Something to Declare

Last Day in Stockholm

Monday, June 23, 2025

There were two items on our itinerary for the last day in Stockholm: ABBA – The Museum, and the Vasa Museet.

Stef and I have different musical tastes. Mine generally run to the classics, and she’s more the rock ‘n’ roll type. But when we’re hanging out (and usually cooking), one of our shared “go-to” choices is ABBA.

Now we are in Sweden, where Anni-Frid Lyngstad, Benny Andersson, Björn Ulvaeus and Agnetha Fältskog got their start, winning the Eurovision competition for Sweden in 1974, and then taking off like a house afire. Entirely appropriate that there should be an entire museum dedicated to these avatars of Euro-Pop. Described once as a bigger business than Volvo, they have sold more than 380 million records and continue to appeal to people of all ages from all over the world.

Inside there are slick, bombastic, glitzy and highly interactive video exhibits, recreations of their creative work- and performance-spaces, high-waisted sequined pantsuits and other costumes–and all a lot of fun! There were opportunities to do karaoke as a “fifth” member of ABBA. See Stef in the bottom picture below, second from left, between Björn and Agnetha:

Actually we both did it. If any subscriber would like to see the video of either Stef or myself (or both), please let us know, and we’ll send it along. No hard feelings if we don’t hear from you!

Our next port of call was the nearby museum dedicated to the warship Vasa. First, however, lunch (you’re seeing a pattern here, right?).

The restaurant in the Vasa Museet serves a vegan mushroom soup that should win the Nobel Prize (if they offered one for cuisine). OMG.

The Vasa was a Swedish warship, commissioned in the early 17th century, and built between 1626 and 1628. She sailed off from the Stockholm harbor on her maiden voyage, and traveled about 1,400 yards before capsizing and sinking (the “Titanic” of Sweden, so to speak). Legend has it that this unfortunate event had to do with the insistence of then King Gustav II Adolf, on having additional cannons on the upper deck that made the ship top-heavy.

The Vasa lay on the bottom of the harbor for over 300 years before it was raised in 1961.The Museum offers zillions of interesting, technical details regarding the efforts to preserve the remains of the ship, such that it is presently displayed in its former glory. In fact, 98% of the Vasa’s wood is original.

Worth noting in the preservation effort: polyethylene glycol, a water-soluble wax, was used to prevent the waterlogged wood from drying out and shrinking. Another factor had to do with the City’s use of the harbor as a sort of sewer:

As noted above, pollution has the effect of reducing the oxygen content of the water, which inhibited wood-attacking fungi and bacteria. Who could have guessed that water pollution would aid so much in historic preservation?

We then made our way back to the apartment. There was a brief detour, however, to the Systembolaget store, the state-run monopoly on retail alcohol sales…

…, finally open on our last day in Stockholm, where we purchased wine for Happy Hour. Tomorrow we’re off on the last leg of this trip: Helsinki, Finland!