Day 9 Of Our Baltic Capitals Cruise- Stockholm, Sweden

This morning we got up especially early for our visit to Stockholm, Sweden.

We actually dropped anchor in Nynashamn, which is about a 1 hour bus ride outside of Nynashamn.  Not positive as to why they would drop anchor there rather than docking at a pier in Stockholm. 2 possibilities would be that all of the piers were full of cruise ships and there was no room for us to dock there and the other possibility would be that it is much cheaper to drop anchor where we were, compared to having to pay docking or port fees.

Veronica and I had decided to do Stockholm on our own but the only problem was getting from the dock in Nynashamn into Stockholm.

We decided to do what they called the Stockholm On Your Own excursion. What NCL does is they give you a map of Stockholm and a bus drives you from the dock in Nynashamn to the Opera House in Stockholm and then you are free to go wherever you want.

The bus will then pick you up at that same Opera House location at a specific time, so that you can return to the ship. 

After getting some breakfast, we headed to the Stardust Theater, where lots of people were sitting and waiting for their excursion to be called. Once their excursion is called, those people would go to the ships level where they were boarding the tender boats.

Once a tender boat is full, they would drive the boat to the dock in Nynashamn and from there they would board whatever bus was being utilized for their specific excursion. 

When our excursion got called, we boarded our tender boat and off we went.

It took the tender boat about 10 minutes or so to make its way from the ship to the dock.

Once we reached the dock, we found our bus number and before you know it, we were on our way to Stockholm.

Once again I want to apologize for the quality of the first few photos as there were taken from inside of the bus and I was dealing with reflections from the windows in the bus

  Darn those reflections. I really wish that they made tour buses with anti reflective glass

Stockholm had some beautiful architecture

I thought that this little covered scooter was kind of neat  

  Beautiful building overlooking the inner harbor

This is the beginning of Stockholm's Royal Palace which is also known as Kungliga Slottet. The palace is located in the Gamla Stan (Old Town) section of Stockholm.The Stockholm Royal Palace was built 1697 to 1754 and is the biggest palace in the world still used by a king.

  

After walking around some, we returned to the Royal Palace in time to view the Changing Of The Guard ceremony.  The changing of the guards is a pomp and circumstance-filled affair, reenacted daily at 12:15. The event starts with a drum corps marching through the main courtyard, while guards carrying flags present the colors of Sweden and the royal family.

  

  

Below are prices for a room in a local Hostel. A double room is 650SEK and that equals approximately $97 USD. A shared room is 230SEK which is approximately $34.00 USD. The 9 bedded room is 2070SEK which comes to approximately $309.00 USD...divide that by 9 and you get approximately $34.00 USD per person. I am sure that these are nightly rates.

There were all kinds of small streets, squares, cafes and small stores throughout the Gamla Stan area of Stockholm

The area was extremely quiet when we first arrived but it was not too long until we had lots of people walking around

Below are photos of the Viking Shop. I have not seen many of these in my travels. Actually this was the fist and only one that I have ever seen.

Here is Europe's most famous hostel, the AF Chapman, is a hundred-year-old schooner permanently moored just over a bridge from downtown. This floating hostel sleeps 140 — two to eight beds per stateroom

Below is an underground parking garage

We saw this antique shop and decided to go in. Veronica ended up buying a teacup and saucer set that was made in Sweden back in 1904, She also found somethings that she really wasn't expecting to find...some cabinet cards. She uses these cards in her mixed media art. She worked out a great deal with the guy working in the store...50 cabinet cards...really old ones for $20.00 USD. She was so excited that she had stumbled upon these cards. She also got the name and phone number of the store, along with an email address, just in case they get more of these cards in.

Lamp post that was in front of the Opera House.

I almost forgot to mention...they have 7/11 convenience stores here in Stockholm but they are totally different from the ones here in the US. They have fresh made flat sandwiches, fresh bread and rolls made on site and just a lot of other really cool things. They had tall stools along with WiFi so that people coming into the store could make use of their computer. If you just looked inside the store, you would never guess that it was a 7/11 store.

I ended up buying a bunch of fresh bread and rolls in the store.

We were sitting on the steps of the Opera House waiting for our bus to arrive, so that we could return to the ship.
I sat on the steps eating my bread when i befriended this fine feathered friend. Before we left on the bus, I had this guy eating bread out of my hand.

This is a view of the Skyview Glass Gondolo attraction. To do the ride, you enter a glass ball and it goes up to the top of this ball by riding up a rail system on the outside of this big sphere. For more information about this ride, please click here

SKYVIEW

I apologize for the quality or lack thereof with some of the photos. These were taken from the bus and the reflections were pretty bad.

At the end of the day, upon returning to our ship and cabin, we discovered that our room steward, Fernando, had been busy again, while we were gone. Fernando left us this Monkey hanging around. We ended up leaving him dangling from our balcony drapes for a couple of days. 

Here is another beautiful sunset. On some of the photos, you can see the windmill farms at the bottom of the photo.

Veronica and I enjoyed our stay in Stockholm Sweden. We never did go to the Vasa Museum while we were there. We instead spent the day in the Gamla Stan area.

This unfortunately was our last port of call for this cruise.

The next 2 days will be spent on board with the ship heading back to Dover England

To see all of the photographs that were taken in Stockholm, Sweden including the ones that did not make onto this blog entry, please view the slid show below. Just click on the picture to enlarge them.