Vasa Museum

Discover a museum unlike any other in the world, created solely to house the wreck of the Vasa: the only surviving warship from the 17th century to remain almost entirely intact.

On August 10, 1628, the Vasa set out on its maiden voyage. Commissioned by King Gustav II Adolf to project Swedish power in the Baltic, the ship was meant to reflect the prestige of the crown. Instead, after only a few minutes, gusts of wind caused it to heel over, and it sank just 120 meters from shore. The disaster remains one of the most dramatic in Swedish history.

Our guided tour of the Vasa Museum shows how a catastrophe became a treasure. In 1961, after more than three hundred years on the floor of the Baltic Sea, the ship was brought to the surface in remarkably good condition. Today, thanks in part to painstaking restoration work, it can be admired in an impressive state of preservation, largely because it sank on its maiden voyage and was spared from military campaigns or the threat of being dismantled.

Opened in 1990, the museum was designed by architects Marianne Dahlbäck and Göran Månsson with two purposes in mind: to tell the story of the Vasa and to help preserve it. Chemists, biologists, and archaeologists continue to monitor the condition of the wood and search for ways to counter the effects of acidity and bacterial activity.

During our tour

You will see the ship from every angle as we move through the museum's different levels (elevators are available at every floor) to admire its details and the more than 700 sculptures that decorate it.

We will place the Vasa in its historical context: 17th-century Sweden and Gustav II Adolf's ambitions.

You will explore thematic exhibitions with original artifacts and installations that recreate life aboard a warship of the period.

We will trace the stages of the ship's recovery, an incredible technological challenge to bring it back to the surface.