Arrived in Stockholm, ahead of time and with short notice by train from Nyköping. Luckily Vicki (and maybe also Oskar) is well adapted to this sort of timeliness and we were soon installed in their house and garden, lounging about and cooking up the kitchen.
We had last been in Stockholm (pre kids) for their wedding and it had been almost as long since we last saw them. A lot can change in 15 years but essentially also nothing had changed and we slotted right back in.
After a couple of days, we relocated to Uncle Jonathan and Auntie Lilian’s luxury holiday apartment, recently liberated, in more central Stockholm.
It was a fine week to be in Stockholm. The sun shone and the days were bright and warm. It seemed that all of the population were out, profiting of the good conditions in the city’s man parks, green and public spaces that seem to line the many miles of waterfront that divvy up this waterborne metropolis.
Sascha spent a week or more here back in March and benefitted from his sub-18 status to visit and absorb all of the museums. So with him as our guide we visited a few too. We have less stamina in this domain than he.
First up was the Vasa museum, tribute to Sweden’s greatest failure during Sweden’s greatest era. The enormous 16th century warship sank in the harbour almost immediately after it was launched. Too top heavy. The “engineering” of the day was pretty adhoc with the head shipbuilder designing in his head as it was built and the king interjecting new measurements or features on the go. Sounds very similar to modern software development. It was dredged up pretty much intact not many years ago. The museum is a fascinating walkthrough of both the 16th century history as well as the 20th century restoration.
Otherwise we toured the old city (pretty but touristy), the Nobel Prize museum (a few nice films but otherwise quite bland), the contemporary art gallery (good first aid, bad art, and a nice make your own art station).
Other days were kayaking around the island, doing necessary chores such as hair cutting, Vicki’s choral recital and quite a lot of chilling. In the middle of it, we slipped in a three day outing to Utö in the Stockholm archipelago, subject of a future post.
