Joe and I kicked off our Scandinavian adventure in Sweden – my Motherland! We spent two days enjoying Stockholm, which is composed of somewhere around 24,000 islands. I picked out only two specific activities to share here, which were our favorites.
The Vasa – Our favorite part of Stockholm was actually someone else’s tragic mistake.
The Vasa
For 328 years, the Vasa lay silent in the cold, brackish waters of the Baltic- the key to her preservation. In 1956, the Vasa was discovered again and a slow, complicated process of raising her to the surface began. With an estimated weight of 700 tons, divers dug tunnels under the ship, thread cables through the tunnels, and then used hydraulic jacks mounted on pontoons on the surface to raise her 105 feet. Divers worked in one-hour shifts, using “the latest equipment”. The Vasa saw daylight again in 1961.
old school SCUBA gear
Preservation and restoration began and the Vasa was finally presented to the public in 1990, 44 years after being discovered! It is now the world’s oldest fully preserved warship, and it is unbelievable to see all the detail. It is rumored that Pirates of the Caribbean’s Flying Dutchman was modeled after it as well.
Even though the ship only held 100 sailors on her tragic journey, she was built to hold 400+. All of these men only had access to two latrines…if you even want to call them that. A tongue-in-cheek sign inside the museum read: “The Beakhead was a dangerous place to be in rough weather.” I’ll say!
The "latrine" is the small box in the lower right corner, between the two rope ties.
ICEBAR – Unfortunately, we couldn’t make it to Jukkasjärvi, which is 200km north of the Arctic Circle in the Swedish Lapland and home to the chilly “ICEHOTEL”. The next best thing: Stockholm’s “ICEBAR”! Kept at -5oC, ice for the bar comes from the Torne river, the same source as the hotel. All the drinks are made with Sweden’s own Absolut Vodka.
no need for a fridge here
ice glasses
Luckily they gave us gloves and a cape!
