From the sublime to the utterly ridiculous

We started the day with a ride on the commuter ferry for a princely 80SEK for a round trip each, rather than the much touted 380 bus and ferry day ticket for tourists.

Instead we spent our tourist kroner on intriguing museums.
First we visited the good ship Vasa, which lasted for 20mins of her maiden voyage in 1628 before two light breezes caused her too narrow and top heavy design to founder and sink to the bottom of Stockholm harbour. In the 1960s, three hundred and thirty years later, sufficient technology and funds were gathered to raise the ship again. She slowly floated into dry dock and a state of the art musuem and restoration facility was built around her.
With my engineering background in corrosion, I was really interested in their restoration techniques. It was sprayed and soaked in a polymer mixture fir about 17years that should slow down the deterioration caused by plentiful access to oxygen and bacteria. Unfortunately, for a considerable period, the sprayed polymer was recycled, causing minute quantities of rust compounds from the original nails to be infused in the wood throughout the vessel. Oops!
Constant monitoring shows that the vessel is shrinking at a rate of 1mm/ year and beginning to warp too. Hopefully the continuing monitoring work that we saw will assist in finding a solution.
Apparently it is only comparable in cost and complexity to the raised wreck the Mary Tudor Rose.
Our mood was quite sombre after a morning in the near silent dusk of the Vasa museum, especially after reading the amazing amount of information that could be ascertained from the few skeletons that were found.

That all changed as we approached the ABBA museum. It was outrageous by comparison. With original costumes, interviews and constant ABBA music in the background.
Intriguingly, the Swedish national TV did not approve of ABBA's enormous commercial success and effectively boycotted their music. - with minimal results!
The museum's logo was "walk in and dance out" - we certainly did!
Being there on a weekday in January meant that we had it almost all to ourselves. A luxury that the Summer masses can only dream about!.