Stockholm Siteseeing

City Hall Nobel Blue Room
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Today we headed off on our Stockholm city siteseeing tour. This started off with a not very exciting sounding visit to the Stockholm City Hall. Our first stop on this Hall tour was the massive blue room. Although originally planned to be painted blue, it was decided the red brick colour was preferred, and then these were hand chiseled to give them a hand-made look. The marble inlay floor was also very impressive. We were told that this is the room where the Nobel Prize for Literature and SCience Dinner is held each year on December 10. For a month beforehand the room is off-limits to tours while the room is setup for seating of 1300 people. The menu, decorations and entertainment for the evening are a highly held secret.

City Hall Council Chamber Ceiling
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It was then on into the parliament room, with the 101 seats of parliament. There are only 11 full-time ministers with the rest of the members holding down full-time jobs and attending meetings in the room once every 3 weeks. More impressive though was ceiling in this room, developed to look like that of an age old viking room. The ceiling is decorated with painted images and at the very top of the ceiling it is etched glass letting allowing sunlight to flood in and light the room

No sight of Abba darn-it!

City Hall Gold Room - Side View
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After this we went on through some ante rooms until we came to the mind blowing gold room. This room was amazing. The walls are made of real 24carat gold mosaics, with designs on the wall showing characters in Stockholm and world history. The tour guide said each year they "lose" about 30 mosaic squares that need to be replaced.

After this we exited into the stoned courtyard and then out into the small garden area which ran down by the water and gave us a lovely view of some of the spires and buildings of the city.

A fierce local Viking
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Back on the bus it was a short trip to the Royal Palace. Even though named this, the royals no longer live in this building as it was not a suitable location to raise their young children.Even though the children are now grown, the building is now used for official business only. It is secured by the Royal Guard, one of which stands at his post at the front gate entrance. Comically, a black circle has been painted on the ground around this post, into which you are not allowed to enter. Some international members of our tour though did not adhere to this warning and promptly walked up next to the guard to have a photo taken and were very quickly told to remove themselves immediately from the circle.

Vassa - Full View down side of ship
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Our last stop this morning was at the Vassa Museum. Inside this building is the massive Vassa vessel that was raised from the harbor of Stockholm in the 1960's, after sinking on its maiden voyage 300 years ago. Due to the low temperature of the water in the harbour, the majority of the hull was almost mummified, allowing it to survive the centuries, to be found and raised from the deep. The museum building totally encapsulates the ship, over 7 levels, with each level providing different educational information about the ship, how it was made, how it was lost, and the people who perished on the ship. A fine balance is maintained with the environment in the building, with people having to enter through three seperate air-locks to ensure the temperature and humidity levels are maintained. Standing at the base of the ship and taking in the shear magnitude of the vessel is amazing.

City Hall Park and view of city Spires
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That ended our morning tour with us being dropped off in the centre of the city for 3 hours of free time to wander about and have lunch. After this it was back on the bus where we were transferred to one of the Stockholm docks for boarding of our overnight ferry to Helsinki, Finland. This boat was massive and more like a cruise liner than what I would have called a ferry. It was actually bigger than the ship we cruised on through Alaska. We were given our stateroom keys and a breakfast voucher and told to go forth and enjoy. After an amusing start to our trip by thinking that we had been allocated a room with only one single bed, we were corrected by fellow bus travellers of the fold-down bed on the other side of the room. I'm not going to live that down I don't think. After an early buffet dinner (it was either 5pm or 8pm) I decided that early to bed was in order and promptly was in bed and ready for sleep by 7:30pm!