The ship that met its Waterloo

I am really impressed with Stockholm. It's a beautiful city, or at least the central area is. And there is a surfeit of sights, both modern and historic.

First comes breakfast and this hotel excels at that. There are too many choices! The hot food may be limited, but there are breads, cold cuts, fruit, cereals, yoghurt, juices and even pancakes and waffles to choose from. It's little wonder we skipped lunch today.

Afterwards we strolled down to the Gamla Stan with its atmospheric narrow cobblestone streets, the Swedish Parliament building and the royal palace. Yes it's a bit touristy at times, but it's also magical and I feel like we don't spend enough time there.

We do stop at the Nobel Museum. Alex gets into the kids activities, answering questions in return for a prize. A chocolate Nobel prize. There's a large display on Martin Luther King which Alex selects as his favourite, a good choice. I enjoy viewing various instruments associated with Nobel Prize winning research. It was worth a visit.

We catch a slow ferry across to Djurgarden. It may be the middle of the day, but already it feels like the late afternoon.

It's a bit of a walk in the snow and chill to the Vasa Museum. This houses the Vasa, a 64 gun vessel that sunk on its maiden voyage in 1628 after sailing around a kilometre out of port.

She was raised from the bottom of Stockholm harbour in the 1960's, a huge operation, and is the best preserved ship of its era.

The sight of this huge, but poorly designed, wooden vessel is awe-inspiring. The preservation efforts are also interesting, as are the reconstructions of the skeletons of crew that lie on display.

The sun is near the horizon when we finally depart the Vasa and walk to the ABBA Museum.

Whilst I'm not much of an ABBA fan (B is) the museum was nonetheless a lot of fun.

There are plenty of interactive exhibits and some, no doubt embarrassing, video and sound exists waiting for download.

We tried to catch a tram back to the hotel, only it was a bus instead. I don't know what the deal is with buses replacing trams but I don't like it!

We've run out of clothes and the hotel laundry is prohibitively expensive, so we had to search for additional clothes. Unfortunately finding something other than slim-fit XL t-shirts was tricky. I even went to Uniqlo!

Finding dinner was another tricky affair, unless we wanted fast food. We eventually found a bar in the theatre district that served up reasonably priced Swedish foods.

I had more meatballs.

Tomorrow we leave Stockholm but hopefully not before we've had time to explore more of this beautiful city.

Comments

Springs, castles and the end of the line

I am never happy to stop before the end of the line. It irritates me to know that there is still somewhere unexplored lying ahead. So when I only got as far as Gujo Hachiman on the Nagaragawa Railway last year I knew I needed to return for more. Especially as this private third sector railway is, by its very nature, always at threat of closure due to low patronage. But did Gujo Hachiman deserve another visit? Sure it's a nice enough town, but had we missed out on enough last time to return? Mum's trip provided the excuse. I originally planned the Oito line, which wI'll be partly closed when the Shinkansen line is extended to Kanazawa. However, when I thought of special places in Japan that deserved to be shared Gujo Hachiman was at the top of the list. Before we could go anywhere Mum needed her coffee. There was a Tully's Coffee opposite the hotel entrance, so I parked her there while I booked our seat reservations. Mum got her fast train ride on a ...

One night in Canberra

It's the April school holidays and we are too busy to have a break but need one because of that. And because it's the Easter weekend the options are limited, so we just drive down to Canberra for the night. No, this isn't our first trip for 2023. I wrote about Japan on another site . I refuse to wake up early so we depart after 8.30 AM. There is not much to say about the drive except that the clouds seem so low and Lake George is very full. We stop at a rest area and at the lookout up the hill to take it all in. Everyone is hungry so we first stop in Dickson and then can't think of anything to eat, so I drive us to Civic, where we can't decide and end up eating at the Singaporean Killiney Kopitiam branch. The Canberra Centre has nice shops. I dream of getting an iPad from the Apple Store, we buy a blanket and toothbrushes from Muji and wish that Lego wasn't so expensive. Nothing we can't get in Sydney, but then we rarely go out shopping in the city. It...

The Carlingford Line

We close the year and the decade with a local adventure to mark the closure of a railway line. On the January 5, 2020, the Carlingford Line from Clyde will close to be partially replaced by the Parramatta Light Rail. This is Sydney's quietest line, a single track branch for most of its length from the industrial centre of Clyde to the northwestern suburb of Carlingford. According to Wikipedia, power supply and signalling issues mean that only a single four car train can utilise the line at a time. Newer Sydney trains run in fixed eight car configurations. This will be the first and last time I traverse the Carlingford Line in its current configuration. The weather of the day is certainly appropriate for an ending, the brown smoke haze lending an apocalyptic air to proceedings. I drive to Padstow and catch the T8 line to Central, followed by the T1 towards Parramatta and Penrith. The historic homes of the Inner West give way to industrial complexes, rail storage yards and t...

travelling allrite

Search This Blog