Stockholm
It is entirely appropriate that our expedition has, over the past few days, developed a maritime history theme. Yesterday we visited Pommern, a four-masted barque that plied the grain trade from Australia to Ireland and England well into the twentieth century. It is the pride and joy of its community at Mariehamn: so many of the guides who showed us so proudly around the vessel had direct family links with that final golden chapter of the age of sail. Sweden as a whole exhibits its maritime culture at every turn and as we made our approach to Stockholm as the dawn light was filling the sky we soon lost count of the sailing boats and boat-houses that are such an attractive feature of the city’s hinterland.
Before breakfast some of us ventured out to approach the city by Zodiac, following the old canal to approach Gamla Stan – the old city - by canal, intercepted en route by a floating coffee shop manned by the ship’s Hotel Manager! Meanwhile, for those who remained on board National Geographic Explorer, the observation lounge offered excellent views of the city skyline before we came alongside in the heart of the old city. The object of our morning excursion was the Vasamuseet which houses the restored seventeenth-century warship Vasa that capsized on its inaugural voyage – within minutes of being launched, in fact – in 1628. It was salvaged in the late 1960s and thanks to the brackish water of the Baltic Sea its contents have been preserved in remarkably fine condition, with sailors’ clothes and tools now on display beside the restored vessel. It is a thrilling experience to see a period vessel in such a complete state of preservation.
After lunch we had a memorable encounter on board with the former Polish President Lech Walesa. A change in his schedule had made it impossible for him to meet us in his home city of Gdansk as planned but he had traveled to Stockholm expressly to meet us. He talked with great energy and good humor and we were honored to be in the company of a courageous man who had changed the course of twentieth-century history.
Following his address, a walking tour of Gamla Stan was offered that culminated in a visit to the Storkyrkan, the Royal Cathedral of Sweden, that houses the remarkable fifteenth-century wooden carving of St George and the Dragon by the Hanseatic craftsman, Bernt Notke. The old town is a maze of narrow streets, including Marten Trotzigs Grand, the narrowest of them all. Many guests stayed ashore for dinner safe in the knowledge that an adverse wind forecast was keeping us alongside in Stockholm overnight.
