We passed numerous wooded islands as we sailed slowly into Stockholm.

Up to breakfast in the Lido. Found an open table for six, so wanted to show by example that others could share the table when the Lido was full. The Japanese group at the next circular table immediately borrowed a chair, and when I came back to the table after getting my omelet, found a nice man drinking coffee that Jill had invited to sit down while he waited for his friends. He was German, and did not speak well English, but we managed to communicate sufficiently. I told him that I had two years of German in high school, but had forgotten all of it, and he laughed, basically saying his English was the same way. I did not get his name.

Our excursion was Panoramic Stockholm, essentially a bus tour of the city with a few quick stops for pictures. Our guide was Joel. It was interesting to hear the local history from Sweden's point of view after hearing the Estonian, Russian, and Finnish versions (in which Sweden was always the bad guy.) As with the other cities, lots of construction going on. Stockholm is built on a number of islands interconnected by bridges. One island is a national park, another housed all the foreign ambassadors; the Royal Palace, Parliament building and Old Town occupied another, etc. Joel was informative and occasionally funny, and spoke English best of all our tour guides so far. In fact, he must have learned English in the US, judging by his accent, pronunciation and use of colloquialisms.

Ship's photographers lie in wait at the foot of the gangway in every port to capture yet another souvenir snap. We bought them all.

From our first photo stop we had a good view of the amusement park across the channel.

Joel informed us that Stieg Larsson, the author of "The Girl in the Dragon Tattoo" trilogy, used to live in an apartment in this building.

One of our 'moving-bus photos' captured this church (or chapel) and obelisk next to the palace. What's handy about the clock towers like this one is that it allows us to verify the time-stamp on the camera.

The Sveriges Riksdag (Swedish Parliament) building is a prominent feature of the small island in the heart of Stockholm.

One of the excursions available to us on the Eurodam was the Roof Walk, a tour of the city from the tops of the buildings. I'm sure these people managed without us.

Stockholm's City Hall, with it's distinctive tower, serves as the location of the Nobel Prize Awards dinner every year.

Our second photo stop was on a broad paved area at the water's edge, across from City Hall. Behind us stood this unusual building with the large turrets at the corners. [The satellite map app identifies it as an Appeals Court.]

Not far from our second photo stop sits the House of Nobility. We're getting pretty good at this 'moving-bus photo' thing.

Crossing the bridge back to the mainland provides a good view of the Opera House.

On the ride back to the cruise ship pier, we pass an elaborate white stone turret. Office? House? Hotel? I have no idea, but it is an interesting building.

The tour wasn't overly long, so after returning to the ship, a bathroom break and a bite to eat from the Neptune Lounge, we headed out again, taking the Hop On Hop Off bus and getting off in Old Town per Jason's recommendation. Wandered up the pedestrian street, much like the Strøget in Copenhagen except that it was narrower and uphill. Stopped in various stores along the way, but didn't find a restaurant that caught our interest. In fact, most of the restaurants we saw were either Italian or sushi, and that had also been true for St. Petersburg. Finished our stroll at the Royal Palace, took some pictures, then walked over to the bus stop, figuring it was more efficient to walk a bit farther to catch the bus at stop #1 instead of #22, as the cruise ship pier was #12. The HOHO is actually a sightseeing bus, and Lauri listened to the commentary via headphones on the way back to the pier, but didn't learn much more than we had on the earier excursion. The day had started mostly sunny, but clouds had rolled in and it was cool and even drizzling a little. First order of business: lunch. The Lido was closed by then, but we found burgers and dogs at the Dive-In (next to the pool, get it?). Then nap.

We follow the crowd up the narrow and winding pedestrian boulevard.

The large, square courtyard of the Royal Palace is open to visitors and tourists.

The front of the Royal Palace looks out over Stockholm's bustling waterfront: buildings, bridges, boats, busses, and a statue of King Gustav III.

The reverse view of the previous photo shows the Stockholm Palace as seen from the statue across the street.

Stockholm's famous Grand Hotel occupies a prominent spot along the water across from the palace.

Got up and ready for our next excursion, called A Sparkling Evening on Stockholm's Waterways. We joked that it could have been called "a sprinkling evening," as it was raining on us as we walked to the head of the pier to board the canal boats. 'Sparkling' apparently didn't refer to lights of the city reflecting on the water, since at that latitude it wouldn't get dark for many hours. It referred to the champagne they served the passengers upon boarding, accompanied by pretzels. Our guide was Inger Andersson, who explained that Andersson is the most common surmane in Sweden; there are 36 pages of Anderssons just in the Stockholm phonebook. We saw many of the sights that we'd passed earlier in the day, except this time from the water. After boating around the harbor, we entered a long narrow canal that took us out of the city and through the countryside. By then, the rain had stopped and the sun came out, so the pilot rolled back the roof of the boat. The canal inevitably reconnected with the main waterways without backtracking, and we arrived back at the pier just in time for dinner.

Our tour of Stockholm by canal boat gives us a different perspective on the same sights we saw earlier in the day.

Clouds and rain give way to sunshine as the boat takes us out of the city proper and into the countryside.

Had another lively evening with the gang around the table. Jill and Mark decided to take a walk and ran into our German friend from breakfast, who we learned was named Dieter. He walked with us for a little while, but we couldn't go all the way around because the port side Promenade was roped off for maintenance on the depth charges. Okay, the inflatable life rafts, but they are stored in large white metal canisters that look a lot like depth charges to those people (like us) who have seen too many too many WW2 movies. Back to the room for some journal updates before bed. Mark's shirt was back from the cleaners, this time sans the grease stain. Yay.