I had two days at the Furniture Fair and then we had a day wandering around Gamla Stan, the historic centre of the city. We caught a ferry to Djurgarden and visited the incredible Vasa Museum. After 2 and a half years of buidling in August 1628 the VASA set out on here maiden voyage. She was built as a huge and impressive symbol of the Kings strength in the mibble of a bitter war with Poland and so she was heavily armed with cannons and intricately decorated with wooden carvings and sculptures. After 30 minutes under sail, she caught a gust of wind, keeled over and sank! 333 years later she was lifted to the surface andwas almost perfectly preserved by the mud and silt of the Stockholm harbour. Skeletons, shoes, sails, ropes and the majority of the fine carvings were found intact! After many years of restoration she is now on display in a purpose built museum. Amazing.
The large building in the middle is the VASA museum and if you can make out the masts added to the roof you can see how high the original masts would have stood when she set sail in 1628...
The VASA... look for the person walking below to get a sense of the vast scale...
Flying home over Norway...endless snowy mountains and not a road to be seen...
