Monica J. Pileggi

Our ship arrived at Stockholm at 9am, an hour earlier than planned. I had breakfast at 8:30am with Jeff and Robin. David, Larry, Marilyn and Bill joined us. We always sat at one area of the ship, which made it easy to find each other. We were off the ship just after 10am. Courtesy busses were on hand to take everyone to the center of town, next to the opera house. The day started out as a cloudy day, but the sun did come out. The temperature was mid to high 50s.

It was a very disappointing day for us. The palace was closed, the ferry to the Viking ship museum wasn’t running, and other sights were closed. We did visit the Cathedral, which was quite beautiful inside along with the statue of St. Charles and Dragon from the 1400’s. After walking around part of the old town section, we went to the palace to watch the noon changing of the guards. Along with the guards was a marching band. The ceremony lasted 40 minutes, and then the announcer stated there would be a Part 2 after a short break. Forty minutes was long enough, but enjoyable.

We met up with Deb and Robert and found a little café for lunch. It wasn’t what I wanted but we were hungry. I ate a huge chicken curry stuffed potato and salad. It was quite tasty but certainly not a typical Swedish dish. After lunch, our group split up. Jeff and his gang headed to the ice bar, while I walked around the old town, Gamla Stan, area with Deb and Robert. We visited a coin museum, which was interesting. We took a leisurely walk back to the ship. I had read on cruise critic that the walk would take 10-15 minutes. No, it took us about 40 minutes. It was a nice relaxing walk where we enjoyed the views along the way. The ship left at 5pm and we sailed along passing lovely homes and boats. Four ships had docked in Stockholm and all sailed out in a row at the end of the day.