Our last day in Stockholm... and more adventuring!

What a jam packed day... yet it didn't feel bad!  Exploring more of the city by coach... visiting and roaming The City Hall (where the big Nobel Prize Dinner is), looking at the Vasa Sailing Ship (recovered after 300+ submerged in the harbor) then lunch with a view.... decided we wanted to see a different part of the city by boat plus spend time in the Baltic Sea.  Yet, it didn't end there... we walked for about 90 to 120 minutes around more of the city.  It's our last day here and we though we sound busy, it wasn't tiring!  Plus, we decided to do on more geocache... and some Swedes were looking for the same one, so we put out heads together and, voila!  We Found It!

The City Hall is all brick  with a huge inner courtyard built in 1923.  The elected city officials meet here for their monthly meetings.  There are several halls within... one which seats 1300 people for a meal.  One room is all Gold mosaic tiles... Ceilings and walls in other rooms were spectacular too.  The craftsmanship on one ceiling built to appear like the hull of a boat upside down was beautiful.  This building was not one we were planning on visiting, but, boy are we glad we did! 

We left the Hall and headed through town to the Museum which held the sailing ship Vasa.  It only sailed for 20 minutes after it was built... and went down on its maiden journey.  Talk about fingers pointing blame.  It was lucky for the ship architect that he passed away before the boat was completed.  In the end, no one was blamed... However... I don't know if the pictures do it justice, but it was pretty obvious... It was TOP HEAVY big time... First time ever, two rows of cannons (with some cannons weighing at least a ton), an upper deck, then the rear deck that went up even higher... not enough ballast... and, like I said... she started to list right out of the gate,  and in twenty minutes she went down, killing some folks at the same time. 

During the 1950's efforts were made to bring her back to the surface and she was raised in 1961, all very carefully trying to keep her as intact as possible.  The Baltic Sea is just brackish enough that it was well preserved seeing it had been in the water since the late 1600's.  Sad, there where skeletons of some of those who perished when it went down.  

 Alright folks, the lines are NOT from the 1600... but recreated...

 See the double rows of cannons.... a first at that time... and it didn't work so well for them... not enough ballast!

 Can you imagine just how top heavy that stern was... ?

 This is a scale model (which took longer to build than the original boat)... and the colors the boat would have been had it not been in the water for hundred of years.  This really shows how little of the boat was in the water compared to what was above... and with very little ballast... well.. no surprise what happen!

 Looking up at the stern... and not even from ground level!

A marvelous lunch with a great view... and the bread... oh, so good.... 

 Weird Hot Dogs... In the US, the bun is bigger than the dog... here the opposite... and it's called a "French" hot dog... Is that cuz it uses Frenches Mustard... ?  No idea...

 And another boat ride....

 This crane is painted like a giraffe!

 The every popular midway type carnival was busy twirling folks, dropping folks... that sorta stuff