Upon the Baltic Sea

Page 3

Our adventure begins. It will take us to Stockholm first, followed by Helsinki,

St. Petersburg (for 2 days), Tallinn, Gdansk and finally Oslo.

Stockholm, Sweden

August 31, 2008

Coming into Stockholm, a ship must navigate through miles of an archipelago, made up of hundreds of islands, large and small.

It took 4 hours to get through them, and it was quite beautiful.

The islands had everything from simple farms,
modest vacation homes, and vast estates on them.

My sister-in-law, Solveig’s sister, Maryanne, met us at the dock and her son Nicholi, drove us to the amazing Vasa Museum. In 1628 an absolutely huge fighting ship was sunk on it’s first voyage, because the king wanted another deck to make it bigger, and it tipped over. It was salvaged in 1957 and unbelievably, it had not rotted, and it was able to be reconstructed. A beautiful museum has been erected around the ship and photos can’t begin to do it justice. It was extremely impressive!

Below is a replica of the original ship and how it was resurrected from the sea hundreds of years later.

Maryanne then took us to the National Art Museum, which housed an amazing clock collection (much enjoyed by D.Munro, but photos weren’t allowed). We then had a lovely stroll around the old city, stopping for lunch at a boat/restaurant.


This is Stockholm’s National Theater

From atop a hill, we had a great view of the whole city.