Sunday, July 10, 2011

Tourists in Stockholm Day 2

For our second day of being tourists in Stockholm we went to the island of Djurgarden which is mostly parks and museums but has several residences and marinas. I particularly liked this building which is a restaurant currently.
We found a statue for Jenny Lind who we later googled and found out that she was the first international superstar. She was a famous Swedish opera singer and PT Barnum brought her to the states for 93 concerts in 1850 in which she toured for two years and made $350,000 and donated it all to create free schools in Sweden. Pretty neat story!
Then we did a tour of the Rosendal Slott but they don't allow pictures inside so I don't have any to share. The inside was actually very interesting and beautiful. It was built in 1823 for King Karl Johan.  Karl Johan was French and a Marshal for Napoleon but moved to Sweden to become king when the Swedish Dynasty was dying out and this 'French' dynasty is still the current dynasty. At the time the palace was built Sweden was experiencing a depression and was very poor. In an effort to improve the situation he built the castle with his own money using only Swedish materials. It was never used as living quarters but instead was used to host dinner parties for visiting diplomats and as a get-away for the Royal Family.

He also had this giant vase made from quartz build and installed at the palace which re-established the quarries of Sweden and apparently took incredible talent to make. At one point the vase was the main tourist attraction, not the palace.
After the palace tour we stopped for lunch at Rosendals Trädgård which was delicious and the gardens are beautiful! From there we walked to our final stop of the day, the Vasa Museum, to check out the famous preserved warship which sank in 1628 and was returned to the surface in 1961. This museum was a lot more interesting then I thought it would be. Not only is the ship impressive but they do a really great job of explaining the history of Sweden and it's people in 1628 to the resurrection and preservation of the ship. Pretty cool!
Love Always,
Matilda

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