Scandinavia Day 18 Stockholm

Day 18 was a busy day sightseeing in Stockholm while dodging rain.  We saw city hall, the nobel museum, the stockholm cathedral, went on a short cruise, and Skansen.  A very busy but fun day

We had a very good breakfast in our hotel.  Lots of options, even Lincoln found things he liked

We had a brisk walk over to city hall to catch the 9 am tour and avoid the rain

City hall courtyard we got there just as it started to rain

The blue room, which was never painted blue.  This is where the Nobel banquets are held

Where the 100 members of the city council actually meet.  The ceiling is supposed to be like a viking ship

The gold room, there is actually a bunch of gold plating on the walls

Closeup of the queen of the lake

Next we went to climb the tour shown

There was a cool little exhibit on some of the art in city hall

The first walk up looked like this

Then we reached the wooden stairs

And finally the top with great views all around

Family photo

Old town (which the entire town used to fit on this island)

The bells at the top

On the way down Lincoln wanted to crawl into every window to look out

View of old town from the bottom.  At this point it started raining

Rainy walk through old town to the Nobel museum

Nobel museum 

They had artifacts from lots of nobel prize winners

Then we walked over to see the changing of the guard at the palace in the rain

Lincoln was having a great time dancing to the marching music in the rain

Next stop was a coffee shop for lunch

We had some pretty delicious sandwiches

After lunch it was raining less so we walked over to see the Stockholm cathedral

I think this is where some relic is?

Lots of important old tombs

The queens' booth.  This is also where royal weddings are

Then we walked over to catch a 50 min boat tour of the harbor.  On the way we learned Stockholm also has those stupid bus/boat things

Our comfortable boat

View of stockholm

This is where the rich people lived at the turn of the century

After the boat tour we had a 20 min walk over to an island to see the Vasa museum and Skansen.  The Vasa is this incredible boat that sank in the harbor 20 min after it took off.  It was from the 1600's and they raised it I think in the 60's.

Lots of intricate carving in the back

Gustavus Adolphus family seal

Lincoln had a bit of a meltdown in the museum so we didn't spend too much time there before we were on to Skansen which was a perfect stop for Lincoln

We took the funicular to the top of the hill

First stop was the children's petting zoo.  

Then we walked around and saw the Nordic animals including some moose

And reindeer who had a lovely view back to old town

Sadly we didn't have much time to explore all the building from all over Sweden.  We did stop in this church just as the sun finally came out

And this bell tower

On the way out we stopped at the aquiarium/zoo.  Lincoln loved playing with the fake alligator

And of course he loved the fish

Then it was time for another walk to dinner.  This was a park dedicated to another King Gustavus (the 4th maybe?).  He liked gardening

We got to walk through the gates that used to mark the King's hunting ground

Lots of cool buildings on the way to dinner.

When we made it to dinner they were almost out of food.  We had one of every dish that was left and it was all good

We stopped for gelato.  Also at the same place as this other american family that was next to us at dinner

View of one of the main squares as we walked back

We pretty much went straight to bed as we were exhausted from getting to nearly 30000 steps.  We did have to deal with the fact that amazon didn't deliver my suitcase as planned.  I guess I will be lugging around a 2 week suitcase and hopefully amazon will refund our money.  Tomorrow we have half a day to finish sightseeing in Stockholm and then on to Norway!