Calm ride on the river...

No, not at all!
Today's excursion went to a castle 1 1/2 hour by boat from Uppsala, called Skokloster. A beautiful castle with four towers, each in every corner, and a courtyard in the middle. The castle has a grand history and several of the items kept there are of great historical value. One of the items we managed to see was the oldest hanging chandelier. It's made of glass and unfortunately mistakes were made when it was manufactured. The glass prisms are unclear due to a chemical reaction and it's unstoppable so the grand chandelier are slowly 'dying'.
But before we arrived to the castle and had the shortened tour with the really great guide we went by boat... The ride started with one of the white things hanging on the side of the boat, breaking with a *poff*, then the boat almost parked itself in the town park while trying to turn around. After a while the boat had turned and we were on our way. We went under the first bridge with out any trouble, but when we came to the second one, it wouldn't open. The captain told us that there was some kind of trouble but it would soon be solved. This bridge is a large one, with traffic, so there are level crossing gates in each direction. When the gates were coming down one car miss judged the situation and we heard the screeching of tiers and brakes when the driver realized that the bride were opening. He backed up to the gate and the bridge continued to open. Then the boat bumped into one of the pillars of the bridge and we heard a crash... that was one of the windows. It broke and fell into the water. We just wondered how the rest of the boat ride would be... and when we got near the castle the boat had trouble 'parking' itself by the jetty and it had to turn around for a second try. We were 20 minutes late... and had to rush up to the castle - which isn't that easy with elderly people in the group, the guided tour went in a hurry and the lunch also. Then we had to rush, yet again not easy with elderly people, down to the boat not to miss it... Before we had counted every one, the was a bit of stress involved. The boat ride home went smoothly, though!