Stockholm

We arrived at the Stockholm campground in early afternoon, just after it stopped raining and just before it started raining again. During the dry spell we managed to set up our tent and have something to eat. We went into the city in the evening, taking the Metro and heading straight to Gamla stan, the old town. After strolling around for a while we settled in a pub that displayed hundreds of different kinds of beer, many of them on tap. We asked the bartender for some Swedish beer but he just frowned and told us that all he had was a lager and an ale from a microbrewery. That’s it? In a pub with hundreds of beers they don’t have any good local beers to offer tourists? But we already knew that, Scandinavia is not known for beers or wines.


We spent the next two days sightseeing, mostly museums. The first on the list was the Vasa museum with the Swedish version of the Titanic. The Vasa ship sank when it first sailed out to sea and remained at the bottom of the sea until 1961 when it was raised, restored and moved to a museum. I was quite impressed with the museum as it displayed so much more than just the ship. A section of the museum is a reconstruction of one of the ship’s decks since the ship itself is off limits to tourists. Another section presents the results of a research project to determine what colors were painted on the decorations on the ship. And my favorite part is a section with bones of the ship’s crew and passengers, complete with facial reconstructions and whatever facts the researchers were able to gather from examining the bones. Obviously watching the TV series Bones had a huge impact on me; previously I would definitely have run away from human remains, but now I was curious to see what Bones would see.


Another interesting sight in Stockholm is the Ericsson Globe. It is just a sports arena, but with a circular dome and a funicular that runs up to the top on the outside of the globe. While nothing special really, they make a big show of how it was manufactured and it looks quite cool and futuristic so I had to go on a ride up there. It made me wonder why other sports stadiums don’t come up with the idea to generate additional income by making tourists pay so they can go up to the roof?


There was also a cute music museum with lots of musical instruments and instructional videos on how to use them so visitors could play them. I was thrilled that among the various styles of music that were on display, ABBA had its own category, with a display of the drums and keyboard that was allegedly used by the band.

After two days of wandering around the city we were tired and it was time to turn back for the long drive back home. On our way back we stopped at a roadside stop for lunch where I picked up a flyer advertising a moose safari. That was something that I would have liked to see but unfortunately it was too far away from where we were and we probably wouldn’t make it there before closing. I was sorry to have missed an opportunity to see a live moose, but who knows, perhaps next time?