A foggy day in Stockhom

Yesterday's forecast was rain-free so I planned an outdoor excursion to Skansen outdoor museum.  In my head, I think I pictured sculpture-lined avenues and museumy-type things  (vases and such) artfully displayed in a bucolic setting.  What I got was a cross between a zoo, a historical village, and a historical farming community - all dressed up for Christmas.  I was delighted to see a range of Nordic animals: wolves, foxes (I think of them as British, but apparently they speak Swedish too),  lynxes, seals, owls, reindeer, elk, and horses.  But no bears.  Sensible animal that they are, they're hibernating.  The museum covers quite a large area and I'm sure it's fabulous in summer - and I did enjoy it - but quite a bit of it is closed for the winter.  I'm fairly certain that the views back to the city are spectacular, but all I saw was fog covered shadows.

There's a large park and a collection of museums on the same island, but I spent the rest of my afternoon at the Vasa Museum.  Back in the 17th century, the Swedish king (I forget which one, a Gustav probably) decided he wanted to beat his cousin the Polish king at war and commissioned a battleship to be built.  You might be thinking battlestar gallactica (no? just me then...) but it was in fact a sailing ship with two gun decks (quite innovative for that time).  If you've seen the Black Pearl in Pirates of the Caribbean, you'll have a good idea of what it looks like as it was modelled on the Vasa.  The Vasa was launched with great fanfare and it turns out it wasn't so much 'innovative' as ill-designed as it listed in a slight breeze about one kilometer into it's journey, water poured into its open canon hatches and it sank leaving just its masts peeking out of the water.  Presumably they were still proudly flying the Swedish flag.

It wasn't salvaged until the 1950s and because there's not much salt in the water round here, much of it is still intact, including the c.30 poor souls who died aboard her.  A treasure trove for archaeologists.  The ship has been largely preserved and some of the artefacts and skeletons are still on display.  Apparently the bodies were found with their clothes and hair and stuff so they can tell all sorts of things like what diseases they had and what they ate.  The bodies were buried after the salvage but then dug up again when we had better science (DNA etc.)  You can't go on board (unless you're a Nobel prize winner so there's still hope for me, right?) but there's a replica of the gun deck and the tiller which I thought were quite interesting.  The film about the salvage was quite well done.

I'd caught the ferry to the island, but it was a nice evening so I walked along the waterfront and the back streets of Gamla Stan.