Around Scandinavia: Part Seventeen

In which I explored the Swedish Fortress

01.06.2025: Tour Day6, Country3, City2

Vaxholm fortress was commissioned by King Gustav Vasa during the 16th century, as a defensive outpost in the Stockholm archipelago. We entered the fortress, walked through the pathway. There were naval mines, stack of cannon balls, etc. 

We reached the museum section. We viewed the fortress model, its aerial view, warriors on the fortress, variety of underwater mines, torpedo, theodolite, sound locater and machine gun, telescopes, etc. 

We also saw the model of Fredriksborgs fortress. The player piano is often seen on the ships and even here. We traversed through some rooms, communication bunker, etc. 

We descended to the museum’s atmospheric basement to experience what life was like for the fortress’s civilian residents in the 1890s. There are different rooms: kitchen, laundry, ironing, fire furnace, wood cutting, open theatre, general store equipped with all necessity supplies, etc. 

We assembled at the quay, at 04:45pm for the boat to take us back, watched boats passing by. 

We were back to the main island by 5pm and then drove ahead to the next cold adventure at the Hotel C Stockholm, in the heart of the city.

Ice bar

This is the world’s first permanent ice bar, rebuilt every year – always with a new theme. The interior is carved out of 40 tons of natural ice from the Torne River by ice sculptors from ICEHOTEL. We reached the entrance area by 6pm. Each of us was given an ice cape and gloves to protect us from the -5 degree Celsius. We had 45mins to explore the bar, enjoy the drink in ice glass, sit on the ice benches, click with this year theme, “Tales of a Frozen City”.

Done with the chilled experience, we drove towards the same restaurant Best of India, like yesterday and had dinner at 07:45pm. I had dinner with Manasi. The onion rings were delicious yesterday as well as today. 

We reached the hotel at 9pm, packed a small bag for the journey tomorrow and dozed off.