Read any travel guide on Sweden and it will tell you, Stockholm has a plenty of museums. But 3 months in the city and I hadn’t visited a single one of them until one fine day when we decided to visit the Water Museum (aquaria) and the Vasa Museum both located on a nearby island in Stockholm. We took the 10:30AM ferry to Djurgården from Slussen which took around 15 minutes to reach the place (other options are bus#47 from Sergel’s Torg (near TCentralen) or the Tram #7 from Normalmstorg).
Aquaria : The water museum in Stockholm
Pics: The beautiful entrance to the Aquaria
Our first visit for the day was the much talked about Stockholm Aquarium or the Aquaria. After clicking a few pictures at the beautiful entrance, we headed inside the water world.The entry ticket to the museum was 80SEK per person. If you have the Stockholm Tourist Card, the entry is free with that.
Pics: Some of the species on display
The aquarium is divided into three distinct geographical regions showcasing species from that particular region : Rainforest, Tropical Sea and Nordic Waters. At the end there is a small theatre which shows a small movie on aquatic wildlife. Few of the large fishes amazed us with the sheer size while the other small ones amused us with their beautiful multicolored skins. The movie too was pretty interesting showing how fish eggs are collected, hatched and released in the sea. And how each year a particular species returns back to this aquarium to breed.
But, to be honest, the aquarium was a big disappointment to me. Its very small, with nothing very special. After having seen some awesome ones in Singapore, Malaysia and San Francisco, this one almost felt like a waste of 80 SEK. Irony is, the only one of us who enjoyed there a lot, didn’t have to buy the entry ticket – Our colleague Abhishek’s 3 year old daughter Akshaini.
The Vasa Museum
Our gang : Just outside the Vasa museum
After finishing the aquarium, we headed towards the The Vasa Museum : World’s most visited maritime museum, situated just around 500 meters from the aquarium on the the Djurgarden island itself. The entry to the museum was 95 SEK per person. Again, if you have the Stockholm Card, entry is free.
Left : The salvaged ship, Right: The inverted bell used in one of the early ship salvage attempts
According to this wikipedia article , the museum displays the only almost fully intact 17th century ship that has ever been salvaged, the 64-gun warship Vasa that sank on her maiden voyage in 1628. The Vasa Museum opened in 1990 and, according to the official web site, is the most visited museum in Scandinavia. Together with other museums such as Stockholm Maritime Museum, the museum belongs to the Swedish National Maritime Museums (SNMM).
The best way to visit the museum is to download the audio guide from the museum website in your phone/mp3 player which is available in English as well. The audio guide is a series of MP3 files marked 1 to 15. Various places in the museum are marked with digits indicating the audio guide number that explains about that particular artifact on display.
Left : A canon from the ship, Right: caricatures exhibiting sailor’s lives
The museum hosts the huge salvaged ship at the center, with remains from inside the ship on display on various floors of the museum. The remains include sailors’ equipments, arms and ammunition from the era(Vasa was a war ship), earthen ware, personal items and even human skull and bones of the deceased. A section of the museum is dedicated to the efforts involved in getting the ship out of the water 300 years after it sank.
The museum also has a small theatre which shows a small movie about the ship, how it was made, how it sank and how its remains were salvaged. The movie runs several times a day with 2-3 shows in english as well. It makes a pretty interesting viewing specially the part where they show the huge efforts involved in getting the ship out of water without destroying it.
Waiting for our order at the cafeteria
There’s a small cafeteria inside which serves decent food with prices slightly on a higher side as you would expect from any such place. Also near the exit, there is a small souvenir shop with some collector’s items on sale.
We spent almost 4-5 hours inside the museum and had a really good time. The day was specially good for Amit and Vineet, both of whom had bought new Cameras and with flash photography allowed inside, both of them went on a photography spree… :)
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