Shirley and I get up at 6am to head to the gym. We stretch, on our own this time, and do some cardio and weights. We will have breakfast on the early side as we have to meet at 9:15 for our shore excursion. This morning we decide on the buffet breakfast to make it fast. Everyone seemed to have the same idea. There are hardly any tables left. We are lucky to get one pretty quickly. A single woman joins us as we have a table for six.
I want to try to get some photos as we heard that Sweden has over 64,000 islands. It is still cool outside but it should hit a high of 14 degrees and it is sunny.
You can see buildings/houses on this little islet.
The buildings fill the island.
Pictures as we are approaching Port
Photos still from the ship
We meet other passengers in the Tropical Theater where we go for info regarding our excusions. At 9:30 our tour is called and we can leave to go get on a bus. The tour we chose is called "Stockholm on your own". The bus will drop us off at three different destinations for about 1 hour or more at each site, then pick us up at the end of our alloted time. Our first stop is an island called- Djurgarden. This is where you can visit the famous VASA museum. (if we did this, it would take all of our time here) This is a maritime museum which displays the only almost fully intact 17th Century ship that has even been salvaged. It sank on it's maiden voyage in 1628 after it was deemed unstopable. Sound familiar??
VASA Museum
There are other museums nearby such as the ABBA museum. We don't feel like visiting any of them so we just walk around.
Shirley and I and the boys
Nancy and Barb and the boys
Lots of beautiful flower arrangements
We sat and waited for the bus to pick us up near the marina.
Our second stop is the Old Town. Unfortunately the bus guide sends us in the wrong direction. We are walking away from the sites we are to see. We do find a mall and go to the food section to get a sandwich for two of us and cookies for the other two. We walk back towards our drop off point and I head off to take some photos and find the area we should have gone to.
Everyone is sitting around enjoying the sights.
This statue was outside the mall we entered.
The Royal Palace
Our final stop was City Hall. Thank goodness we were only there for 45 minutes. You can pay and walk up the tower, but it says that it takes about 35-40 minutes.. We walk around the outside, then sit and find free wifi. I contact Ron and we chat for 10 minutes or so before hopping on the bus for the ride back to the ship.
This is outside City Hall. Looks like a golden tomb, more fitting for a place like Egypt.
Across the water from the City Hall
Column outside City Hall
Nancy and Shirley on the lower part, near the column
Not sure what was in there
On the base of the column. There were four of them
We are back onboard and we relax for a bit. All passengers are supposed to have returned by 4 pm and the ship is scheduled to leave at 5. Only thing is we are not moving. We look outside our window and notice crew members waiting, talking on the phone, looking toward the entrance. We figure that someone is late. Sure enough, a few minutes later a taxi pulls up and two women come running toward the ship. They are lucky. But later we are told that the Captain will not leave passengers behind. Good to know. We leave about 15 minutes later. We sail through an archipelago of hundreds of small islands. I go out to take more pictures and we meet in the diningroom at 6pm.
Our view on our way out.
I love my ice cream. This time it is accompanied by a chocolate lava cake. Yum
I told Reggie that I really loved ice cream so I received 3 scoops instead of two.
Reggie and his tricks
Tonight's show is called "Vibe-ology, but we have time to go to the Centrum first to watch Dancing with the Stripes. This is when six passengers, men and women, are matched up with a crew member to have a dance off. It's quite funny. We meet one of the contestants beforehand so we cheer for him to win. The crowd noise and cheering are the determining factors in who wins. They are told to dance different themes like Irish, Bollywood, the Cha Cha, etc. Our guy comes in second..
The Cha Cha
Vibe-ology is a mix of songs and dances from different eras and with different themes. There are four main singers with eight dancers, male and female. It was very entertaining. Our singer in particular blew the others out of the water. She had a great voice.
The sunsets are late, 10pm or so.
The first of many to come
We are ready for bed after the show. We will be setting the clock one hour ahead tonight, so we lose an hour. Shirley and I are still planning on going to the gym in the morning. Another great day.
No comments:
Post a Comment