Stockholm

24 July- had a great day . Caught a ferry to one of Stockholms many islands- Djurgarden to see the Vasa Museum. The ferry trip itself was great- bright sunshine for most of the day and Stockholm looks beautiful from the water. The Vasa Museum would be one of the best museums I have been in. The Vasa is a giant ship launched in 1628 which sank in Stockholm harbour after about 20 minutes. It lay at the bottom of this harbour for around 330 years. It was built for King Gustav 11 Adolf who was apparently keen to establish a Swedish kingdom. He was at war with his cousin who happened to be the King of Poland and Gustav did eventually managed to gain control of Finland, parts of Germany, Poland and the Baltic. Apparently Swedish power peaked however in the 1600's and it was downhill after then. The ship itself is incredible. The museum also recreates information about some of the people on the boat based on their skeletal remains- they were generally short, malnourished at least for some parts of their life and had bad teeth! Basically day lived in medieval times. Potted summary. Another part of the museum contained information on what was going on in other parts of the world in the 1600's- from Africa to parts of Asia to Turkey, UK etc. that was fascinating- very cleverly done. We had a lovely bite to eat for lunch sitting in I guess an outdoor micro brewery, sharing a goats cheese tomato pizza. We sat staring at boats and the water in beautiful sunshine sipping on our beers. We then caught a tram and got off around the Opera area because we decided it looked  very nice - then stopped at a park and bought ice cream each. We very much enjoyed this area- lots of people enjoying themselves. Upmarket but very relaxed area- much preferred it to the famed shopping strip we went to yesterday. Some of the parks reminded us of Paris. Have booked a 'water excursion' for our last day tomorrow as given how much of Stockholm is based on and around the water we thought this was sensible.

Forgot- had lovely dinner last night. Went back to local restaurant and sampled more tapas. Tonight we are cooking up a vegetable dish- well Stephen is cooking and I am providing moral support. It actually poured at one stage this afternoon- the clouds rolled in very quickly but by 4ish was sunny again. Pretty hot- high 20's.