It wasn't the most restful of nights, mainly due to the noise from people going past even in the small hours of the morning (duty free alcohol in international waters might be an explanation), so I was bleary eyed the next morning in Helsinki. You'll get to see the size of the ship in the next post.