TUESDAY, MAY 13, 2008, STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN

TUESDAY, MAY 13, 2008 - STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN - This was the last port for the cruise and we arrived overnight just as we had on previous occasions to a beautiful day in Sweden.  The pictures below were taken in the docking area.  (This was our last port stop before returning to Harwick, England).

 We noticed quite a few attractive buildings as we traveled through the city.

I particularly liked this white building with all the curves.  You will see it more than once.

We stopped for a visit to see the Vasa, a Swedish warship built between 1626 and 1628.  The ship foundered after sailing about 1,400 yards into her maiden voyage on August 10, 1628.  She fell into obscurity after most of her valuable bronze cannon were salvaged in the 17th century.  In the late 1950s she was located again in a busy shipping lane just outside the Stockholm harbor.  The ship was salvaged with a largely intact hull in 1961.  She was housed in a temporary museum until 1988 and then moved permanently to the Vasa Museum in the Royal National City Park in Stockholm.  The ship is one of Sweden's most popular tourist attractions and has been seen by over 35 million visitors since 1961.

During the 1961 recovery, thousands of artifacts and the remains of at least 15 people were found in and around Vasa's hull by marine archaeologists.  Among the many items found were clothing, weapons, cannons, tool, coins, cutlery, food, drink, and six of the ten sails.  The artifacts and the ship herself have provided scholars with invaluable insights into details of naval warfare, shipbuilding techniques and everyday life in the early 17th-century Sweden.

Traveling on through the city I took the following pictures of very attractive buildings, some probably homes, some apartment homes.

Note the bicycles parked along the street.

 This seemed like a very pretty area of businesses with apartment homes above on the left and walking & meeting places in the center.

 I took this picture framing the  church steeple between the buildings.

Note the rostral column behind the fountains

 We returned to the docking area.

The Stockholm archipelago is the largest archipelago in Sweden and the second-largest archipelago in the Baltic Sea (the largest being across the Baltic in Finland).  This archipelago extends from Stockholm roughly 37 miles to the east.  In a north-south direction, it mainly follows the coastline of two provinces.  The shipping routes from the Baltic to Stockholm pass through the archipelago.  There are three main entrances for deep-draught craft.