Sailing into Stockholm a couple of things were evident:
First why it was so attractive to the Vikings. There are many small islands surrounding the city and a convoluted channel for larger ships that would make it very difficult to attack an entrenched adversary equipped with fighting long-boats.
Second, judged by the harbourside properties, that appear to be both well appointed and prosperous, Sweden is among the top ten best-off countries in the world. Around the Baltic its wealth (and income) per capita is exceeded only by little Denmark. Much larger Germany comes a distant third.
From the ship we could hear women and girls screaming. It was coming from an amusement park called Gröna Lund. There are several tall towers up which patrons are hauled before being dropped in a variety of ways: some first spun out on wires, as in a centrifuge, before the cataclysmic fall.
Below there are big and little dippers racing about.
Because of the time delay it was hard to decide which of these terrors evoked the greatest screech-decibels (the official measurement of amusement park 'fun').
As on previous port visits, we had purchased a guided tour - again into the countryside.
Unfortunately, on this occasion we were taken to a pottery museum (warehouse) with rather expensive (it is Sweden) china/porcelain for sale - for far too long. The supermarket turned out to be more interesting (comparing prices).
We also got a walking tour of one of the better suburbs and were invited by our guide, somewhat breathlessly (covetously?), to "imagine living here".
I must confess that on my morning walks around the Mosman slopes I have been guilty of breaking the 10th Commandment: Thou shall not convert thy neighbour's house. The list goes on: nor his wife; his servants (actually slaves); his ox; or his donkey. The second group are pretty safe from my avaricious thoughts. Yet, 'that house'. Get ye back Satan!
Similar covertness briefly assailed me when visiting friends in Santa Barbara (around Oprah Winfrey's little shack).
But here, not a twinge! And no one on the tour was too sure about their choices in house paint!
At the time I was moved to write that Sweden is a particularly egalitarian country. It's certainly renowned for it's welfare state and social security. But on my return to OZ I fact-checked this and discovered that comparing the Gini index of financial inequality, where 0 (perfect equality) and 100 (extreme inequality), Sweden comes in at 88.1, which is worse than the United States (85.0). More egalitarian, yet still wealthy, countries like: Australia and Japan Have a Gini index in the 60's.
So maybe our guide has more grounds to be covetous than we?
In the old city there is a shopping precinct that seems to attract many pedestrians, including a few shoppers.
Sweden is a Constitutional Monarchy, like Australia, and that generally requires at least one palace (although ther are none in Australia, as the UK has quite enough). In Sweden part of the Royal Palace doubles as a museum. Could this be a way forward for the British monarchy? A stroll around Buck house or Windsor castle?
And as an aside: Why are we repeatedly told that some or all of the royal wealth, like the Duchy of Cornwell, is theirs alone, when it was obviously bestowed upon their Guelphic ancestors by the British Parliament by the Act of Settlement in the 18th century? This Act requires that: the British monarch must be a descendant of the German Princess Sophia (the nearest Protestant heir to William of Orange - who died without heirs to the British throne) and be in communion with the Church of England.
To my knowledge, most if not all of this property pre-dated 1701. A good deal of it having been sized, somewhat dubiously, by the Tudors (rather tenuous ancestors). Surely it's in the gift and goodwill of the Parliament, representing the British people? And hasn't that Parliament recently made changes to the succession?
A short walk away there are several other museums including: an ABBA museum; a Viking Museum; and a Nobel Prize Museum. I chose the National Museum. It turned out to be very worthwhile.
A veritable cornucopia. With previously unseen (by me) impressionists by the handful, in addition to Flemish and, of course, local art as well as furniture and cabinets brimming with objet d'art. Shades of 'Antiques Roadshow'.
Modern and contemporary art is elsewhere.
Getting back to the ship I was alarmed to discover that Wendy had not yet returned - she was on one of her shopping adventures.
But she made back it with minutes to spare - and all's well that ends well. She posted an account on her Facebook Page.
Back at sea we were on our way to Copenhagen, a city that we have previously visited in more depth than we expect from a brief shore excursion.
See: Denmark
