Troutworthy's Travel Blog: The Party Boat

The party boat.

Stockholm was in many ways as I remembered it – though, as I realized with a shock, it's been nearly twelve years since my previous visit, and even that was for a conference with little time for sightseeing. This time I found myself at the Hagaparken to the north of the centre. Most of the winter ice is gone, though a cold wind still blows. We stopped for coffee at a mysterious copper tent.

The next day, after some more wandering, we visited the Vasa museum. Not the titular “party boat” of this post, it's a seventeenth-century ship which immediately capsized in Stockholm harbour on its maiden voyage and was preserved in the city's historically-minded Baltic waters. The museum too was as I'd remembered it from my first visit, perhaps unsurprisingly. It's huge, dark and austere and a handy reminder of human hubris and folly. The academics and conservationists now labouring to preserve it seem almost monomaniacal: the constant visits from humans, we are told, take their inevitable toll on the ship's integrity, but they are working to make sure it lasts forever. Perhaps, when the apocalypse has passed and a future race of extraterrestrials stumbles upon the shattered remnants of our sorry planet, the preserved Vasa will still be there to teach its lesson to these new visitors. “Look on my Works, ye Aliens, and despair!” Or perhaps, more likely, it'll be a second-order failure.

The Vasa.

In the afternoon, we boarded the ship to Helsinki.

I must confess to having had the wrong expectations of this journey. For me it was a fairly sober and straightforward way of getting from A to B, and, from my knowledge of the inhabitants of the area, I expected the voyage to be dull, more than anything else. Turns out I didn't know the inhabitants of the area as well as I thought.

My associate sagely described the experience as a cross between Dubai duty free and a Barnsley Travelodge, and it's an apt comparison. Outwardly all is calm, at least for a while: for the first four hours, as the sun slowly sets, the Silja Serenade traverses the Stockholm archipelago, hitching up its skirts to navigate the narrow channels. It's tranquil and beautiful.

Dancing with another passing titan.

Inside, Ragnarok is here. In the time we've been out on deck, the Swedes and Finns have wasted no time, and have already put several away. Children spin each other around on rotating seats as their parents swill lager. On the stage of the Starlight Lounge, a cover “band” mimes along to various 80s classics; when Abba comes on, everyone goes apeshit. And down at the sixth circle of hell – sorry, deck – our Nordic heroes are fortifying themselves with as many twelve-packs and two-litre bottles of whiskey as they can carry. One can see why the Man in Seat 61 describes these voyages as having “a reputation as party boats”.

Bright lights, big boat.

At around midnight we're due to dock at Mariehamn, in the Åland islands. The ship slows down and stops, but the party doesn't. From here it's nearly ten hours across the open sea until we reach our destination, so I retreat to my cabin. The less said about the rest of the journey, the better; suffice it to say that I'm not much more of a fan of boats than I am of flying, and even with the partygoers well out of earshot there's plenty to occupy my mind.

We shuffle off the boat punctually in the morning. On the bright Helsinki harbourside, a group of youths with nothing in the way of luggage lurch endearingly along, likely readying themselves to do the whole thing again in reverse in the afternoon. All power to them.