Today we are in Nynashamn, Sweden, a port near the city of Stockholm. Apparently, the Regal Princess is just a bit too large to actually dock in the city of Stockholm, mainly due to shallow water and tight navigating channels going through the surrounding islands to get to Stockholm directly. Therefore, we had to dock in Nynashamn instead. In Nynashamn, there is a special pier that unfolds and becomes the walk off dock after the ship is tied up to two permanent docking buoys. This makes the disembarkation easier, and much faster, this used to be a tender port prior to having the folding dock.
We were planning to get off of the ship at 7:00 AM, so we were at the gangway a few minutes before that time, and were off the ship just a few minutes later, right at 7:00 AM. The Regal Princess security crew has done well meeting schedules, especially for getting off of the ship on time at port calls.
We headed to the Information booth at the pier and purchased two all day transportation tickets for the train ride to Stockholm, and that also included all of the trams, metro and buses there in the city. This just makes it easier to use the public transportation, we don’t have to purchase single ride tickets at ticket machines for each ride, especially since they never seem to want to take our credit cards.
We planned on taking the 7:40 AM train onto Stockholm, but first we had to walk about 1.5 kilometers to the train station. It was an easy walk, they had painted a blue stripe on the sidewalk marking the route, so all we had to do was follow the stripe. The train was already at the station when we arrived, this particular train originated in Nynashamn, so we did not have to worry about making any type of connection, or in finding somewhere to sit facing the forward direction like we would if it was already full of passengers.
We walked toward the front part of the train and boarded. There were hardly any passengers boarding this early in Nynashamn, but the train really filled up as we stopped along the route into Stockholm.
Since this was considered a “commuter” train, apparently there were no bathrooms available for the 45 minute ride into Stockholm. I walked up and down the train before we departed looking for a restroom, but did not find one.
We left on-time and arrived at the Central Station in Stockholm on time. The plan was to head over to the City Hall building and purchase our reserved time tickets for going up into the City Hall Tower later in the day.
We had planned the route for the walk to City Hall through Google before we left, but had a little bit of difficulty getting our bearings when we exited the large train station, We finally determined we were heading in the correct direction, and soon saw the Tower for City Hall. Once we got to the main building, we located the ticket counter and purchased the tickets. We chose the 1:50 PM time slot for later in the afternoon, hoping the fog would clear a bit before then.
Gamla Stan
It had been relatively sunny when we left Nynashamn, but had turned really foggy when we arrived in Stockholm. Thankfully, there were also free bathrooms at the City Hall building, so we used those and then headed in the direction of Gamla Stan, the historic city center in Stockholm. The only other bathrooms we had seen were at the train station, and they were all pay toilets, and we had no Swedish Krona, their currency, in our possession.
We decided to just walk there, it was not far, and there was no real direct or easy option for transportation from the vicinity of City Hall over to Gamla Stan. We needed to find an ATM to get some Swedish Krona, mainly to be able to use public pay restrooms. However, once we arrived in Gamla Stan, all we could see were money exchange shops, we did not see any banks or ATM’s at all.
Stockholm City Sights
We headed into a newer section of town, between Gamla Stan and the main train station, but again, we found no ATM’s or banks. As a last resort, we went all the way back to the train station, and after asking at the information booth for the location of an ATM, we finally got some local currency. Initially, we got 200 Krona since we did not know the exchange rate. After looking at the rates at a money exchange booth, we realized that maybe we needed more since 200 Krona, which was only about $22.00 US, thinking maybe this was not enough for the day, especially since ATM’s seemed scarce. We also figured we could use the additional money for some lunch, or for souvenirs. We went back to the ATM and got an additional 200 Krona. Unfortunately, it was discharged from the ATM in a single 200 Krona bill, so now we needed to purchase something to get change to use in pay toilets. We purchased a small cheese roll, and then asked the lady for enough change for the bathrooms, and she was very helpful in getting us the correct coins.
Ferry to Djurgarden
Equipped with local currency, we headed back to Gamla Stan to go to the ferry stop to head over to the Vasa Museum. We actually rode the Metro over to Gamla Stan from the train station, helping to save some time and wear and tear on our legs. Then it was a short walk over to the Djurgarden Ferry. The Vasa was a large sailing ship from the 1600’s that sunk right in the harbor on its maiden voyage, and was found and salvaged in the 1950’s. We were hoping the crowds had diminished some by this time, the Vasa is the most visited tourist site in Sweden.
The Vasa Museum
The ferry, which was included in our transportation card, was a quick ride over to Djurgarden, a separate island in the harbor of Stockholm. Once there, we headed to the Vasa Museum to see the ship. We had purchased tickets online last night, and I had the electronic ticket on my phone, so that saved us from waiting in the ticket line. The museum was not that crowded, hopefully we had missed the tour group rush from earlier in the morning.
We waited about five minutes for an English speaking tour guide. The guided tour is a free service provided by the museum to explain all of the history of the Vasa. It was a manageable group and the tour lasted about 25 minutes. There was quite a bit of things to see in the museum, but we were having to manage our time to get back over to the City Hall for our Tower climb at 1:50 PM.
