Stockholm, Day 2 & 3

Spent most of 2 days in museums. The first was a Viking/Historic Museum. It was ok. Seems the Swedes are tired of the Viking image as a bunch of rapists and plunderers....makes sense in today's world, bad image for sure. They had a display where 2500 kids drew pictures of Vikings. The comment made by the Museum? to the effect: "Very few helmets were ever found in the ruins of Vikings and never one with horns on it". Getting a little sensitive, maybe? They were farmers and traders, don't ya know.

Lynn on the street just off of our Hotel.  Pedestrian traffic only.

 Bike been here awhile, gopher buried the back tire, where's Ty Webb ( from Caddy Shack fame) when you need him?

 From Skansen animal Park (zoo).

 LHT's. (Long Haul Truckers)

 Random shot on the street, yep boys, she's loaded.

 Depicting the waifs in Sweden in the 1700's. Very next display was of a bedroom chamber of a Noble...of which they never used to sleep in as it was too large a room to actually heat. Over-riding theme to me was many worked and sacrificed for the benefit of the few.

 King Gustavus Adolphus....and his great Hall made in his memory, which is now the Nordic Museum mentioned above.

 Interesting clocks from late 1850 and 1780. left female, right male.

 Cool chair.

 and bench.

 The Great Hall. Was supposed to be much, much bigger but ran out of money, around 1890 or so.....ya think? The King sits off to the left at the mid-point.

 A great Museum is the VASA Museum. Built in the 1600's it's maiden voyage went 1500 meters. Great restoration. Reminded me alot of the Civil War display in Vicksburg about the USS Cairo, what was raised near the same time in the 1960's. This is well worth the time to visit.

 Model rendition of it heeling over and sinking when water entered her open cannon ports. Was just too top heavy for the design/ballast. At least 15 people died when they were trapped in the vessel. For 333 years their bones remained in the ship, one still had his shoes on, and are now on display at the museum.

 The Vasa is 98% original.

 She was very ornate with hundreds of carvings that were painted in brilliant colors.

Another stop was at the Nordic Museum, which was pretty good. Had a nice display on the indigenous people of Sami (formerly Laps or Laplanders). A lot of parallels to the Native American Indians and how they were almost wiped out by the invading peoples. (Swedes, Finns, Norwegians and Russians).