Stockholm, Sweden May 2012

  The Captain brought the ship in very close to the shore and would move it farther out once the passengers were unloaded for their excursions. This tender ride was much smoother than the one in Monaco!
   This is our last day of excursions and we are all looking forward to getting home. We have two sea days to relax and pack. 
 
 

We took a bus ride through the countryside to Stockholm and headed toward the Vasa Museum.

There were several stops for picture taking. I think we got lucky to see this beauty in the water.

Beautiful waterways all around.

Once again I'm trying to catch certain pictures while being on a bus. I thought the water runoff was interesting on the little building with the light. Also love all the colors Europeans use.

See how the tiles are "upside down" for runoff? At least they would be considered upside down in our area of the USA.

Kathie and I really wanted off the bus to do some farmer's market shopping. :)

Bikes everywhere once again. No wonder there were hardly any over weight people. We saw zero obese people. Everyone knew who the American tourists were, that's for sure.

Biggest dog we have seen the entire trip. Beautiful!

Even caught the bird in the picture. I loved this statue and would love to have it for my yard. ha!

Awwwww...our cute guys and some ugly pelvis type art sculpture. ha! Sorry, just not a fan. Wait..it could be a fan with a thumb hole to hold on to it. ? Nah, just ugly.

Shopping area into a palace area I think. Cool arches.

I'm getting tired of the bus picture taking thing but at least my camera has a "through glass" setting. 

OK, I take everything back about the pelvis fan art thing earlier. I'm sure I'm missing a memory of what this is suppose to be...maybe a memorial which in that case I'm truly sorry for my rude comments. But SERIOUSLY!

On August 10, 1628, Vasa set sail on her maiden voyage and sank in the Stockholm harbor.

Salvaged in 1961 after 333 years under the sea and reconstructed. 95% original due to the water in the harbor being natural rather than salt water. She was top heavy.

Model of what she looked like that fateful day.

As you can see, she was just gorgeous.

Remarkable detail after 333 years under water. Sorry this is blurry! I obviously moved my hand.

Samples of the details and bright colors.

The beautiful canons were not secured and caused death for some of the sailors.

The ugliest building in Sweden, I'm sure. The American Consulate building lined with tons of barbed wire and electrical fences. A reminder that we are heading home in two days time but wishing we had a prettier building representing us rather than this ugly thing being pointed out to all the tourists returning from the Vasa.