1/10th Scale Model Of The Vasa
Stockholm is a nice city, and public transportation is great, but not very direct to certain places, such as the Vasa Museum. It was a lot of walking, but we decided to retrace our route back to Gamla Stan via ferry, and then a fairly long walk through Gamla Stan back to the City Hall. There might have been a better way to go, but we needed to manage our time so we did not miss our tour time slot for the tower, and we were already familiar with this route.
Sights From The Ferry
We made a good ferry connection, we only had to wait about five minutes for the next ferry to depart, so we did have a little time to look in a few shops in Gamla Stan on the walk over to City Hall. The walk seemed longer than this morning’s route, but mostly because we were getting tired, and had already walked a lot today, and it was a lot more crowded at this time of day We got to City Hall with plenty of time to spare, and by this time in the afternoon, the skies were beginning to clear from the fog. At least we were going to have sunny skies for the views from the tower.
Stockholm City Hall
We sat and rested on a bench, and once again visited the free bathrooms at City Hall. When our time slot for the tower tour arrived, we met our guide at the entrance, along with the rest of the group for that entrance time. They limit the tour to 30 people so it keeps it from being crowded at the top of the tower. We did not know that we were going to need to climb the entire way to the top, all 365 steps up to the top of tower, until we read more about the tower in the brochure we received with our tickets. There was an elevator, but it did not hold many people, was slow, and only went up about half way anyway.
Stephanie Walking Up The Tower Ramps
The initial part of the climb was all stairs, and since everyone was in a line going up, there was not much space for taking breaks. Then the stairs turned into a sloped ramp that circled around the inside perimeter of the tower. Then there were more stairs, and finally we were at the top, or at least the observation deck, of the 106 meter high tower.
The views of Stockholm were really nice, especially with the clear skies and sunshine. There was small bar type screening around the outside of the observation deck, but it was wide enough for getting a camera lens through for getting nice photos of the city. We were limited to thirty minutes total, including the climb up and down, so it was a short stay at the top, but sufficient.
We headed back down, and decided against returning to Gamla Stan for shopping and a bite to eat for lunch.
View From The City Hall Tower
Instead, we opted to walk back to the train station, and eat there. We had seen some nice eating places in the station when we visited the ATM earlier in the day. We wanted to try and find our platform for the train ride back, and that was when we learned that the nice Central Station with all of the food vendor and eateries was not the same as the station we had arrived at on the commuter train from Nynashamn, and now needed for the return. Our station was more like a metro station, with minimum facilities. The main central station next to this station was more for long distance trains arriving in Stockholm from other cities, and therefore, had more restaurants and stores. We were tired of walking so we just decided to head back to the ship, skipping lunch in favor of not having to walk back to the main station.
For some reason, we had difficulty finding the correct platform for our commuter train, we had not realized that there were different train numbers for express trains to Nynashamn from Stockholm, and we also had an issue with our transportation card working to open the gates into the station. We got help from a station attendant who verified our cards and let us through the gate next to his window. We headed down the escalators to the platform, and could not find our train on the schedule due to the train number change. However, the station had quite a few information ambassadors, and they helped us to figure out the correct train platform.
The train ride back was much less crowded than this morning, and we enjoyed being able to sit down after all of the walking. The ride was about 57 minutes to Nynashamn, and then we had the long walk back to the pier. Once the train arrived at Nynashamn, we decided to head into the town, and try to find a way to spend our Swedish money. We had not used any of it except for the cheese roll purchase when we initially got some change. Of course, the walk into Nynashamnn was all uphill from the train station. We found a CoOp Grocery store, and went inside, hoping to purchase some wine and diet coke. Wine was not an option here, there was not a bottle of wine to be had, only beer. We did purchase some snacks, and two bottle of diet coke, and some toothpaste. Unfortunately, this only spent 150 Krona. We packed this into our backpacks for the long, and now heavy, walk back to the ship.
On the way there, right past the port entrance was a Lidl Grocery, so we extended our walk and headed there, thinking maybe they had some wine. No, same situation as the CoOp, just beer, so we left empty handed.
When we finally made it back to the ship, we were exhausted from all of the walking. Stephanie’s phone indicated we had walked 26,000 steps today, and our legs and feet were sore.
Enjoying The Sunshine Out On The Pool Deck
We dropped off our gear and headed to get some refreshments and a late lunch. We still had a couple of hours before our departure time, and actually enjoyed some time outside on the open decks. The sunny weather and 70 degree temperature with fairly calm winds made for a great and relaxing afternoon outside.
The Captain made an announcement that we were waiting on some late passengers, so we were about 30 minutes late leaving. We wanted to watch the retractable pier in operation, so we just enjoyed a little more time in the sunshine. We enjoyed the sail away at about 7:15 PM, about 45 minutes late. The pier folding process was very interesting to see in person.
Folding Pier Being Retracted
We headed up to eat dinner at the buffet, much too tired to even think about the dining room. Later we spent some time in the Crooner’s bar talking with some new friends we had met earlier in the cruise that were from Australia They were a lot of fun to be around and talk to, but unfortunately, are getting off the ship in Copenhagen day after tomorrow.
We probably stayed out longer than we planned, but tomorrow is a Sea Day, and we knew we would finally be sleeping in.