10. Aug 27: Stockholm - 1 of 3

Aug 27: Stockholm, Sweden, 1 of 3

I wanted to see the approach to Stockholm, so I went up on the top deck, again, this time at about 5:30. One other person was there at that time, and he told me that the pilot had boarded the ship about an hour earlier. Given that, I fully expected that as we wove through a bunch of islands we'd see the city just around the next bend or so. Oh no!

Sunrise with the camera steadied on the rail of the top deck

Old Fortress at entrance to Stockholm Harbor

Stockholm sits nestled amidst an archipelago of about 30,000 islands, many of them very small, just large enough for a small summer home and pier. Zillions of them! The journey from landfall to the city took about 3 hours – we finally docked at about 7:30. What an amazing and magical journey! I had the time of my life up there, watching and watching and waiting and wondering and watching some more. And mostly, I had the whole observation deck to myself. 'Twas grand, indeed.

Stockholm is over 7 centuries old, and gorgeous.

We got to our hotel, and were able to get into our room at about 10am, which was wonderful. After some nap time (I hadn't had a great night's sleep, and had arisen very early), we decided to take in one of the sights that Nan had planned on our seeing: the City Hall. Pictures follow below. 

 City Hall

Waiting for the tour to begin

Council Chamber

Ceiling of the City Council Chamber

 The guide who led us on a tour of the buidling asked how old we thougt it was, as we started out. I ventured that perhaps it was 700 years old, and she said, “That's a great answer. That's what the architect wanted you to think when he designed it in the early 20^th century!” It's an immense place, enormously large halls and incredibly high ceilings. The Nobel Prize Banquet is held in the City Hall.

It is in use – one of the photos shows a picture of the City Council chamber. There are 101 council members – originally there were 5 women, now it's 50-51. We were so glad that we could take the tour.  In one of the rooms, the Golden Hall, where the ball is held after the Nobel Banquet, the walls are made up of gold-glass tiled mosaics.  There are 18000 tiles in the mosaics.  Another room is called the Blue Room even though there's no blue in it - the architect saw the red bricks hit by the bright sunlight, and changed his mind about the blue, but the name never got changed.  

After the tour, we went and sat down by the river, very nice, and we returned to the hotel.

Outside City Hall by the river, where we sat

This is the old post office which we could see from our hotel window.  Fine looking building!