The official birthday of Stockholm is August 1252, but that's only the first mention of the city in a letter written by the King and he was writing from a city, so who knows when it actually started. But whenever it was, the place certainly has history in your face, around every corner. Stockholm boasts 84 museums and today we skimmed the surface of 2.
From Gamla Stan, the original old town where our apartment is located, one can ferry to many of the other islands accessible by bridges also, but with a long walk. We boated over to the island which has a number of historic sites and walked to the Vassa Museum. This entire museum is for the royal military boat -- the Vassa which sank in the late 1600s after 1,300 m on its maiden voyage. That's right -- less than 2 km and a gust of wind broadside tipped, the top-heavy boat to the point where the (unfortunately still open after the cannon salute) gun holes were immersed, the ship took on water and sank, killing about 30 of the 500 on board. At the end of the 20th century it was raised and painstakingly reconstructed. Most of the ship on display is original and the carvings and design features are beautiful to behold, but first and foremost, a ship has to be able to manage the seas. OOPS!
The second dose of history was the Ridderholm Church. It is the oldest building in Stockholm dating from the 1260s. Started by Franciscan monks, it lost much of its prestige after the turn from Catholicism and became a church for burials. The Royal dynasties build elaborate chapels on the sides of the church, but common folk could be buried under the church floor if they could manage the price. Our guide was passionate about the topic and we could have gone on long after the one hour tour if it had not been closing time.
Ian and I poked around the city this afternoon and it is good to know that we can find some of the interesting spots from our previous trip, -- makes Stockholm an old friend to visit again and again.
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