Nynäshamn, Sweden – July 16, 2015
This morning at about 07:00, we anchored just offshore from the small Swedish town of Nynäshamn. It was the first time we anchored as opposed to tying up at a dock. Stockholm is the standard cruise ship port. The reason we did not dock in Stockholm is our ship; the relatively new Regal Princess has a draft too deep for the Stockholm port. The draft of our boat was eight meters or about 26 feet of the ship below the waterline. That meant we had to be ferried ashore by the ship’s tenders.
When fully loaded, each of the ship’s tenders holds about 150 people. I can only imagine that we would have had to anchor too far from Stockholm to make tender transportation practical. So, the next best thing was to anchor near Nynäshamn. That meant the ride from the ship to the shore was about five minutes. Once on the coast, we took a shuttle bus to the train platform. That ride was another seven or eight minutes.
Many of our shipmates opted to board the train for a one-hour trip to Stockholm. We decided we would stay and explore Nynäshamn. One of the first sights we spotted was a church on a cliff above us. I am not positive, but I believe it is a Lutheran church. We walked roughly northwest along Stymansgr. The church was on our right, so I made a quick side trip to visit. Much like the church in Helsinki yesterday, the church decoration was sparse. It dates from the 1930s, but I was not able to find the name of the church.
Back on the “trail,” joining up with Leslie again, we continued our stroll. The name of our small street changed to Centralgatan. It was the entry to the central business district. For the first block or so, we did some shopping. Then we decided we would go to the Nynäshamn Ångeryggeri brewery. We did finally find it, only to discover the tour was an hour or more away. That, coupled with the fact they could not sell strong beer from that location helped us to decide to continue walking.
After leaving the brewery, we walked into a supermarket. We wanted to get some “salty” snacks to enjoy in our room on the ship. In addition to those snacks, we bought some Swedish chocolate to take to our colleagues at work when we returned to Pakistan.
We found a small cafe not too far from the supermarket where we stopped to try a local beer, Mariestads. It was a tasty lager.
After our break, we ended up at the local marina. We found a few tourist items, but most importantly, we found a fantastic restaurant right on the dock of the marina. We both had a hamburger. Leslie enjoyed a glass of white wine with hers while I was able to have a beer from the local Nynäshamn Ångeryggeri brewery, Ladsort lager. It was good, but I liked the Mariestads we had earlier much better.
The hamburgers were the best we have had in quite a long time. I imagine the beautiful setting had something to do with that.
We headed back to the tender and the ship at about 14:00. Stockholm may have had more to see and do, but we were pleased with our stroll through Nynäshamn. We were also happy we did not have to rush to get on a train to and from Stockholm. After all, this was supposed to be an R&R trip.
