Pretty much all of the regular Lido and Pool guys are here and were more than glad to see us. And they all asked how everyone is at home, in between making sure there was absolutely nothing else they could do for us.
Our tour today took us into Stockholm from the port, where we passed some of the important buildings, including the Royal Palace, where, according to our guide, Crown Princess Victoria’s wedding last year drew 500,000 people to watch the ‘balcony scene’. That’s not a bad turnout when you consider that the population of greater Stockholm is only 1.2 million.
Our first stop was Sigtuna, a town dating back to 980 AD (a number none of us is likely to forget given the number of times one of our tour group had asked about it and confused it with 1980), and the first Christian capital of Sweden. It still holds the ruins of the first church, and still standing is the Church of St. Mary that was erected around 1200.
It is a picturesque town, and not only for tourists. It is not very far from the main airport for Stockholm at Arlanda, and many people working at the airport live in the area. They must be extremely well-paid, though, since the house prices we saw in the real estate office windows seemed almost ridiculous even given the current exchange rate is 6 Krone per Dollar.
After leaving Sigtuna, we headed for our lunch and visit to Skolkloster Palace. This palace is quite large and was built by a very wealthy nobleman (not royalty) on the shores of Lake Malaren as a summer home, one of 11 he had all over Europe. It seems he had one too many houses, since he apparently only ever stayed here for 30 days all together before he died. In fact, when his descendents donated the building, contents and grounds to the Swedish government they made quite an archaeological find – it seems that there was one very large unfinished room upstairs that was still under constructions when he died. The workmen, believing that they would no longer be paid, left all their tools in the middle of their work and walked out. The family had locked the door on this room and never mentioned it again – for about 300 years. So when the Swedish cultural authorities came to look over the place, they found this room exactly as it had been left, so they knew precisely what kinds of tools and building methods were being used on the building. By this time, of course, a lot of repair was needed, so they were able to do these exactly the same way as the original building was done.
Unfortunately, although there was a lot to see, including a very complete armoury (rifles, pistols and even suits of armour and chain mail), there were no photos allowed inside the building, so we had to be content with a few shots of the outside.
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| The old convent on the grounds |
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| The view up Lake Malaren |
It was a nice day out seeing the Swedish countryside. We got back to our stateroom in time to change for dinner and find an invitation to visit the Crystal Society hostess, Jane, at her desk. By the time we finished talking to her, we had already started out sail out from the harbour. Stockholm itself is 13 connected islands, and the whole archipelago is about 1,100 of them. The sail in and sail out are among the most picturesque in the world and take just about 5 hours to complete. Here are a few photos:
After dinner we went to the Welcome Aboard show and had our first chance to talk to Rick Spath, the Cruise Director. He sends his regards to everybody, too. Later in the evening, we also met Captain Glenn who was quite pleased to see us again and happy that we will be staying on for the North Cape trip as well.
Tomorrow’s a sea day – spa appointments and lectures. Since we only have two sea days, there’s a lot to be crammed in. More on that tomorrow.
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