Vasa Museum! (Stockholm, Sweden)

Here is a picture from the museum of the bow of the ship!

First, from the guidebook: "Vasa is a warship that was built for Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden from 1626 to 1628. The ship foundered and sank after sailing less than a nautical mile (2 km) into her maiden voyage on August 10, 1628.  The Vasa was relocated in the late 1950s and salvaged with a largely intact hull on April 24, 1961.  The Vasa Museum was built to house her in 1987.  The ship is one of Sweden's most popular tourist attractions and, as of 2007, has attracted more than 25 million visitors."

Okay, from me:  This great ship.  Its huge and so impressive.  Double rows of canon decks (never heard of at the time), bright, colourful -- the flagship of Sweden.  It sets sail on its maiden voyage.  Its a gorgeous sunny day, calm smooth waters, cheering crowds to hail the launch -- and then barely out of the port of Stockholm, the ship takes on water, sinks -- killing the majority of her crew.   

Its an unbelievable story.  In 1961, the Vasa was raised in an incredible effort.  In the museum, she is 95% original -- she's assembled, and in some instances you can even walk on her top deck!  The only downfall, and its a small one, is that the museum is very dark (for preservation reasons) so its very hard to take a good photo.

Its so big, its impossible to get the entire ship in one photo.  This is actually a photo near the bow of the ship.  The flaps opened are canon holds.  Adorning them are lion heads. 

 

This is the rear of the ship.  Well, one small detail on the back of the ship.  This is right below the Captain's and officer's quarters.  I wanted you to see how well preserved the ship is and how ornate it was.  It really was a gorgeous ship.

And to make it even more gorgeous -- it turns out the entire ship was painted in vivid colours.  Archeologists have been testing the chemicals on the wood, and have discovered the compounds of coloured paint.  Here is an example of the painting on the ship.  Its just a tiny section, but from it, you can clearly see how beautiful the entire painted ship would have been. 

 

Jason is standing next to a replica of the lion springing off the bow of the ship.  If you scroll back to the top of this post and look at the picture from the museum, you can see how the bow of the ship narrows to a point.  (The point isn't in the picture, you can just see the narrowing.)  This lion stands at the narrowest point.