Here we are again
We’ve been to Stockholm many times and whilst looking at the tours on offer for our two days here, I’ll admit to feeling a little unenthusiastic. All the options seemed familiar and there was a “been there, done that” vibe from us both.
Really. One might think we’d have learned from our visit to Auckland last year. Places change. We change - grow up, maybe - and nothing stays the same. Not only that, places improve and are frequently even better than those fond memories we have of them. So it was this morning, in Stockholm.
I woke as we were sailing through the archipelago and opened the curtains wide to let the sunshine in. 6am and everything was looking great!
The air was fresh and cool. A fine start to the day.
The Old Town - Gamla Stan - was looking lovely in the sunshine and as we set off on our tour, it felt good to be here again.
We made a short stop at a viewpoint, from where we could see our destination: the Vasa Museum. It’s the dark structure by the church with the tall steeple, over behind the trees.
Here at the viewpoint was a bronze figure of a little chap sitting on the top of one of the pillars. He’s Karlsson on the Roof the main character from a book by Astrid Lindgren and here, he’s been created by Kolodko Mihàly, a Ukranian-Hungarian sculptor. He has a small propellor on his back which is the key to his adventures.
From here we drove through the city on a bit of a whistle stop tour which prompted fond memories for us.
Passing the Parliament building and over into the central shopping district, we gathered a few ideas for tomorrow, when we don’t have a tour and had left free of plans for now.
We were soon at our destination, where thankfully there was no queue and we were able to go straight inside.
Our guide, Antoinette was keen for us all to have that “wow” moment on catching our first glimpse of Vasa.
And we did! This was certainly our third “first glimpse” and may have been our fourth…but it still had the WOW factor and it was as great, if not better, than we remembered. A recent newspaper article had whetted our appetite to return here as well, so that “first glimpse” this morning was very much looked forward to.
Just inside the door, however, and easily overlooked, was another small bronze sculpture. This was of King Gustavus Adolphus “deep in prayer”, by sculptor Carl Miller.
The story of the Vasa includes the fact that the King was not present at the launch, so perhaps the artist imagined his reaction to the events that day. He would surely have been horrified to learn of the fate of the Vasa, his ambitious project that had taken two years to complete.
It’s remarkably well preserved having sunk in fresh, cold water. When raised from the seabed, it was in surprisingly good condition - just, as our guide explained, in rather a lot of pieces.
We took our time to make our way along the side of the ship, peering in through the open gun ports to try to see something of the inside.
As we reached the stern, we admired the figures of Roman Emperors, Kings and Saints, all remarkably well preserved. 98% of the vessel is original.
The viewing place for the highly decorated sterncastle was understandably crowded, but patience reaps rewards!
We could get a good look from both sides, though I had been interested by a projected image on the wall nearby showing how brightly it had been painted.
Photographs of projected images are tricky to take, so I was glad to find there was a model of the ship just along the way.
What’s more, nobody seemed very interested in that, so I could get up close and take my pictures!
My word, what a sight that ship must have been! So highly decorated in bright colours - it must have been utterly heartbreaking to watch it capsize and sink.
A short wait for the lift and we were able to go up to the seventh floor to get a closeer look at the sterncastle too, probably the most spectacular decorated part of Vasa.
We were thrilled that we’d decided to come here again and were just as impressed as we were the first time, if not more so.
We went back to our meeting place and then to the bus, which was waiting outside the impressive Nordic Musuem.
As we drove away from the Vasa Museum, we remarked on the immensity of the queues, feeling relieved that we’d been here early. As we drove, guide Antoinette said she had one last thing to show us: a circle of Ambassadors’ homes with one small feature she wanted us to see.
As we turned a corner, she pointed out the Hungarian Ambassador’s home before leaping off the bus to point out a tiny figure at the base of the fence there.
It’s another of Kolodko Mihàly’s works: Alfred Nobel, the Swedish scientist most famous for his Nobel Prize. Today he was dressed in Swedish colours, though his outfits change frequently, we learned!
It was a good way to end our tour, which began with a small bronze figure, introduced us to another in the Vasa museum and finished off with a third. It seems Stockholm has quite a collection of tiny statues - something for us to look out for next time we’re here 😉
