In Which I See a Volvo - 10/5/13

We had a very satisfactory day in the land of black-clothed people. After a culturally appropriate breakfast, we bought two Stockholm Cards, put on our raincoats, and hit the streets.

Stockholm consists of 14 islands, so you always have to cross at least one of the 54 bridges to get somewhere. The bridges have pedestrian lanes and bike lanes. Being careful not to walk in the bike lanes, we walked over toward Stromkajen where we used our Stockholm Cards to get tickets for the Royal Canal Boat Tour. The canal boats are  long flat boats that can go under bridges.

During the tour you can listen to a recording in 12 different languages and follow along on a laminated map. Due to the water level (high? low?) we had to take the alternate route and did not get to circumnavigate the island of Djurgården.

The Nordiska Museum on Djurgården

Djurgården

Djurgården

(The recorded narrative mentioned the effects of global climate change on the waters around Stockholm several times and there was never any suggestion that global climate change was a liberal myth.)  This tour was a fun way to get oriented to several parts of the city.

Sometimes you can only see the best part of a bridge from the water

After the canal boat tour we wandered around a bit and walked past the Opera House, the Kungsträdgården, the  Theatre and the Synagogue. We paid a short visit to the Hallwyl Museum to observe the lifestyle of a fabulously wealthy family 100 years ago. We also peeked into a few stately old hotels which did not have public restrooms, but one of them did have a sign explaining how not to get ripped off by a taxi. That information would have been more useful yesterday. We dodged traffic constantly - consisting of streetcars, trolley cars, buses, bicycles and lots of Volvos.

Nice sconces!

Kungliga Dramatiska Teatern

"Walk In, Dance Out" - Trolley advertising the Abba Museum

Next on the agenda was our "Little Archipelago Tour (with lunch)" aboard the m/s Östanå (built in 1906).

This trip was a delight! The archipelago in this case is a group of 32,000 islands stretching from Stockholm some 80 miles out into the Baltic. We didn't go that far out, but we did get out to within sight of Vaxholm. The fall leaves were almost at their peak, and the scenery was spectacular. Most of the islands were populated with charming summer homes and cottages, saunas, greenhouses, and other cute little structures. This area reminded us a lot of a certain family's cabin in Alaska.

The "old" (part of the Skansen)

The "new"

 Out in the Archipelago: