{"id":1836,"date":"2014-07-17T22:36:03","date_gmt":"2014-07-17T15:36:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gordonandjudy.com\/?p=1836"},"modified":"2014-07-17T22:36:03","modified_gmt":"2014-07-17T15:36:03","slug":"stockholm-and-the-archipelago-71614","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/gordonandjudy.com\/?p=1836","title":{"rendered":"Stockholm, and the Archipelago, 7\/16\/14"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today is the final day of our \u201c5 for 5\u201d (5 consecutive excursion days).\u00a0 <\/span>We\u2019re beginning to tire of sitting on buses.\u00a0 <\/span>We\u2019re definitely tired of waiting extra time on a bus for other guests who can\u2019t seem to be where they\u2019re supposed to be, when they\u2019re supposed to be.\u00a0 <\/span>Celebrity Cruises should keep a list that lasts forever of guests who are late to a meeting time on an excursion.\u00a0 <\/span>Then all those late people could participate only on excursions with other \u201clate\u201d people, for the remainder of their cruising lives.\u00a0 <\/span>(sorry for the mild rant)<\/p>\n

\u00a0We liked Helsinki yesterday, but today\u2019s experience in Stockholm was even better.\u00a0 <\/span>We started at 9:30 with a short drive through the city, arriving at the Stockholm City Hall.\u00a0 <\/span>I didn\u2019t realize until we were inside that this is the site where the \u201cNobel Prize Banquet\u201d is held every year.\u00a0 <\/span>The walls and floor suddenly seemed more significant than the \u201cplain old city hall\u201d I thought I was going to be touring.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Stockholm City Hall, site of the Nobel Prize Award Banquet.<\/p><\/div>\n

\u00a0\"IMG_1496\"<\/a> \"IMG_1499\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The 2nd<\/sup> part of the City Hall tour was the Golden Hall.\u00a0 <\/span>Basically, the room was supposed to be decorated with a fresco by a world-renowned Swedish artist in 1919.\u00a0 <\/span>Unfortunately he died before he had a chance to start.\u00a0 <\/span>There was no \u201cPlan B.\u201d\u00a0 <\/span>The room ended up being finished with mosaic tiles sold to Sweden really cheaply after WWI (Germany was broke and needed the money).\u00a0 <\/span>The only person in Sweden who knew anything at all about how to work with the tiles was a 25-year old laborer.\u00a0 <\/span>His only artistic exposure working with mosaic tiles was 2 weeks he spent after graduating from high school, working in an Italian tile factory.\u00a0 <\/span>The room was ugly, the art was ugly, and everyone knows it, thus the appeal?<\/p>\n

\"IMG_1519\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Next was the Vasa Museum.\u00a0 <\/span>It\u2019s a huge museum containing a ship that sank 20 minutes into it\u2019s inaugural sailing.\u00a0 <\/span>Built in the 1600s, it was meant to be the largest warship in Scandinavia and would help the Swedish king conquer the world.\u00a0 <\/span>There were a few design issues, and down it went.\u00a0 <\/span>It wasn\u2019t raised until 1961, and is 98% complete.\u00a0 <\/span>It\u2019s huge and an impressive display.\u00a0 <\/span>The Swedes sure have a way of taking a mistake and capitalizing on it.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_1536\"<\/a>

The Vasa<\/p><\/div>\n

\"IMG_1550\"<\/a> \"IMG_1543\"<\/a><\/p>\n

We toured the city a little more, finally getting a chance to eat lunch on our own in the old town city center.\u00a0 <\/span>It was a picturesque area, and we enjoyed a great meal of Swedish meatballs.\u00a0 <\/span>Afterwards, we could either rejoin the tour or take time to walk the area and check out the local shops.\u00a0 <\/span>We\u2019ve seen lots of cathedrals, so we opted for time on our own.\u00a0 <\/span>It was nice to walk at a relaxed pace and not feel pressured to race back to the bus.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_1570\"<\/a>

Brick streets, and cobblestone streets. The cobblestone streets are not easy to walk on, and these were better than others we’ve experienced.<\/p><\/div>\n

\u00a0\"IMG_1563\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Back on the ship, it\u2019s an early sailing (4:00 pm).\u00a0 <\/span>We get a serious look at the Swedish Archipelago, some of the more the 30,000 islands belonging to Sweden, as we sail away.\u00a0 <\/span>The captain of the ship referred to our exit as \u201cslaloming out\u201d.\u00a0 <\/span>It was fun to watch a line of several ships turning back and forth as they worked their way through the islands.\u00a0 <\/span>It took 5 hours to finally get to the open sea, and the views were so relaxing.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"IMG_1482\"<\/a> \"IMG_1473\"<\/a> \"IMG_1347\"<\/a> \"IMG_1343\"<\/a> \"IMG_1339\"<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today is the final day of our \u201c5 for 5\u201d (5 consecutive excursion days).\u00a0 We\u2019re beginning to tire of sitting on buses.\u00a0 We\u2019re definitely tired of waiting extra time on a bus for other guests who can\u2019t seem to be … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/gordonandjudy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1836"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/gordonandjudy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/gordonandjudy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gordonandjudy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gordonandjudy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1836"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/gordonandjudy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1836\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1837,"href":"http:\/\/gordonandjudy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1836\/revisions\/1837"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/gordonandjudy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gordonandjudy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1836"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gordonandjudy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}