The Archive

Abba Cadaver

A new day, a new range of sights to see and today was officially 'proper tourist day'.

So first stop, the Vasa Museum, generally considered the most interesting sight in Stockholm.

You know the Mary Rose? Well the Vasa is the Swedish equivalent of that, an old flagship of the Swedish navy that was recovered from the preserving mud in which it sank and then put into a custom made museum.

As you go in, the ship itself is very impressive. It towers over you and you really get a sense of the scale and majesty of the thing. "It's really an impressive piece of engineering", you think to yourself.

Then you read about it.

The Vasa was built top-heavy with insufficient ballast and foundered as soon as she encountered a wind stronger than a breeze, just a few minutes after first setting sail on her maiden voyage.

So much for Swedish quality design.

"It's really an crappy piece of engineering. Idiots.", you think to yourself.

Sure is pretty though.



So we spent a while cruising the museum until it was time for, well, another museum.

Fortunately the considerate Swedes put a bunch of museums on one little island, so it was just next door, in a building that looks suspiciously like Hogwarts.

But, when we arrived there was a queue a mile long outside the museum. Seriously, like a whole mile long. I don't know what they were showing in there, but it must have been the 'Interactive History of Oral Sex - demonstrations hourly' to justify the wait.

We didn't wait, for lunch was calling.

And not just any lunch. We had succeeded in finding ourselves a restaurant in a tower. And not just any tower. A supposedly famous TV tower no less.

Altitude! Hurrah!

So we jumped in a taxi. A smelly taxi. A smelly, incompetent taxi.

He foolishly ignored my directions to get us to the tower and paid attention to his satnav.

We drove and we drove and we drove.

Now that may not seem that amazing, until you realise that the tower is the only building in Stockholm that stands above ten stories.

And it's in the middle of a big park. And was visible pretty much from where we go that cab.

I was beginning to suspect he was a total idiot.

This suspicion was confirmed when he stopped and asked (I'm guessing, it was in Swedish) a couple of people out walking.

"Excuse me, is there a tower around here?"

They looked at him, perplexed. He repeated the question. They looked very confused.

This may have been because, at this point, we were approximately 100 yards from the tower in question. It was, literally, towering over us.

In fact, we were approximately here...




Point being there we were, literally underneath the tower, asking some incredulous locals 'if there's a tower around here'.

Idiot.

Still, we got there in the end and enjoyed a delicious lunch with altitude - now that's touristing.

And to cap it off, a quick look off the observation deck, where we perfected the rictus grin we'd been working on around Sweden that said 'it's not as cold as it looks, honest'...



Now we were in a pickle though. Because the tower was in some kind of park, no cabs.

There was, however a bus stop.

But the bus stop insisted we buy a ticket before we ride from a machine. The machines gave no change and all we had was a million Kroner note or something.

Never mind, we'll buy a ticket on the bus. Right?

The bus driver thought otherwise. It was the ticket machine or nothing. We were doomed.

But no! Thank goodness for the kindness of strangers. The driver took pity and let us on his bus for free. Thank you Mr Swedish Bus Driver.

So we returned to the town centre with just enough time for a spin around the museum of modern art (complete with obligatory 'I could do that. That's rubbish' commentary) before back to the hotel for some more lovely dark time.

posted by Peter The Great @ 6:39 PM