Next morning, after loading up on the Scandinavian staple of pickled herring and lox, our small group assembled to meet the local guide, Gaby, a former high school history teacher, who spoke with knowledge and enthusiasm.

After passing a synagogue built in 1870 and apparantly not destroyed by the Nazis, she stopped at at a memorial honoring slain Jews and the gentile Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, who risked his life to provide safe passage to people fleeing the murderers throughout Europe. After the Allied victory in Europe, he was imprisoned by the Soviets and never heard from again.

The prostrated figures reminded me of the memorial in Vienna I saw last year.

Next, with no waiting necessary, we boarded a comfortable electric bus headed toward the Vasa Museum.  It houses a huge sailing ship that sank in Stockholm harbor in 1628 and was salvaged almost fully intact 333 years later.

It was commissioned by King Gustavus Adolfus, who at the time was fighting wars with Denmark, Russia, and Poland-Lithuania,  a nation  ruled by his cousin and Sweden’s former king who’d been exiled during wars of religion because he was Catholic. “Richly decorated as a symbol of the king’s ambitions for Sweden and himself, upon completion she was one of the most powerfully armed vessels in the world. However, Vasa was dangerously unstable, with too much weight in the upper structure of the hull. Despite this lack of stability, she was ordered to sea and sank only a few minutes after encountering a wind stronger than a breeze.”*

Just as memorable as that story was the one of the sunken ship’s discovery in Stockholm harbor and its recovery and restoration between 1961 and 1990 presented in the museum’s film theatre.

A tiring walk through the crowded streets of Gamla Stan, the well preserved old section of the City

ended with a short ferry ride back to the harbor

and dinner in a cafe served by cheerful young waitstaff,

and return to our opulent hotel room.

It felt liberating to be on our own for the last two days in this City we had come to love.  To reach the coffee shop arranged to meet Ruth, Jan’s undergrad roommate, we took a pleasant busride through neighborhoods inhabited by locals, all of which gave evidence of an extensive and prosperous middle class.

Ruth was late so I left Jan waiting and walked up the hill in a nearby public park which offered wide views

and the preserved structure of the Stockholm astronomical observatory, built in the mid 1700’s at the behest of the Swedish Academy of Sciences which included major researchers whose names are still familiar like Celsius and Linnaeus.

Back at the coffee shop, Jan and Ruth were deep in reminiscence and catch-up.

After graduating Stanford in 1967, she had opted to move to Sweden, gone to medical school there, became a specialist in oncology, married a fellow physician and pharmaceutical executive, and recently retired.

Her husband, who had come along to the coffeeshop, invited me to visit their nearby apartment, in the middle of major renovation but still notably comfortable.

Jan and I returned downtown to retrieve our suitcases and walk through the steadily increasing crowds assembling for “Culturfest,” a weeklong festival of free concerts at multiple outdoor venues. We arrived at Hotel Gamla Stan, relieved to check in to the modest room overlooking an ancient alley.

Refreshed by a siesta, we crossed the street, found a restaurant and sat at a table again overlooking the water. Before we had a chance to order, a shabby-looking fellow and two sidekicks entered the terrace and set up instruments. Then he started to sing

At that point we stopped thinking about food, captivated by his voice and personality. The large respectable looking party sitting nearby sang along with him.

And people along the quay outside the restaurant gathered to listen and shoot video.

During a brief set break we ordered from the waitress and I asked who is this guy.  “Tommy Nilsson,” she said, “Look him up.”

That I did, and on the iphone popped this:

and this

We breakfasted in the basement of Hotel Gama Stan whose walls and vaults formed part of the ancient City walls.

Further under ground on the way to City Hall, we rode an escalator 100 feet down to the Kungstradgarten Subway station

and were astounded by what we found down there:

We got the requisite portrait at City Hall.

While Jan stayed at the cafe, I roamed the grounds that I recognized from the Hendrik Willem Van Loon alphabet book I’d treasured as a five year old.

As an inscription in it shows, my parents rescued the battered volume and gifted it to our daughter Claire when she was 9.

I rented one of the ubiquitous Lime electric scooters, planning to ride to a beach along the shore a couple of miles away for a swim. But I soon lost heart because of the traffic and confusing road alignments and walked over to check out one of the Culturfest events:

Jan and I reconnected in the mid afternoon and agreed to visit the National Museum. We wound our way through the ever more crowded streets filled with young Swedes whose beauty appealed to my art conoisseur’s eye.

We arrived with just enough time to catch some highlights before it closed for the day.

Over the entrance we both found the PreRaphaelite mural by Carl Larsson visually appealing  but  bizarre in subject. “Midwinter Sacrifice” portrays a legendary naked king being willingly beheaded for his subjects by a red-cloaked priest in the effort to end a famine. Inspiring ongoing controversy, it was removed and then returned over a period of several decades.

Only briefly distracted, we hunted down the less controversial, but no less affecting Rembrandt portraits of youth and age.

With only a half hour or so left, we came upon the featured exhibit entitled “Hannah Hirsch Pauli, The Art of Being Free.” We both loved the work and the life story of this relatively unknown Swedish painter (1864-1940) who came from an assimilated Jewish family, spent several years in Paris with the Impressionists, married an artist and bore children, lived a sane and productive life and died before being exiled or murdered by the Nazis. Like Rembrandt’s, I particularly liked her portraits of Youth and Age.

This image of fulfilled exhaustion befitted our mood as we left the museum and hiked back to Kungsradgarden for dinner in a cafe neatly tucked in a tight grove of linden trees.

Somewhat refreshed, we braved exuberant crowds gathered before the Opera House to hear a concert by a big star we didnt know, but whose lyrical enthusiasm I greatly enjoyed.

Jan and I again parted ways in front of the Royal Palace, she on her way back to the hotel and I in search of one last taste of mainstream Culture that I wished the one I was returning to in the morning was more like:

As I stood with the crowd, my phone dinged notice of a text from Jan.  It was a picture and the caption, “Best dessert I’ve ever eaten.”