The Stockholm Shore Excursion that I planned on the HAL Rotterdam was overly ambitious, because I wanted to see the City Hall, Gamla Stan, some subway art and the Vasa Museum. I purchased a reasonably inexpensive City Hall tour online for 11 am, but I was worried about the timing. So I booked a Holland America shore excursion, which I understood would get us to the City Hall around 9 am and would then mean that I could bail from the excursion for its second half, during its tour Gamla Stan. Things didn’t work out that way though.
We waited a long time on the bus for the Holland America shore excursion to begin. Typical problems related to getting everyone accounted for were followed by difficulties getting headsets working. Then they announced that City Hall wasn’t first stop and we drove only a couple minutes to a so-so viewpoint of the city where we unloaded the entire bus and spent more time on headsets. By the time we got to Gamla Stan it was apparent we wouldn’t have enough time to cover the old town to my satisfaction. We handed in our headsets to the tour leader and said good-bye.
We were ecstatic to be free from the tediousness of the guided tour, which was stalled in a lengthy narrative in front of the Charles XIV John’s statue. On our own, we first visited the bronze replica statue of St George and the Dragon, the narrowest alleyway in Stockholm at Mårten Trotzigs gränd and the Iron Boy Statue. As we passed by Gustav III’s Obelisk, we could see our abanonded guided tour still standing at the starting point of their tour of Gamla Stan. We had made such a good decision to leave the group.
Next we walked into Storget Square, glanced at the Nobel Prize Museum and entered the Stockholm Cathedral. Inside the cathedral, we enjoyed seeing the original wooden carving of St George and the Dragon. Then we walked to the impressive entrance plaza at the Royal Palace and on to the arched walkway traversing Parliament House. Here I fondly remembered a Rick Steves video where he stood in the same location.
We finished our tour of Gamla Stan by crossing the bridge to the Riddarholmen Royal Church. After taking some pics of this cool area, we walked to the nearby Gamla Stan Subway station where we tapped on with credit cards and began our metro subway art tour. After a 2 minute ride we arrived at T-Centralen. We took escalators into the depths of this subway hub and found the famous painted tunnels. This wasn’t as impressive as the online photos and my wife began to doubt my commitment to seeing several more subway stations.
From T-Centralen we rode the metro to Radhuset station, which had a better offering for our subway art tastes. Then we walked 15 minutes to City Hall for our 11am entrance time. You can’t tour City Hall without a guide and an advance ticket purchase.
The Stockholm City Hall Tour was amazing. The guide worked for the city. She was knowledgeable and pleasant. I’m always impressed by how well people from the Baltic can speak English with almost no accent. The highlights of the tour include the banquet hall for the annual Nobel Prize awards and the Golden Hall designed entirely in small mosaic gold leaf, portraying the world with Stockholm at its center.
We learned that the Blue Hall is still called by that name even though the architect changed his mind and didn’t paint the brick over in blue. Ironically the Holland America shore excursion guide was in the Golden Room at the same time as us, leading the group that we had abandoned. I felt lucky to have had such an excellent city hall guide instead for the City Hall tour.
After our wonderful experience at City Hall, we walked back to the Radhuset subway station and rode the line out to Solna Centrum. The subway art was nice here. Then we rode the metro to the King’s Garden station and enjoyed the unusual decor there. At this station you feel like you have entered an ancient cavern underneath Rome. Truly unusual!
We also took time to exit the subway and wander through King’s Garden to see the flowers, St Jame’s Church, the Molins Fountain and the Karl XII Statue. Then it was time to head to the Vasa Museum. As we walked toward a bus stop near the water, we got tempted by the sight of the Vasa Museum and decided to walk instead. This later turned out to be a mistake because the 25 minute walk along the harbour in the chilly, gusty weather was likely the reason that my wife caught a cold that night.
The Vasa Museum was a top priority for me on our Stockholm Shore Excursion and it did not disappoint. To my surprise, I think my wife enjoyed it even more than I did. The Vasa sunk in 1628 after sailing a little over 100 yards on its maiden voyage. The unique double row of canons made the ship too top heavy and the ship went straight to the bottom of the harbor with about 30 people on board losing their lives.
The Vasa sat, perfectly preserved in harbor sludge, until it was retrieved in 1961. The gigantic Vasa Museum was then built right over top of the salvaged ship, with the ship masts protruding out through the top of the building. The museum structure itself is amazing, as you can view the ship from all sides and from viewing platforms at multiple heights. The museum was extremely popular, but it seemed to absorb the crowds with ease. I can’t say enough about the experience at the Vasa Museum.
After viewing the Vasa from every possible angle and platform, we caught an Uber directly back to the Holland America Rotterdam. The beginning of our Stockholm Shore Excursion looked like it was going to be a disaster, but in the end everything turned out perfectly.
