Exploring Stockholm, Sweden

The concert last night turned out to be really great! Dave Koz was the main performer, with Kenny Lattimore as his special guest. We loved it!

This morning we arrived in Stockholm, Sweden and our guided tour began at 9:30 a.m. Our tour guide was Anna-Sara, and she did a fantastic job. The weather was beautiful: sunny, low humidity, and around 73 degrees!

We found out that Stockholm means "log island", probably because the residents used to float logs in the water as a means of defense against enemy ships.

Our first stop was City Hall. This place is notable because it hosts a banquet for Nobel Prize winners every year in its "Blue Room". The Blue Room was immense but a little bit dull. The "Gold Room", on the other hand, was anything but dull! It features beautiful gold mosaics. This mosaic shows the Malar Queen:

This mosaic, to the left of the Queen, has references to the United States:

I thought this one was pretty neat too:

Our next stop in Stockholm was to the Vassa Museum. This museum features an enormous ship which was built a long time ago, was launched in 1628, and sank on its first voyage out of the harbor! In 1961, the ship was brought up from the bottom of the sea and is being restored. This is what the real thing looks like now:

The ship was poorly designed, too top-heavy and when the wind hit the sails, it just rolled over and sank. These salvaged cannons may explain why it was top-heavy:

This model shows what the ship probably looked like before it sank:

There were 30 bodies found in the ship when it was recovered. Scientists have been able to recreate what they probably looked like and how old they were and what their jobs were. It's amazing to me how much was recovered, in pretty good condition, from the ship! They think that because the ship was in a mixture of salt water and fresh water, the ship and its contents did not deteriorate as much as they would have if the wreck had happened in pure salt water.

Our next stop was to Stockholm's "Old Town". We had an excellent lunch at "Da Peppe" - I had salmon on a bed of cabbage with an unbelievable cream sauce on top. Even the salad was delicious, with honey dressing! We'll have to try making that at home!

After lunch, we joined up with the tour and got to see the town square:

After a few more photo ops, it was time to return to the ship.

Our impressions of Stockholm: it's a very large city with a traffic problem; we spent a lot of time on the bus going nowhere fast. However, it was very clean, and people were friendly and helpful and professional. We had the impression that people are doing well economically there. We felt safe there.

The ship left port around 4:30 p.m. Our next stop tomorrow morning is Tallinn, Estonia.

The concert on the ship on Tuesday night was Mindi Abair and the Boneshakers followed by Larry Graham. Both acts were fantastic! Mindi's music is more rock 'n' roll than smooth jazz these days; she has an edgy sound but we really like her. Larry Graham is a bass player and vocalist who used to be with "Sly and the Family Stone". His signature song is "One In a Million". He came out in an all-white suit with a big feather on his white hat. He was really pimpin' and quite the entertainer!