Tour bus on land and water

Close to the end of the vacation and there is still some nice summer weather in Stockholm. Why not be a tourist in our home town.  Stockholm offers many guided tours; hop-on hop-off bus, boats and walking. If why one cannot decide, why not take the amphibious bus that goes both on land and in water?

We decided to try the Ocean bus tour. A 75 minutes tour with an amphibious bus. The tour starts on land close to the Opera with a view over the castle and parlament while waiting for the bus. The tour goes via the the more fashionable quarters of Stockholm towards the diplomatic city and museum park. The guiding is live, which is a pleasure compared to most other tours we done with prerecorded tapes and a monotonic voice. The information shared is up to date with a mix of serious and funny facts.

At the museum park it is time to enter the water. It feels wrong driving down in the water with a car. It becomes a bit bumpy just while we enter the water.  We sail along the fantastic Djurgården back towards the city. Passing Skansen, Vasa museum, ABBA museum, Gröna lund amusement park via the harbour where we get the amazing view of old town and the castle from the water. Along the fashionable Strandvägen and in its wharf we see many fantastic old boats.

We enter dry land where we went into the water and head back into the city center passing by the central shopping quarters.

The tour was gave something different from most other tours we have taken around the world. The live guiding make it more alive. Entering the water with a big bus is a special experience. The information is up to date and well mixed with music from Sweden with a relation to the places we pass. Some parts of the guiding is in swedish, but most are in english. Some of the swedish guiding is probably only interesting for Swedes, but unfortunately non swedish speaking will lose some relevant guiding. The tour pass by a limited number of landmarks. Because the tour is partly on water you will see some in the distance like the city hall and miss others, for instance the concert hall and central market place Hötorget. It is no big issue since you probably want to stroll in the city anyway and these places are easy to reach.

We recommend the tour. The mix of land and water with the same vehicle together with live guiding provides extra value.