The other decision that we made was that we would not be staying another night in the current hotel...it was just too far away from the city. I found an okay deal at a beautiful hotel downtown. It was a very busy weekend in Stockholm with a number of conferences...so it was not easy to find availability or an affordable rate...but we figured we would save on taxis and trains etc.
So we packed up all of our stuff and Dave, Bruce and Cadence took all the luggage to our new hotel. The rest of us took the bus to meet them.
Just as we were walking up to the hotel, the changing of the guard was happening. This was really neat. The girls loved it as they marched by. Robert caught this on video for those interested at www.foggytravels.com.
Once we were nicely checked into our new hotel "Hotel Diplomat" we took to the streets and headed for the old town section of Stockholm called Gamlastan. Now that we were downtown, everything was a manageable walk, and the weather was nice today...a little cooler so perfect for strolling. We walked past the Royal Palace, which was really beautiful. There was a guard on duty that we mused about how to make him crack his grim face and stock still posture :o). We strolled through the narrow lanes and old world buildings, popping in and out of shops. It is a great experience.
After the old town we took the ferry across to Djurgarden and walked PAST the amusement park and instead went to the VASA Museum...which was great! The best part was that as travel agents you received free admission, so that was 4 of us, and then Erik and the girls were free...so only 2 of 9 had to pay! What a deal for such a large group of travelers.
The museum is really well down even though it is in fact glorifying Sweden's gigantic failure as ship builders. The story goes that this beautiful ship sank 20 minutes into her maiden voyage in 1628 when a breeze caught the sails and blew her over. It stayed at the bottom of the harbour for 333 years and was then resurrected with the help of archaeologists. The museum has done an amazing job of this attraction and it was well worth a stop....even if we had had to pay!
After the VASA we headed back across the bridge to Ostermalm and went looking for somewhere for a cool beverage and a snack before we headed for dinner.
After several long walks up and back looking for the perfect spot...we settled on a nice pub style place for our last supper. Mom was getting a little sad about our last supper together. Brian would be heading back east to Hamilton as soon as he got home, and Robert was carrying on after the trip to travel the world.
We had a nice supper together and then we headed back to our hotel to pick up the Fougner luggage. They were staying out at the airport due to their early flights out the next morning.
We wished Erik and Brian a safe trip home and said our bigger goodbyes to Brian as we won't see him until Christmas. We then headed up to our room and tried desperately to put our children to bed.
It had been a really nice day and we were looking forward to another day to explore Stockholm before heading to Tallinn ourselves.
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| Hotel Diplomat |
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| boys will be boys... |
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| Narrowest street |
