Europe 2019: Stockholm, Sweden

Europe 2019

Stockholm, Sweden

I was really surprised at how much I liked Stockholm, especially after the previous stop in Helsinki had been somewhat disappointing. Stockholm is a beautiful city and the central waterfront areas are especially picturesque and tourist friendly. 

One downside, however, is that we didn't actually port in Stockholm. We stopped in Nynashamn, which is nearly an hour away by bus. We booked the transport from the ship, which was just the Ho-Ho Bus again, and headed for central Stockholm. The drive was beautiful - much greener than I was expecting.

We never used the buses to move around Stockholm once we got there, but we figured out that there were boats that were included in our ticket that criss-crossed the harbor between sites we wanted to visit so we started hopping on those. It's a great way to travel.

One of those stops was the Vasa Museum. It's the most visited museum in all of Scandinavia and it's highly recommended by all the travel guides. It houses the only fully intact 17th century warship in existence. I didn't love it if I'm being honest. The ship is cool and all, and the facility is great (fantastic gift shop), but it's just a big ship. The story of the thing is awesome though. The Cliffnotes version is that they finished it in 1628, launched it, and it immediately sank off the harbor. They salvaged it in 1961 and it's been on display in some form or another since. I might have done a dedicated post to the Vasa Museum, but all of our pictures were blurry. It's a little dark and I guess we don't know what we're doing.

  
We did some eating, including Swedish meatballs of course. I have to report, sadly and surprisingly, that the ones at IKEA in Houston are better. 

When we were done visiting sights we strolled around the Gamla Stan area and did some shopping. It's a great part of the city and easy to navigate. 

More boat rides around the harbor. One thing we also did was visit the ABBA Museum, but I'm going to do a separate post on that one. 

I would come back to Stockholm again. It's a gorgeous city and everyone seemed friendly. It's expensive, but that aside I enjoyed our day here and left impressed.