Stockholm, Sweden (MSC Baltic Cruise)

"The capital and largest city in Sweden, Stockholm is built on 14 islands located between the Baltic Sea and Lake Malaren.  Connected by over 50 bridges crossing open bays and narrow channels, it is often referred to as the "Venice of the North." This attractive city is filled with lush parks, wide boulevards and majestic structures of contrasting colors.  Ancient dark, stone buildings sit next to modern sky-scrapers of glass and block.  Add the onion domes, red washed houses, painted roofs, persimmon spires and curved garbles make this modern city an architectural delight."

Our second stop was to Stockholm!  It was super-foggy rolling in but we enjoyed the views nonetheless...

After disembarking from the ship we headed to the end of the port to "hop on" a hop-on/hop-off boat. For 260 SEK (or 30 EUR) we were able to tour by boat the main areas of Stockholm...

We had a great view of the Tivoli Gardens (Grona Lund) from the cruise ship.  It's Sweden's oldest amusement park and has several rides, playgrounds, cafes, etc. but we didn't have time to check it out (plus you had to pay to get into the park and then pay separately for each of the rides).

Instead, we headed to the Vasa Museum which is "home to one of the most complete and best preserved shipwrecks in the world."  We chose this as our first stop to avoid the lines (and it opened before Junibacken). We got there just in time for an English tour (30 EUR, credit cards accepted) and to beat the crowd...by the time we left people were lined up around the museum!

In it's maiden voyage in 1628, the Royal Warship Vasa capsized and sank almost instantly to the bottom of the Stockholm harbor in front of thousands of onlookers.  It's salvage in 1961 was an engineering and archaeological triumph.  

Our next stop was Djurgarden (Royal Game Park) to spend the afternoon at Junibacken, a children's playground and museum...and also home to Pipi Longstocking's Villa Villekulla!  I don't know who was more excited about this...myself or my children!

Was it worth the line and 63 EUR to enter?  Eh.  Were we totally glad we went?  Definitely!  It was just what the kids needed to let off some steam and run amuk.  Most of the play areas were geared toward fairy-tales and stories that our kids have yet to enjoy so they didn't appreciate what they were playing on as much as they would have (come on, it was VILLA VILLEKULLA!) but they had a blast regardless!

Lunch was eaten inside the cafeteria of Junibacken.  The kids LOVED the Swedish meatballs and crepes...they even asked for a second plate of meatballs (but not everything was in English so we only went for what we could decipher).  After filling our bellies and playing some more it was time to head back to our ship.  We had a great time in Sweden!